Beyond reputation and status in hotel management: Social activities as strategic service resources
Doojin Kim, Taeyoung YooPurpose
Drawing on social identity and sensemaking theories, this study examines how CSR engagement and a society-oriented organizational identity relate to hotel revenue and survival as strategic service resources. Specifically, it tests whether these social activities partially offset disadvantages associated with limited reputation or status by providing alternative identity- and meaning-based cues within service ecosystems.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs a multi-source dataset comprising 229 South Korean hotels. Hotel-level financial performance, CSR engagement, and status indicators are obtained from the 2018 Korea Hotel Association listings; customer-based reputation measures are derived from 2018 Tripadvisor ratings; and organizational survival is verified using Google Maps operational status in 2023. Hierarchical models estimate the associations between CSR/society-oriented identity and performance, conditional on hotels’ reputation and status.
Findings
The results show that both CSR engagement and a society-oriented identity are positively associated with hotel revenue and survival. Importantly, these relationships are significantly stronger for hotels with lower reputation or status. Consistent with social identity and sensemaking perspectives, social activities function as compensatory mechanisms that supply meaning-rich identity cues when performance- or hierarchy-based signals are weak.
Originality/value
This study advances service research by integrating social identity and sensemaking theories to distinguish between externally conferred social evaluations and internally constructed social resources. By providing evidence that CSR and society-oriented identity operate as contingent strategic resources rather than uniformly effective performance drivers, the study reframes how hotels with limited reputation or status can mobilize social activities to support value co-creation, performance, and survival within service ecosystems.