**Hypothesis 4 (H4).** *The implementation of CSR practices mediates on the relationship among ICT adoption and SMEs performance in the hospitality industry.*

Future expectations about the economic cycle might influence the organisational decision-making, as it allows managers to predict what the future situation of their company will be [16]. It is important for companies to incorporate future projections into their business models [17], as trends in production, consumption, investment, etc. generate uncertainty in their business process [39]. On the other hand, to properly assess the viability of an enterprise, stakeholders require information on every significant aspect of their operations, in addition to data on the company's financial situation, determine if other material aspects of the undertaking's business have been considered, especially with regard to the

strategies put in place to deal with the economic, social and environmental dimensions of the business [40]. In this context, future expectations about the sector of activity in which the company operates are considered to be of great relevance [41]. However, despite their importance, the effects of Future expectations about the macroeconomic business environment have barely been studied in the literature, especially in the hotel sector.

Based on previous research, we can relate the expected adjustment in the economy to the performance of hotel SMEs. In periods of economic uncertainty, the tourism sector, including hotel companies, is one of the first to suffer negative consequences. As a result, many customers decide to postpone or cancel their travel plans [42,43]. Thus, the economic crisis that began in 2007 severely impacted international tourism, causing a significant decline in international tourism [42]. In line with this, Song et al. [44] have demonstrated that economic conditions are the most important factor in determining the demand for hotel rooms in Hong Kong. In recent years, Ozdemir et al. [45] have shown how COVID-19 has had a large negative impact on US hotel revenues.

Therefore, it is hypothesized:

**Hypothesis 5 (H5).** *Future expectations about the macroeconomic business environment influence the implementation of CSR practices by SMEs.*

Figure 1 reflects the research model developed to test our hypotheses. The model aims to determine the mediating effect of the implementation of CSR practices on the influence of ICT adoption on hotel SMEs performance and whether CSR is influenced by future economic expectations.

**Figure 1.** Conceptual model and hypotheses.

#### **3. Methodology**

*3.1. Sample*

This paper focuses on the Spanish hospitality industry. The population of this study is formed by a group of SMEs Spanish Hotel firms from all over Spain selected randomly from the SABI database. The fieldwork was carried out during the first quarter of 2018. A total of 150 companies SMEs were requested to take part in the investigation. The final sample was made up of 117. So, the response rate was 78 per cent. The following strata were established based on the size: micro companies are those with less than ten employees, small companies are between ten and forty-nine employees, and medium-sized companies are those with fifty and two hundred and forty-nine employees. Table 1 shows the composition of the selected companies, and the survey's technical data are presented in Table 2.


we can identify significant relationships.

**Table 1.** Sample distribution.

According to Nitzl et al. [46], using the software G\*Power 3.1.9.5 for a model like this, with four constructs and four relationships between them, if the average effect size is assumed to obtain a power of 0.80, an effect size of 0.15 and an alpha level of 0.05, the minimum sample required is 76 cases [47]. Therefore, our sample exceeds the threshold number of observations needed to estimate the proposed model with confidence, and then

Study Universe 4306 hotel companies in Spain

Method of collected data Structured questionnaire by telephone to managers

Geographical area Spain

Level of participation 78% Measurement error 9.27

Sample unit Managers Sample 117 companies

Confidence level 95%, z = 1.96; p = q = 0.5 Sampling procedure Simple random sampling Type of population Finite sample

Empirical research was conducted through a questionnaire that was given directly to general managers of the hotels. This research decided to choose general hotel managers for the survey because they are the people who have a global view of how organizations are changing in response to the introduction of ICT and, more importantly, CSR. Normally, they are responsible for hotel strategic development, including business strategy and ICT and CSR alignment [48].

To minimize the social acceptance bias, in conducting the survey, the anonymous nature of the responses has been ensured [49]. Similarly, to exclude the existence of no response bias, the sample was divided into two groups: a first group with 83.2% of the first responses and the remaining responses in the second one. The ANOVA test for all the variables found no significant differences between the two groups. Finally, a pre-test was carried out in 20 hotels in order to ensure that the questionnaire was easily understandable.

As a result of the data having been collected from a single source and that this could be a potential source for common method bias [50,51], the results on variance inflation factors (VIF), which will be shown later, were analyzed. These results are smaller than 3 (the highest value obtained in this model is 1.04). Based on this result, it can be affirmed that there is no problem arising from the common method bias [52,53].
