Responsible Leadership and Innovation during COVID-19: Evidence from the Australian Tourism and Hospitality Sector

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis provides an opportunity for sustainable renewal and requires responsible leaders who are responsive to stakeholder needs and able to innovate in light of new challenges. This study draws on stakeholder theory and responsible leadership theory to examine (a) the challenges industry leaders face as a result of COVID-19 and (b) their innovative responses in light of their responsibilities to stakeholders and society. We conducted a corpus linguistics study based on high-volume media websites reporting tourism and hospitality news on leadership and innovation. We applied a stakeholder and social responsibility lens to the data analysis. We discovered that, despite the challenges that leaders faced, some transcended self-interest or integrated self-interest with consideration for the interest of others and formed partnerships with other stakeholders resulting in win-win solutions. In particular, we found evidence of leaders who (1) responded to the needs of owners, employees, customers, and community stakeholders and (2) developed not only incremental innovations but substantial ones benefitting stakeholders in business and society. We discuss responsible leadership as a pathway for transforming the tourism and hospitality industry towards a more sustainable and community-centred ‘new normal’. Based on our findings, we present recommendations for future research and policymakers.

1. Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an extensive impact on all aspects of society, with the tourism industry being one of the hardest-hit sectors. As international travel came to a halt and domestic restrictions were imposed, the industry sustained significant losses, resulting in job cuts and business closures. In the face of such unprecedented challenges, responsible leadership approaches have become crucial for managing the crisis [1].

This article focuses specifically on the situation in Australia, examining how businesses in the hospitality industry have reacted to the crisis in innovative ways. Through an analysis of the experiences of hospitality businesses in Australia, this article aims to derive insights and lessons that can be relevant to other contexts facing similar challenges.

Since it reached Australia in March 2020, COVID-19 has had a significant impact on Australia’s tourism and hospitality industry, with lockdowns and travel bans endangering jobs and the industry itself. It is estimated that COVID-19 caused 152,000 job losses in Australia’s tourism industry and a decline in GDP of A$39–A$42 billion [2]. This came at a time when the industry was already under pressure to demonstrate corporate social responsibility [3,4].

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the economic, social, and health systems of countries across the globe [5], including Australia. Australian business managers have been tasked with implementing measures to help control the spread of the virus while simultaneously ensuring the smooth functioning of their businesses. Recent research shows that, in order to effectively address the multifaceted challenges posed by the pandemic, business decision-makers must consider the needs of all relevant stakeholders [6,7]. To cope with the crisis, new and innovative ways to do business and respond to stakeholder needs are required.

The Australian hospitality industry is a complex system that is affected by the decisions made by policymakers, large corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises, workers, and tourists. These stakeholders are integral to the success of the hospitality industry, and their collaborative and synchronised efforts are essential for navigating the challenges it faces. This suggests that business decision-makers in Australia need to consider responsible and innovative responses that are aligned with the needs and expectations of the stakeholders. Thus, their efforts should be aligned and synchronised with other key stakeholders to ensure the industry’s continued success [8].

Research shows that leadership plays an important role in successfully manoeuvring through such crisis situations and interacting with stakeholders in a responsible way [9,10]. Ref. [11] call for new leadership approaches at different levels, arguing that COVID-19 should be viewed as an opportunity to rethink tourism growth, achieve more sustainability in tourism, pave the way for a better ‘new normal’ and contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). The SDGs are central to the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development, which aims to resolve grand challenges concerning planetary and human well-being and calls on business and public institutions to collaborate to achieve the 17 SDGs and their 169 affiliated targets. Tourism is seen as a pathway for sustainable development through its potential contribution to the UN SDGs [12,13]. However, [14] stress that deep structural change is required across all sectors of society to achieve the SDGs.

Further, researchers argue that the current crisis can be seen as an opportunity to rethink responsible approaches to tourism and hospitality within a community-centred and socialised framework that focuses on the public good [4,15]. Ref. [11] echo these sentiments, arguing that the tourism and hospitality industry should not return to ‘business as usual’ but should take the opportunity to transform to better align with the UN SDGs. Clearly, there is a need for a new type of leadership in tourism and hospitality that focuses on collaboration and commitment to responsibility (see [11,16]) in order to create hope, drive change, and build more innovative and resilient enterprises that deliver value for stakeholders in business and society. This new type of leadership should approach environmental, social, and economic aspects of the crisis, considering the well-being of all tourism stakeholders [17].

