Community Perceptions on the Critical Success Factors of Hotels’ Community-Based Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

This paper examines community as the consumer of community-related corporate social responsibility (CSR). It empirically investigates the critical success factors of CSR within the context of tourism from the community perspective because, for CSR activities that are targeted towards them, understanding their perspective could not be more necessary. The study narrowed the gap of knowledge by testing twelve critical success factors proposed in the literature on 267 target respondents in Langkawi, Malaysia and analysed the data using PLS. The sample was drawn using a qualifying question from communities known to have participated in previous hotel CSR activities. The findings revealed that, from a community standpoint, just four of the recommended twelve variables were crucial to the performance of community-related CSR in Langkawi’s hotel industry. These variables were general community development, law and social norms, project management committee, and financial preparedness. The findings provide theoretical as well as managerial implications, which are explained in the later sections of the paper.