CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY: A STUDY OF EMPLOYEE PERCEPTIONS IN TAIWAN'S HOTEL SECTOR

Authors

  • Meiling Lin
  • Yi Huang
  • Ming-Chia Chen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61421/IJSSMER.2026.4303

Keywords:

corporate environmental ethics, hospitality industry, ecological role perception, moral intensity, green management, stakeholder theory, Taiwan

Abstract

This research looks into perceptions based on the corporate environmental ethics (CEE) attitude and behaviour of workers of Taiwan's international tourist hotel establishments. Using Jones's (1991) issue-contingent model of ethical decision-making and stakeholder theory, we present a three-dimensional theoretical model of corporate ecological role perception (CER) and corporate ecological view (CEV) and corporate ecological behavioral norms (CEBN). A self-administered questionnaire based on the behaviourally anchored rating scale (BARS) method was implemented with 442 hotel employees from 104 international tourist hotels in Taiwan with a response rate of 73.67% (Table 1). Regression analysis showed that CEV positively predicts CER (β = 0.66, p <. 05) and CEBN (β = 0.59, p <. 05) and CER positively influences CEBN (β = 0.32, p < . 05). These results show that employees’ ecological worldview is an underlying antecedent concept for the corporate environmental ethics influencing their environmental role perception and environmental behavior. This study extends the current literature on corporate environmental ethics in the hospitality sector by providing empirical support for a cognitive order of events of an ecological awareness to an ethical behavioral intention.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Meiling Lin

Overseas Education College, Fujian Business University, Fuzhou, China

Yi Huang

Overseas Education College, Fujian Business University, Fuzhou, China

Ming-Chia Chen

Overseas Education College, Fujian Business University, Fuzhou, China

References

Armstrong, J. S., & Overton, T. S. (1977). Estimating nonresponse bias in mail surveys. Journal of Marketing Research, 14(3), 396–402. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224377701400308

Banerjee, S. B., Iyer, E. S., & Kashyap, R. K. (2003). Corporate environmentalism: Antecedents and influence of industry type. Journal of Marketing, 67(2), 106–122. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.67.2.186.18611

Bansal, P., & Roth, K. (2000). Why companies go green: A model of ecological responsiveness. Academy of Management Journal, 43(4), 717–736. https://doi.org/10.2307/1556363

Bohdanowicz, P. (2006). Environmental awareness and initiatives in the Swedish and Polish hotel industries: Survey results. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 25(4), 662–682. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2005.06.003

Boiral, O. (2007). Corporate greening through ISO 14001: A rational myth? Organization Science, 18(1), 127–146. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1060.0224

Boiral, O., Rainer, N., & Tacconelli, C. (2015). Predicting the adoption of ISO 14001: The role of global and local environmental management. Journal of Environmental Management, 160, 78–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2015.06.013

Bruns-Smith, A., Choy, V., Chong, H., & Verma, R. (2015). Environmental sustainability in the hospitality industry: Best practices, guest participation, and customer satisfaction. Cornell Hospitality Report, 15(3), 6–16.

Chen, M.-F., & Tung, P.-J. (2014). Developing an extended Theory of Planned Behavior model to predict consumers' intention to visit green hotels. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 36, 221–230. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2013.09.006

Chen, X., Chen, X., & Zhou, W. (2022). How does green human resource management affect employees' pro-environmental behaviors in the hotel industry? The mediating role of green organizational climate. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 106, 103292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2022.103292

De Grosbois, C. A. (2012). Corporate social responsibility reporting in the global hotel industry. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 20(5), 631–650. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2011.638894

Elshaer, I. A., Azazz, A. M. S., & Fayyad, S. (2023). Green management and sustainable performance of small- and medium-sized hospitality businesses: Moderating the role of an employee's pro-environmental behaviour. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(3), 2244. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032244

Freeman, R. E., Harrison, J. S., Wicks, A. C., Parmar, B. L., & de Colle, S. (2010). Stakeholder theory: The state of the art. Cambridge University Press.

Gössling, S., Peeters, P., Ceron, J. P., Dubois, G., Patterson, T., & Richardson, R. B. (2012). The eco-efficiency of tourism: Measuring environmental performance. Ecological Economics, 79, 53–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.04.017

Han, H. (2021). Consumer behavior and environmental sustainability in tourism and hospitality: A review of theories and concepts. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 29(2–3), 170–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2020.1824045

Han, H., Hsu, L.-T., & Sheu, C. (2010). Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior to green hotel choice: Testing the effect of environmental friendly activities. Tourism Management, 31(3), 325–334. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2009.03.013

Han, H., Hsu, L.-T. J., & Lee, J.-S. (2009). Empirical investigation of the roles of attitudes toward green behaviors, overall image, gender, and age in hotel customers' eco-friendly decision-making process. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 28(4), 519–528. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2009.02.004