Leadership, and in particular a responsible leadership approach (e.g., [9,10]), is seen as one of the key factors in dealing effectively with crisis situations [18,19] through innovation [20]. Following [11]’s call, we apply responsible leadership theory. Responsible leadership is understood as a process to build and cultivate sustainable and trustful relationships with different stakeholders inside and outside the organisation and to coordinate their actions to achieve common objectives (e.g., triple-bottom-line goals), business sustainability and legitimacy and ultimately to help to realise a good (i.e., ethically sound) and shared business vision ([21], p. 103).

A large body of literature emphasises the role leaders play in business innovation (e.g., [20,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29]) and in socially responsible innovation (e.g., [30,31,32,33]). The capacity of leaders to generate innovation is of particular importance in crisis management, recovery and post-crisis growth [34]. However, there is little evidence about whether and how tourism and hospitality businesses experienced the impact of COVID-19 [35]. and whether and how business leaders have dealt with it through responsible leadership and innovation [36,37].

No study was found that examined the link between responsible leadership (including responsible stakeholder interactions) and innovation as a response to COVID-19 in the hospitality and tourism industries. However, this link is of particular relevance in handling crisis situations [10,38] to sustain long-term business survival and contribute to society. With this study, we also respond to calls to advance crisis leadership research by studying extreme or deviant crises to examine how leaders effectively manage such situations and respond to the needs of the stakeholders with the greatest need [39,40]. In their review, ([41], p. 1682) argue that this area requires more systematic exploration, particularly in regard to ‘the real-time discourse and information exchange that occurs between an organization and its stakeholders as they make sense of a crisis’.

Against this backdrop and based on media data from leaders in the tourism and hospitality industry, this study examines the perceived impacts of COVID-19 on the Australian tourism and hospitality industry and the innovation responses of leaders in the industry by applying a responsible leadership perspective. More specifically, the study addresses three main research questions: (1) What were the major challenges experienced by tourism and hospitality business leaders in Australia in the early months of the COVID-19 crisis? (2) What innovative actions did tourism and hospitality managers undertake in response to those challenges? (3) What evidence of responsible leadership can be identified in the first phase of the COVID-19 crisis? Responding to the call of Bundy et al. (2017), the data for this study were sourced from Australian media news articles from six websites with a high volume of news content on ‘COVID-19′ and ‘hospitality’. These news articles contain statements from leaders in the tourism and hospitality industry in Australia.

While existing studies focus predominantly on business-related innovations (e.g., [36,42,43,44]) and particularly incremental ones (e.g., cost minimisation strategies, product and service adaptations, renegotiating distribution partnerships) [45,46], our study broadens the focus to include substantial innovative responses (e.g., transformations in existing business operating models) and social innovations—novel products or services generating social value—relevant for sustaining businesses and for creating a more responsible ‘new normal’ in the sense of better-serving stakeholders in business and society and contributing to the UN SDGs.

The article is structured as follows: After reviewing the literature on leadership and innovation in crisis situations, we outline the methodological approach and then present and discuss our findings. We conclude the article with recommendations for policymakers.

2. A Review of the Literature on Leadership and Innovation in Times of Crisis

There is agreement that crisis situations require leadership competence (e.g., [18,19]) and, in particular, a responsible leadership approach (e.g., [9,10]). Leadership is widely understood as an influence process, in which one person uses ‘influence over other people to guide, structure, and facilitate activities and relationships’ ([47], p. 6). In leadership research, the ‘follower’ is usually restricted to employees, particularly direct reports. However, in business practice, the sphere of influence of leaders—particularly those at the upper echelons (e.g., CEOs, business owners, entrepreneurs)—is much broader and includes constituents inside and outside the organisation. Since leaders at these levels have positions of power and control, their behaviour and decisions influence many stakeholders [38]. This interdependence of business leaders and stakeholders can be a defining point in crisis situations [40] and imposes particular responsibilities on business leaders.

