From Corporate Social Responsibility to ‘Corporate Environmental Responsibility’ and Back: Rebalancing and Enhancing CSR towards a More Just Tourism Sector
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors,
Your paper suggested an interesting, relevant, challenging and up-to-date topic that surely need more emphasis and deeper research in the academia, as well as in the business world.
We find the paper output needs significant revisions in order to fit into a standard academic research paper, therefore we are recommending further changes:
- Standard research paper structure should be followed and a clear hypothesis or research question should be posed.
- Abstract part needs to state research problem, methodology used and results obtained.
- The abstract states novel CSR classification system that needs to be presented in results and discussion part to be prepared.
- Keywords list should not be repetitive (CSR is short for Corporate Social Responsibility).
- Methodological concept and a statement on the methods used should be added.
- If the decision of the authors is to do solely theoretical backgrounded research paper, we suggest a Systematic Literature Review to be conducted.
- additionally, it is highly recommended for the authors to study hotel sustainability reporting and perhaps include the research results throughout the content analysis method into their research contribution.
- the authors should state if their contribution includes the world scope or is it focused on the specific area as the statement on the voluntary nature of CSR (row 157) does not apply to EU in regard to ESRS and CSRD for example.
- The statement in 213-214 row needs to be proven by the data and validated. We recommend to avoid these sorts of statements without thorough evidence-based analysis.
- The term CER should be further explained, elaborated and literature cited. As one of the key determinants of the paper it needs more attention.
- Section 4. should clearly state the theoretical and literature background of the suggestions proposed.
- the conclusion part needs to state research paper limitations.
The reviewer
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your comments.
Please find the list of actions done in the attachment. We also include the file with visible track changes.
With best regards
Anna and Andrea
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
REVIEW REPORT
Summary: The article aims to emphasise social aspects by balancing them with environmental ones in the tourism and hospitality sector. It aims to propose strategies for rebalancing and a proposal for a classification and evaluation system that contributes to a fairer and more equal world. It contributes to the existing literature with research orientated towards sustainable and fair tourism. Its main strengths include the need to legally regulate voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions and practices. Its conclusions pave the way for legally binding perspectives and an appropriate system for classifying and evaluating corporate social responsibility.
Comment: This is an interesting topic, the subject of recent and growing research which, particularly in the tourism sector, has an added importance due to the social, environmental and economic impacts that are occurring all over the world.
Article: The tourism sector is the subject of intensive research around the world, particularly because of its weight in the economy of many countries. In this article, which aims to balance the environmental and social components of corporate social responsibility, the main weakness lies in the fact that a more exhaustive literature review could have been carried out to demonstrate the depth of the environmental component compared to the social component of corporate social responsibility. This would have made the imbalance between the two cited by the authors more evident. A description of the items that make up either component of corporate social responsibility would resolve this weakness.
Review: the topic under study is relevant to the existing literature, well-written and appropriate to the content of the journal. The authors followed recent and relevant literature, which is commendable in this research.
The authors did not clearly identify the inequality between the two items: environmental and social, to support changing the concept of corporate social responsibility to corporate environmental responsibility. More importantly, they did not identify this gap in existing studies, particularly in the tourism sector.
The authors have built an article, according to themselves, around the concept of corporate social responsibility in tourism/hospitality, basing it on sustainable and responsible tourism. However, the concept was not clearly explained and supported by the existing bibliography. In this context, it would be important to have a perspective not only on the concept of corporate social responsibility but also on corporate environmental responsibility, to ensure that the title and content of the article are in harmony.
This research is based on two problems: i) corporate social responsibility being voluntary and unregulated and legally binding; ii) requiring the involvement of various stakeholders.
On the first issue, there are regulations in both social and environmental terms that require compliance with issues related to social and environmental responsibility. In social terms, depending on the country in question, there are protective laws for hiring without discrimination, protection of minors, people with disabilities, work breaks, justified absences, but with fully guaranteed rights, etc. In environmental terms, there are also laws protecting the environment which, depending on the country in question, can be extensive, such as air quality, waste management, nature conservation, biodiversity and protected areas, etc. All these examples have specific regulations adapted to the unique characteristics of the localities/regions/countries where tourism and hospitality take place. Authors should therefore note in the article the existence of certain laws in this area and be specific about the legal absence of certain items in each component: environmental and social.
Regarding the second issue, it would be interesting to see what contribution any of the parties mentioned by the authors (NGOs, trade unions, private companies, government, local community committees) could make to creating, implementing and monitoring compliance with regulatory standards applicable to tourism and hospitality.
The article refers to tourism in general terms, but the existence of different types of tourism[1] (rural, gastronomic, health and wellness, business, sports, adventure, religious, cultural, etc.) could have been considered by the authors in terms of both social and environmental impacts. This typology is a concern because it can affect both the creation of regulatory standards and the stakeholder group. It is suggested that it be included in the article.