Han, H., Hsu, L.-T. J., Lee, J.-S., & Sheu, C. (2011). Are lodging customers ready to go green? An examination of attitudes, demographics, and eco-friendly intentions. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 30(2), 345–355. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2010.07.008

Hart, S. L., & Dowell, G. (2011). A natural-resource-based view of the firm: Fifteen years after. Journal of Management, 37(5), 1464–1479. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206311405901

Hsiao, T.-Y., & Chuang, C.-M. (2016). Creating shared value through implementing green practices for star hotels. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 33(5), 664–683. https://doi.org/10.1080/10941665.2015.1068194

Jones, T. M. (1991). Ethical decision making by individuals in organizations: An issue-contingent model. Academy of Management Review, 16(2), 366–395. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1991.4278933

Kang, K. H., Stein, L., Heo, C. Y., & Lee, S. (2012). Consumers' willingness to pay for green initiatives of the hotel industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(2), 564–572. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2011.08.001

Kish-Gephart, J. J., Harrison, D. A., & Treviño, L. K. (2010). Bad apples, bad cases, and bad barrels: Meta-analytic evidence about sources of unethical decisions at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017103

Kouchaki, M., & Smith, I. K. (2024). Moral decision-making in organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 12, 51–78. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-110622-045715

Kulkarni, S. P. (2000). Environmental ethics and information asymmetry among organizational stakeholders. Journal of Business Ethics, 27(3), 215–228. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026654308516

Li, Y., Li, H., & Shen, F. (2022). Environmental ethics in the hospitality and tourism industry: A systematic review and future research directions. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 30(12), 2817–2842. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2022.2026282

Mair, J., Bergin-Seers, S., & Laing, J. (2016). Facilitating and barriers to pro-environmental actions for environmental management in the convention center industry. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 24(6), 879–897. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2015.1115543

Marshall, B., & Dewe, P. (2004). An investigation of the components of moral intensity. Journal of Business Ethics, 16(5), 521–530. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00381836

Norton, T. A., Parker, S. L., Zacher, H., & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2017). Employee green behavior: A theoretical framework, multilevel review, and future research agenda. Organization & Environment, 30(4), 335–357. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086026617705852

Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Patwary, A. K., Mohd Yusof, H. M., Narayanan, S., & Rasoolimanesh, S. M. (2022). Unleashing the potential role of CSR and altruistic values to foster pro-environmental behavior by hotel employees. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(24), 16327. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192416327

Patwary, A. K., Rasoolimanesh, S. M., Aziz, R. C., Ashraf, M. U., & Alam, M. M. (2022). Investigating environmental performance in the hotel industry: The role of ethical leadership and green human resource management. Sustainability, 14(15), 9268. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159268

Purser, R. E., Park, C., & Montuori, A. (2007). Limits to anthropocentrism: Toward an ecocentric organization paradigm? In J. A. A. Sillars (Ed.), Organizations and the natural environment (pp. 51–74). SAGE Publications.

Shah, S. Z. A., & Amjad, S. (2019). Consumer ethical decision making: Linking moral intensity, self-consciousness and neutralization techniques. Pakistan Journal of Commerce and Social Sciences, 13(1), 101–123.

Sharma, S., & Henriques, I. (2021). Stakeholder influences and environmental practices in the hospitality industry. Business Strategy and the Environment, 30(2), 789–804. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2663

Shaw, W. H. (2011). Business ethics: A stakeholder and issues management approach (2nd ed.). Cengage Learning.

Sheng, C. W., Tian, Y. F., & Chen, M. C. (2010). Relationships among teamwork behavior, trust, perceived team support and team commitment. Social Behavior and Personality, 38(10), 1297–1306. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2010.38.10.1297

Starik, M. (1995). Should trees have managerial standing? Toward stakeholder status for non-human nature. Journal of Business Ethics, 14(3), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00881437

UNEP. (2011). Towards a green economy: Pathways to sustainable development and poverty elimination. United Nations Environment Programme.

Xu, X., Wang, Y., & Liu, Y. (2022). How does corporate social responsibility affect employees' pro-environmental behavior? The mediating role of personal environmental norms and green intrinsic motivation. PLoS ONE, 17(11), e0295850. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295850

Young, W., Hwang, K., McDonald, S., & Oates, C. J. (2010). Sustainable consumption: Green consumer behaviour when purchasing products. Sustainable Development, 18(1), 20–33. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.402

Downloads

Published

2026-06-30

How to Cite

Meiling Lin, Yi Huang, & Ming-Chia Chen. (2026). CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY: A STUDY OF EMPLOYEE PERCEPTIONS IN TAIWAN’S HOTEL SECTOR. International Journal of Social Science, Management and Economics Research, 4(3), 29–44. https://doi.org/10.61421/IJSSMER.2026.4303