The interest in responsible leadership has been increasing (e.g., [48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57]). Drawing on stakeholder theory [58,59], responsible leadership reflects the interface of business and stakeholders. It broadens the leadership perspective from a dyadic supervisor–direct report relationship to a stakeholder view of leadership and examines the roles and responsibilities of leaders vis-à-vis different constituencies, ranging from employees to customers, suppliers, media, government and even society at large [21,60]. This stakeholder view of leadership is of particular relevance in crisis situations as leaders have a significant impact on businesses and potentially also their stakeholders [40]. Ultimately, leaders’ handling of crisis situations can impact the reputation of the organisation and its economic success [9,10]. Such situations, therefore, require business leaders to have not only crisis management skills but also the ability to interact with a broad range of stakeholders, mitigate differences in interests and concerns, and respond to demands. Reflecting this broader stakeholder view, there are also pressures from broader society on owners of tourism operations to respond in responsible ways to the COVID-19 crisis and to protect the interests and needs of as many stakeholders as possible (e.g., [4,11]). Such a responsible leadership approach is often connected to a dual logic of creating value for business and society and environment (e.g., [61]). When responsible leaders pursue a dual logic, they not only care for the financial viability of business but equally for the interests, demands and well-being of stakeholders. As such, responsible leadership is a socialised approach focused on collaboration with stakeholders, community engagement and value creation for business and society. It requires leaders to transcend their self-interest and integrate the perspectives and concerns of others when making choices and decisions [32,62]. COVID-19 poses unprecedented challenges for leaders and stakeholders at the personal and professional levels, which we are going to examine in this study. In this sense, this article is also a response to calls to advance crisis leadership research by studying extreme or deviant events [39,40].

In these times of uncertainty, it is important for leaders to be able to quickly adapt their leadership style to instil hope in people [63] and to develop constructive ways to deal with crises (e.g., [64]). Effective, responsible leadership requires awareness and consideration of the impact of one’s actions on stakeholders [65,66], active engagement of different constituencies, and their mobilisation to participate in decision-making and in shared problem-solving [67]. Ref. ([68], p. 283) also stresses that leaders need to be willing to take risks and to ‘accept the occasional setback when innovative ideas prove unsuccessful’.

Innovation plays an important role in approaching and dealing with crisis situations [69], particularly in developing response strategies and building resilience [16] and in sustaining organisational viability and stakeholder well-being [10]. As [34] pointed out, the capacity of leaders to generate innovation is of particular importance in crisis management, recovery and post-crisis growth.

There are different forms of innovation that are distinguished in the innovation literature ranging from product and process innovation to business model innovation with different levels of novelty, that is, new to the firm or new to the industry [70]. However, some researchers argue that it is difficult to pinpoint the boundaries between the different types of innovation [71]. Of particular relevance here are three forms of innovation that are discussed in the field of responsible leadership:

(1)

Incremental innovations relate to ‘improvements within a given frame of solutions’ ([72], p. 82) and reflect variations, reconfigurations and/or upgrades of existing products or services.

(2)

Substantial innovations reflect a change of frame ([72], p. 82) or even mindset and involve completely new approaches that have not been pursued before. Often, they yield profound change (this can be radical or evolutionary) and transform existing business operating models and potentially lead to larger transformations in the industry.

(3)

Social innovations can be understood as ‘innovative activities and services that are [primarily] motivated by the goal of meeting a social need’ ([31], p. 146) and generating social value (in contrast to financial value). They have become of particular relevance in light of the UN SDGs and rising stakeholder expectations that leaders will contribute to developing solutions to social problems [32]. Social innovations, like any innovation in operations, marketing or human resource management (HRM), can be either incremental or substantial [32,38].

Apart from the conventional challenges of balancing innovation, responsible leadership, and sustainability in the hospitality industry, the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced an unprecedented level of complexity. The pandemic has significantly disrupted the industry, with businesses encountering closures, travel restrictions, and reduced demand for services [8]. Consequently, the industry has had to prioritise prevention measures to ensure the safety of both staff and customers. Furthermore, the pandemic has underscored the significance of sustainability, with a heightened emphasis on the environmental and social impact of tourism and hospitality operations. Responsible leadership is crucial during these times as industry leaders grapple with the challenges of the pandemic while promoting sustainable practices. Innovation has played a crucial role, with businesses adopting novel technologies and approaches to adapt to changing circumstances.

