Abstract
The triple bottom line of sustainability has been the foundation to assess the overall performance of organizations in the hospitality sector. Family businesses are operating in a very competitive environment, and their practices are heavily scrutinised by stakeholders. This paper considers the value of action research in the field of family businesses in the hospitality sector through the prism of organizational learning. The focus of the research is to understand how a Scottish family business learns and implements corporate social responsibility and sustainability practices and how they embed the practices in their activities in a bed and breakfast. The family business used in this research is based in Paisley, Scotland. The use of action research enabled this research to follow a recurring spiral learning process of diagnosing, planning, acting, and evaluating to achieve organizational learning. The action learning contributed to re-thinking the communication between actors involved in the Scottish hospitality sector and family businesses to open a dialogue and produce norms and to contribute to knowledge about a new small-business social responsibility orbital framework.
Highlights
In recent years, the triple bottom line of sustainability—people, profit, and planet [1]—has been the foundation to assess the overall performance of organizations [2]
This paper focuses on an empirical study of a Scottish family businesses (FBs) to determine how FB owners and staff understand and implement corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability concepts and government frameworks and practices, and how stakeholders and policymakers contribute to FB growth and development
This study addresses a significant gap between theory and practice
Summary
The triple bottom line of sustainability—people, profit, and planet [1]—has been the foundation to assess the overall performance of organizations [2]. The concept of sustainable development provides a holistic view of the ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ [3]. This concept integrates approaches to address the emergent economic development problems, such as sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate change, and reduced inequality clustered into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework [4,5]. Embedded sustainability is not just a better environmentalist strategy; it responds to radically conscious capitalism that unifies the profit, environmental, and social spheres into a single integrated value creation [15]
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