The strategies proposed by the authors should not only be listed but explained and analysed in depth to make a significant contribution to the existing literature. It is not clear from the article how the authors intend to link environmental and social issues, how they intend to create what they call minimum requirements for corporate social responsibility, how they intend to have government oversight and monitoring of regulations, and how they intend to capitalise on tourism projects and initiatives to support local communities.
The tool proposed by the authors is a great idea for measuring and categorising the quality of institutions in their application of corporate social responsibility. The proposed model is based on a classification/evaluation system for corporate social responsibility. The authors point out that it is like the star rating system used in hotels. The shortcoming is that no indication is given on a scale of 1 to 5 or higher, for the items that, in legal terms, should have been proposed at environmental and social level, even though there were few examples proposed.
Results and conclusions: the article deals with a subject that is not completely new, and the way in which it is discussed, and the proposal presented constitute a distinctive approach that can be seen as an advance in knowledge.
In terms of results, the proposal should have been explored further, as mentioned above. The detailed identification of a categorisation model, which did not materialise, would oblige the entities responsible to observe the need for this rebalancing (social with environmental), the creation of standards and the involvement of the government in terms of corporate social responsibility.
The authors point out that their proposals will not change the tourism sector quickly, but they could highlight in a timeline the idealisation of what could happen over time, albeit in a 5-to-10-year time horizon.
The authors' main argument for change is based on fairness and equality. However, respect for certain existing regulations or their creation may conflict with each other or with cultural, religious, ethical or other issues. Authors can indicate what should be followed in the event of a conflict, whether a general rule or a local rule. At the very least, authors should take care of this aspect, which in regulatory terms is important to retain.
The authors' conclusions are interesting but call for further study of the idealised system for classifying and evaluating corporate social responsibility.
This article does not make a very clear or strong contribution to the existing literature due to the lack of detail in the authors' proposal.
I recommend publishing this article in the journal. The discussion of the authors' proposal deserves further development. The authors do not make it clear whether the research objective has been achieved and what practical implications will result from the proposal (creation, implementation and monitoring of legal measures). On the other hand, the authors have not noted the difficulty of measuring certain social and environmental aspects due to their intangibility. For this reason, the creation of regulations is neither simple nor does the authors have a miracle recipe. Each region, country, type of tourism, form of government, etc. are specific and require unique attention, which the authors should emphasise in the article.
Recommendations: it is suggested that authors include the term: environmental or corporate environmental responsibility in the keywords, as it fits both the title and the content of the article.
The text of the article can be organised in such a way as to address both forms of corporate responsibility: social and environmental. Some models of corporate social responsibility that suggest inequality between social and environmental items should be cited in the literature reviewed.
The authors' proposal should be more in-depth, descriptive and improved so that the conclusions are more robust, theoretically interesting and make a greater contribution to the academic community.
[1] The authors could follow the typologies indicated by the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), or any other that they see fit for their study.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your comments.
Please find the list of actions done in the attachment. We also attach the file with visible track changes together with the corrected version.
With best regards
Anna and Andrea
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors The sentence: "Understanding CSR within a stewardship theory rather than the stakeholder theory promotes it as a practice that considers all stakeholders; thus, “an organization that adopts a CSR approach goes beyond its formal boundaries to benefit 169 society and the environment as a whole” , is a bit misleading as it confuses the two theories and their implications for CSR. Stakeholder theory (and not stewardship) is the framework that emphasizes considering all the stakeholders. I suggest that you correct this sentence. In "Material and Methods" part, it mentions "extant literature", but it does not explain how this literature was chosen and which criteria were used for the studies that were included. The conclusion is too brief. I suggest that 2-3 lines about the limitations of this study be included. Also, provide more recommendations for future studies.Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your comments.
We have corrected the manuscript following your suggestions.
Thank you
Anna and Andrea
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors,
please reconsider again the following statements:
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- The abstract states novel CSR classification system that needs to be presented in results and discussion part to be prepared.
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- If the decision of the authors is to do solely theoretical backgrounded research paper, we suggest a Systematic Literature Review to be conducted.
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The first one was not taken into consideration at all (and it is a key focus and a major goal of the paper!). The second one seems to be misunderstood: adding additional literature does not meet the SLR demands.
Kind regards,
The reviewer
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please find our expalantion in the file attached.
Thank you
the authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDouble-check for some grammatical mistakes, such as "aims" instead of "aim" in line 58.
Line 369: ''Furthermore, the system would open up marketing opportunities.'' -> this sentence is general, you could be more specific
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please find the list of actions done in the attchment. We hope all is good now.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors,
the progress in your work is evident.
There is still a task:
- to do a solid SLR (eg PRISMA based)
- to do a content analysis of the CSR reports released in the sector and test the idea/hypothesis/aim
Additionally, please do carefully proofread the text as technical issues are still found.
Regards,
The reviewer
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Please find the list of actions done in the attachment
With regards
The Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