This study investigates the interplay between innovation, responsible leadership, sustainability, and COVID-19 prevention measures in the hospitality industry. It evaluates the challenges encountered by the industry and its leaders and recommends best practices for promoting sustainability and responsible leadership through innovation while adapting to the new normal brought about by the pandemic.

3. Methods

3.1. Data

We conducted a search of media websites to generate a body of media articles for corpus linguistics analysis for the purpose of identifying challenges that Australian tourism and hospitality businesses faced in the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis and innovative responses developed by business leaders. News media content was selected as the data source because it provided the latest organisational information and first-hand information from business leaders in the midst of the crisis that we could not otherwise obtain [40,73]. The media content included interviews with business owners, managers, employees and other stakeholders (e.g., representatives of industry associations) providing first-hand insights of owners and leaders on leadership and innovation in the tourism and hospitality industry during the first months of the crisis. Figure 1 illustrates the process of data collection and analysis.

The use of news media content as a data source for our analysis of leadership and innovation has several advantages despite the general risk of bias inherent in news data. First, it provides formal documentation of how businesses and their leaders perceive crisis situations such as COVID-19 and respond to them. Second, it is often the primary source of current organisational information for the broader public. Third, it provides access to first-hand and real-time information from business leaders in the midst of a crisis that would otherwise not be possible to obtain [40,73]. Last but not least, it can be assumed that our data (news media content, including general statements by leaders about the COVID 19-crisis) are less biased in terms of socially responsible responses than interviews that directly address the social and moral responsibility of leaders and their innovative responses during the pandemic.

We mitigated the risk of inherent bias in news data (e.g., norms of media sources influence what gets reported, how and when) by gathering data from six different websites. Once collated, we analysed the data using qualitative text corpus analysis (using corpus linguistics).

To create a text corpus of news data containing rich information from different stakeholders about crisis leadership in the hospitality industry in Australia, we collected data from six leading websites. They were selected due to their high volume of news content, particularly on ‘COVID-19′ and ‘hospitality’ (see

Table 1. Number of news articles retrieved from news media websites and word counts.

Website	Number of News Articles	Total Number of Words
Hospitality Directory (hospitalitydirectory.com.au, accessed on 10 June 2020)	71 (36.6%)	18,485 (18.3%)
The Hotel Conversation (thehotelconversation.com.au, accessed on 10 June 2020)	46 (23.7%)	23,735 (23.5%)
ABC News (abc.net.au, accessed on 10 June 2020)	38 (19.6%)	26,964 (26.7%)
Gourmet Traveller (gourmettraveller.com.au, accessed on 10 June 2020)	18 (9.3%)	21,814 (21.6%)
9 News (9news.com.au, accessed on 10 June 2020)	11 (5.7%)	5400 (5.3%)
Business News Australia (businessnewsaus.com.au, accessed on 10 June 2020)	10 (5.2%)	4586 (4.5%)
Total	194	100,984

). Data were collected for a three-month period from the start of the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020.

While the period may seem short, our objective was not to provide a complete picture of the crisis but to examine signals of leadership challenges and leader innovation in regard to COVID-19. This is in accordance with the methods of other tourism researchers who used similar methods (e.g., [74,75,76]) and even shorter time periods to examine the ways hospitality actors responded to COVID-19 (e.g., [42]). We focused particularly on the start of the crisis because this was the most challenging time when business leaders were overwhelmed by the new situation, with very limited knowledge about the virus and its consequences, no governmental support programs in place, no guidance to cope with the situation, and where owners and managers had to demonstrate their leadership capacity in a time of crisis. It was a time when the tourism and hospitality industry was in survival mode, with limited public expectations of corporate social responsibility or glossy public relations statements.

