**1. Introduction**

The hospitality industry remains one of the most dynamic sectors closely linked to the development of new technologies [1,2]. Rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT) has brought about a radical change in the conditions of the hotel market, as it provides these companies with new tools for management and for adding value to their customers' experience [3]. The literature on the influence of ICT on firm performance is extensive and shows a significant positive influence [4–6], especially in SMEs [7,8]. However, in the hotel sector, this relationship is not so evident [9]. Some researchers argue that ICT adoption is a factor of competitive advantage [10], enabling increased hotel performance [11]. On the other hand, other authors consider that ICT adoption is not directly aimed at improving hotel performance, but that these innovative systems are aimed at improving customer service and increasing the number of services offered, which will increase production costs and consequently decrease firm performance [12].

ICT adoption is also seen as an essential tool for the development of socially responsible business practices [13], as it provides new tools that allow organizations to implement socially responsible projects that improve their relationship with the environment and their stakeholders [14]. Therefore, this type of technology has become very important in the hotel industry, as this industry has been continuously criticized for its lack of environmental consideration in the development of its activities [15].

León-Gómez, A.; Ruiz-Palomo, D.; García-Lopera, F.; Valls Martínez, M.d.C. Exploring Information and Communication Technologies as Driving Forces in Hotel SMEs Performance: Influence of Corporate Social Responsibility. *Mathematics*

**Citation:** Santos-Jaén, J.M.;

Academic Editor: Tatiana Filatova

**2022**, *10*, 3629. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/math10193629

Received: 8 September 2022 Accepted: 30 September 2022 Published: 4 October 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

In this context, several systematic gaps remain in the literature about the relationship between ICT adoption and SMEs performance in the hospitality industry, as the results obtained in past research are controversial and there is no general agreement on the direction of this relationship [9]. Consequently, this paper considers this research gap and analyzes the indirect effect of ICT adoption on hotel SMEs performance through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in order to find out whether CSR can be considered as a transcendental tool that defines the meaning of this relationship.

On the other hand, future expectations about the economic cycle is a determining factor in business decision-making, as it allows managers to predict what the future situation of their organisation will be [16]. Consequently, it is important for companies to incorporate these future projections into their business models [17]. However, despite its importance, the effects of future expectations of the macroeconomic business environment have hardly been studied in the literature, and even less so in the hotel sector. Therefore, the next purpose of this study is to analyze whether or not the consideration of future expectations of the macroeconomic business environment influences hotel managers to adopt CSR strategies.

Therefore, the next research questions are posed: Does ICT adoption influence hotel SMEs performance? Is this relationship mediated by CSR? Do future expectations influence the adoption of CSR-related strategies? Does CSR influence hotel SMEs performance? To address these research questions, under a double confirmatory and predictive perspective, a Partial Least Squares Structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was applied to a sample of 117 hotel SME companies in Spain.

The introductory section is followed by Section 2, which theoretically develops the hypotheses. Section 3 presents methodological aspects and Section 4 presents results. Finally, Section 5 discusses these results and presents the main conclusions.

### **2. Literature Review**

In order to survive in the current competitive era of globalization, SMEs have relied on ICT adoption to compete with large companies [18,19]. As the main driver of development and innovation in the modern world, ICTs have emerged as a key factor of development and innovation. The literature on the influence of ICTs on performance is extensive and shows a significant positive influence [4–6], especially in SMEs [7,8]. However, in the hotel sector, this relationship is not so evident. Some researchers argue that ICT adoption is a competitive advantage factor [10], as it enhances the consumer experience [20], which can increase hotel performance [11]. However, other authors do not identify ICT adoption as a critical success factor in achieving exceptional firm performance [21]. This is because they consider that ICT adoption may not increase hotel performance [9,22], as the adoption of ICT is not directly aimed at improving productivity, but these innovative systems are intended to improve customer service and increase the number of services offered [12]. In addition, investments in technologies stimulates the company to improve product quality, which will increase production costs and consequently decrease firm performance [12]. With these considerations, we develop our first research hypothesis as follows:
