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Within hospitality research, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has attracted plenty of interest, but few studies have investigated a strategic approach to CSR management. Strategic CSR assumes that by systematic investment in responsibility that matches customer demand, a business can earn additional profit while fulfilling societal expectations. However, the details of how such systematic management can be achieved are missing. This leaves the business case for customer-focused, strategic CSR largely conceptual, and offers little advice to hospitality managers wishing to pursue such a strategy. To fill these gaps, our study investigated guest willingness to pay for initiatives that were selected based on a model of strategic CSR management that incorporates key aspects of customer behavior. The results provide empirical evidence on how strategic CSR management can contribute to financial performance and support the need for understanding the guest comprehensively during the strategy development process to achieve the gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customers and society increasingly expect purpose from businesses, and the prevalent corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches do not adequately respond to this demand. To address the situation, we conceptualize Ethically Meaningful Customer Experiences (EMCE) as a new type of customer-oriented responsibility that synthesizes the experience economy and CSR. EMCEs, unlike previous approaches, circumvent implicit or explicit expectation of sacrifice by transforming it into an ethical activity that customers enjoy. We analyze the differences between earlier approaches and our development and provide emerging industry examples that align with the new concept. In synthesizing ethical consumption and the experience economy, EMCEs contribute a new theoretical path to understanding CSR that builds on the role of experience as a fundamental tourism and hospitality industry element and, consequently, develops an approach endogenous to the industry. The concept also contributes to customer experience design by incorporating ethics as a new experience component. We argue that EMCEs allow hotels and resorts to respond to an emerging customer desire for purpose while also addressing concerns related to the societal role of the tourism and hospitality industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fulfilling consumer expectations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) can bring strategic advantage to firms. However, research on the topic is fragmented across disparate disciplines, and a comprehensive framework to connect CSR supply and demand is missing. As a result, firms often supply CSR that does not attract demand, as signified by pessimism about ethical consumerism in recent years and the inconclusive link between corporate financial and social performance. In this study, we propose a framework of strategic CSR management to define how a company's supply of CSR could meet consumer demand for ethical products by aligning managerial and consumer perspectives. We then investigate empirically whether such a strategic approach, which integrates potential demand in CSR management, would influence consumer choice of products with CSR components. Our hybrid choice modeling allows the inclusion of psychological biases caused by social desirability and cynicism to increase result validity. The findings support the explanatory power of the framework and reveal that consumers prefer some CSR elements while others adversely affect choices. This study advances the understanding of strategic CSR management and its impact on consumer choice and helps managers include the right mix of CSR characteristics in their products to satisfy ethical consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]