To create a corpus of data, the six websites were searched manually with the search terms ‘COVID-19′ and ‘hospitality’. Only texts that focused on COVID-19 and hospitality simultaneously were included, resulting in more than a thousand news stories. Media content included interviews with hospitality business owners, managers, employees and other stakeholders (e.g., representatives of industry associations). All content was read by two authors, and irrelevant news was excluded (e.g., a general COVID-related article with limited information about hospitality or tourism), resulting in a sample of 194 unique news articles with 100,989 words. These news articles were then inserted into an Excel file for further analysis. While these 194 news articles do not cover all published news content, the exhaustive search and volume collected are valid and representative [see 16]. The data set used in this study is available upon request.

3.2. Corpus Linguistics Analysis

Corpus linguistics involves collecting large amounts of naturally occurring language data in computerised format, which supports analysis by electronically sorting, counting and identifying patterns in the data based on defined search terms [77,78,79]. Corpus linguistics was introduced to business research by [80] and has been applied in accounting and finance (e.g., [81]), marketing (e.g., [82]), business research (e.g., [83,84]), social work (e.g., [85]), and recently in tourism (e.g., [86,87]) and hospitality (e.g., [88]).

We applied concordance analysis, which presents ‘instances of a word or cluster in its immediate co-text’ ([89,90], p. 279), to examine the electronic corpus of the selected news articles (n = 194). Concordance is a common approach to processing and interpreting corpus information [78]. To identify concordances, we searched the corpus with the Sketch Engine software package using two sets of key terms, one relating to the disaster (COVID-19, coronavirus, pandemic, crisis) and the other set of terms relating to the type of business (hotel, bar, restaurant, café, pub). This resulted in a concordance—a list of all hits of the search terms from the corpus displayed as one example per line (also called concordance line) and embedded in the surrounding context of 4 to 5 words, which are visible to the left and right of the respective term [91]. Subsequently, two researchers examined the concordances for the occurrence of challenges and innovations. This required reading all results and making meaning of the words in their context of occurrence [92]. This helped to detect strong and repetitive patterns in concordance [89]. We compared and discussed our findings and, where there was agreement, selected those concordance lines that contained information about leadership challenges and innovations. In a second step, the selected concordance lines were further examined (the inventory can be provided upon request). In order to do so, we followed [78] and expanded the amount of available co-text, considering 3–4 sentences before and after the key terms in order to better understand and analyse the concordance lines. We then interpreted them in their respective context in order to code and categorise them. Concordance lines that appear in the text are in italics, and longer excerpts are accompanied by a reference.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1. Challenges Facing Hospitality Business Leaders

Table 2. Examples of business and mental health challenges faced by leadership in hospitality and tourism.

Challenges	Selected Examples of Challenges (Business Challenges Underlined, Mental Highlighted) Occurring in Concordance Lines
Business: Financial loss Mental health: Depression, suicide	<s>it’s been pretty depressing thinking about how much income we’ve lost since March<s> <s>I know of two business owners who had taken their lives because of the toll coronavirus had on their business. Their financial losses have just ruined their lives<s>
Business: Survival and development Mental health: Pessimistic attitude	<s>up to 30% of restaurants may never reopen after the coronavirus shutdown ends<s>
Business: Staffing Mental health: Helplessness	<s>For the hospitality industry, working from home is not an option. Chefs, baristas and front-of-house staff cannot tele-conference their livelihoods. A restaurant cannot operate remotely<s>
Business: Reduction of customer base Mental health: Distress and adverse reaction	<s>no-show diners have been warned there is a ‘special place in hell’ for them<s>
Business: Health and safety concerns Mental health: Stress and related long-time consequences	<s>The current pandemic is a pressure-cooker environment that only exacerbates their existing physical and mental health issues.<s>

reports the results of the concordance analysis of the news media content and provides examples of key challenges that business leaders faced. These challenges comprise business challenges as well as mental challenges. They have far-reaching consequences for hospitality and tourism businesses and their leaders, their stakeholders and society. For illustrative purposes, we enriched the concordance lines with direct quotations (in italics) from the respective news articles.

In essence, our findings show that tourism and hospitality businesses and their leaders faced challenges that created a vicious cycle. Forced lockdowns and/or government-induced restrictions on trade resulted in the loss of or reduction in customer base. This led to the loss of income and cash flow challenges, while owners still had to cover fixed costs (rent, insurance, energy costs, etc.) and comply with new potentially cost-incurring policies and regulations regarding health and safety (e.g., social distancing rules in restaurants, provision of training for employees, and disinfectants for employees and customers). Subsequently, many businesses had to lay off staff temporarily or forever due to shutdowns, with severe impacts on society (mass redundancies, financial hardship for families, personal tragedies for visa holders and undeclared workers) [93,94].

While some of these business challenges have been discussed in the literature (see [95,96,97]), our analysis of the underpinning connotations of the textual data via concordance analysis (see Table 2) reveals an additional psychological meta-challenge that is interwoven with the business challenges (e.g., ‘it’s been pretty depressing thinking about how much income we’ve lost since March’: ABC News, 05.05.2020). The situation has created uncertainty among business leaders and was described as creating a ‘pressure cooker’ (Gourmet Traveller, 03.04.2020) environment, causing stress. Long-term negative stress (distress) is associated with negative effects on all systems of the body (including the cardiovascular system: [1]) and affects the mental health and psychological well-being of employees and hospitality leaders alike. The situation also caused feelings of uncertainty, depression (e.g., ‘I was super-depressed a week ago, eating cold pizza for breakfast and not getting out of bed’: Gourmet Traveller, 17.04.2020), fears of revenue loss which turned into distress, and irresponsible responses to key stakeholders (‘no-show diners have been warned there is a “special place in hell” for them’: ABC News, 22.05.2020) or self-harm (e.g., a board member of Australian Venues Association stated: ‘I know of two business owners who had taken their lives because of the toll coronavirus had on their business. Their financial losses have just ruined their lives’: ABC News, 17.05.2020). The data also show pessimistic outlooks on the future (‘up to 30% of restaurants may never reopen after the coronavirus shutdown ends’: The Hotel Conversation, 28.04.2020).

In essence, business leaders in tourism have faced the challenges of sustaining the viability of their businesses as well as looking after the mental health and well-being of self and others. This required active responses. We summarised the innovative directions taken by Australian tourism and hospitality businesses in

Table 3. Innovative directions taken by Australian tourism and hospitality businesses.

Innovative Directions	Innovation Example
Product innovation	Restaurants/cafes turning into groceries, bakeries
Service innovation	Take-away, home deliveries
Marketing and sales innovation	Using internet/websites for restaurants sales, buy now stay later campaigns for hotels
Management innovation	Re-employing some staff as delivery workers
Process innovation	Contactless food delivery systems,
Social innovation	Turning hotels into hospitals, free rooms for healthcare workers or for those who are in need

.

4.2. Leadership and Innovation as a Social Response to Challenges

The results of our concordance analysis indicate that innovation was seen as crucial for crisis survival from the start (‘with 71 per cent of businesses believing that innovation will be critical moving forward, with the hospitality industry as a whole needing to become more creative to entice customers to spend’: Business News Australia, 22 May 2020). The responses of business leaders included a variety of incremental and substantial innovations serving different purposes (e.g., sustaining the business, creating value for society) and different stakeholder groups relevant to the hospitality and tourism industry and beyond.

Table 4. Examples of incremental and substantial innovations.

Innovation Type and Definition	Incremental Innovation—A Variation in Organisational Routines and Practices	Substantial Innovation—A Fundamental Change in Organisational Practices
Product innovation—a new or improved good that has been presented to customers	The restaurant has since transitioned to elegant take-home dinners for two and holds popular bake sales on the weekend. They’re doing boutique produce boxes, heat-at-home Vietnamese meals of pho and vermicelli salad, and takeaway banh mi	has turned the front bar into a bottle shop and grocer, selling bread, meat and fruit. Instagram description has changed from ‘restaurant’ to ‘shopping and retail’, and it will operate as such for the following months out of necessity. Coffee shop owners shift the whole model into more of a grocer the owners of Tanaka coffee shop in Melbourne’s Carlton are selling boxes of fresh produce sourced from a range of local suppliers that can be picked up from the store or home delivered Brae made moves towards offering house-made loaves of bread and fresh produce boxes harvested from its own farm, it advertised exclusively through Birregurra’s Facebook group By Thursday, the chef-owner announced Navi’s take-home meal service. By Saturday, it was also operating as a weekend bakery. head chef worked 20-h days to convert the restaurant operations into a wood-fired bakery But the owner has risen to the occasion by converting the cellar door space into a grocer, food delivery and wine takeaway hub. They’ve installed a bread oven to ramp up their sourdough bread production
Service innovation—a new or improved service that has been presented to customers	has switched his business strategy to open earlier, starting at 5 pm … families will come to the earlier seating, … each session will also be timed, and diners will have around one-and-a-half hours to order and eat their meal before a second seating begins at 7 pm We’ve changed our whole set up in the cafe to suit takeaway service and it’s working well a night market venue … has adapted to restrictions by converting its laneway to a drive-through, headlined by drag queens He has offered free takeaway delivery to entice customers Son has been doing home deliveries via bicycle, in addition to the restaurant’s takeaway menu and take-home frozen packs of kimchi jjigae [spiced Korean stew] and mandu, complete with stylised how-to-prepare at-home video instructions. we learned from our mistakes, and this weekend, we did 250 deliveries Selling takeaway tap beer is a big break with pub tradition, but it will help ensure cashflow as we bunker down and try to see this crisis out and keep as many staff employed as possible sous chef has compiled a restaurant-friendly playlist too: Paul Kelly for lunch, uptempo Motown for dinner. Filling up $10 take-home growlers is keeping us alive right now have launched their at-home menus to be picked up from Yellow in Potts Point or delivered to addresses within a six-kilometre range of the suburb the neighbourhood café made its full menu available for takeaway The Asian pasta restaurant has set up a purpose-built trolley to allow contactless takeaway orders. We have increased our level of social engagement, delivering our club communities with daily activities to help keep their passion for travel ignited. This has included travel quizzes, sharing best travel movie ideas, Lego competitions, cutest pet competitions and more. The website also provides them with some fun distractions for all the family during isolation, such as activities and games, many which are travel-orientated. We know that cabin fever can be especially tough for the younger members of the family, so we are also providing them with travel-inspired, colouring-in pages and activities to help keep kids entertained while our timeshare owners (including many families with small children) are staying home and counting down to their next holiday. the leadership team made the pre-emptive move to ensure physical distancing and only serve takeaway meals to patrons	by using the hashtag #EatAloneTogether, people can keep celebrating those special moments and share meals together, but through digital connectivity to still allow them to have family and friends over for dinner Our recent initiative of our Social Hour cocktail trolley, which brings the bar to our guests’ rooms, has been loved and is an example of how we constantly adapt to ensure we are still delivering an effortless experience. restaurant has taken the extraordinary step of closing their dine-in business and operating exclusively on food delivery and takeaway trade restaurant has placed cardboard cut-outs at empty tables to stop diners from feeling lonely while they eat. To add to the busy restaurant vibe, the owner also plans to play guest chatter We have looked to see whether we can tap into a different type of market—that being a furnished flexible lease of up to 12 months I’ve effectively had to start a brand new business, delivery isn’t something I’ve done before has pivoted to a home dining service as it battles to stay afloat during the coronavirus lockdown We have looked to see whether we can tap into a different type of market—that being a furnished flexible lease of up to 12 months
Marketing and sales innovation—(e.g., a new sales channel)	buy now stay later scheme’ introducing an $80 cancellation fee for no-shows or cancellations less than 24 h before the booking time … takes payment in advance to secure bookings at the restaurant announcing a special dining package: Up to 10 people can book out the venue for four hours for a group fee of $1000 implemented a credit card fee on booking that was only charged if the diners did not turn up An $80 per person set menu, excluding drinks, is on offer one hotel in Sydney is looking to attract executives tired of working from home Hotel in Potts Point is offering customers a ‘Remote Office Day Package’ from between 8 am to 6 pm bookings are only taken via phone and email in order to create a personal connection with diners even before they step in the restaurant To secure a seat at the Bondi wine bar, diners, in groups of 10, must book out the whole venue.	Project Unity lets venues in any local community form an alliance and cross-promote to each other’s audiences … ‘venues, which were once competitors, are now helping each other cross-promote to their customers and generate takeaway/delivery transactions’ I was just sitting down reading the paper, and I realised there is a pretty big market here for customers to order in advance and select a delivery time that works for them, which means businesses aren’t inundated with orders all at once … In building the business from scratch … the website is set to go live on Monday #LocalNightIn initiative—a new national listing database featuring Australian venues that are providing delivery and takeaway options during this time chef is launching his new food delivery platform Providoor on June 1 with the lockdown, we’ve had to adapt pretty quickly, moving to … Canberra Eats (canberraeats.com, accessed on 10 June 2020-an online restaurant meal ordering service) The Vietnamese restaurant chain has launched a new online ordering platform All restaurants within the precinct are still cooking up your favourite dishes, and now you will be able to use the app to browse their menus, pre-order, pay and pick them up all on one simple and easy-to-use platform
Management innovation (e.g., solutions in HRM, accounting, finance, etc.)	we commenced temperature checks of all employees on their arrival to work We have regular Zoom meetings with all teams, and in addition to email communication and video messaging, we have set up a closed user Facebook group for all employees (The restaurant has since transitioned to elegant take-home dinners for two and holds popular bake sales on the weekend) The new model has been enough to keep all its kitchen and front-of-house staff employed.	the small brigade of chefs and front-of-house staff have turned into bakers and assistant gardeners—it’s a means to keep staff employed A lot of restaurants like mine will start employing our own drivers for delivery Restaurant Labart has delegated front-of-house staff as delivery drivers our staff are like family—they’re all locals with cars. Instead of working on the floor, they’ll be delivering to the door
Process innovation—novel solutions in production, technology and management	implementing a 72-h cancellation policy to cover the full cost of the $120 set menu for those who don’t honour their reservations introducing an $80 cancellation fee for no-shows or cancellations less than 24 h before the booking time decided to open from Thursday to Saturday only, starting this Thursday introduced a contactless pick-up system to reduce person-to-person contact between customers and staff.
Social innovation—novel solutions that aim to improve the well-being of society while increasing the effectiveness of use of resources	A restaurant in Melbourne’s Southbank is screening the temperatures of all their customers before they enter opening six days a week for takeaway and take-home meals, staffed by just the two of them. The decision to stay open was driven by community needs. ‘There are people [in this suburb] who live on their own, and we’re the only people they see that day survival menu’: ‘It’s about providing food that ensures I can pay my wages, and people who have lost their jobs can still afford to feed themselves. It’s not just survival for ourselves. It’s for everyone else AVC has instead decided to put its team and resource to work through a number of initiatives, including dishing up free meals for staff and $3 meals to other hospitality workers as well as supporting its visa workers not entitled to Government assistance. launching a unique cleanliness and prevention label: ALLSAFE his two venues … will give free feeds to those people hardest hit by the coronavirus … We just want to look after our local community because you look after us. She’s made up packs of lasagne for customers with immuno-compromised conditions who would arrive at the restaurant fully kitted out in gloves and masks; she’s cooked takeaway for a couple who live around the corner in an apartment with no stove, no microwave It took just two days for social-enterprise restaurant Colombo Social in Newtown to repurpose its cooking facilities into a production kitchen that provides free meals for those in need. A no-handshakes, no-hugs and no-high fives policy between customers and staff will also be enacted … We’re a public place, and with a lot of foot traffic, and we have a responsibility to do something Coburg kitchen is also selling bags of flour to customers who are experiencing difficulty sourcing it due to panic-buying in supermarkets.	hotels acting as ‘medi-hotels’, where operators work in conjunction with the health department and the government to provide rooms where people can recover Opening hotel’s doors to victims of ‘domestic violence dedicating a floor of the hotel to offer relief and a safe space to those in need. People can support their local by visiting loveofyourlocal.com.au and nominating their favourite venue, then buying a pint of CUB beer using their credit card or PayPal account, with the cash going to the venue directly. Quest Apartment Hotels has teamed up with Housing All Australians and the Salvation Army to provide temporary accommodation for Australians that are at risk of homelessness. Due to this crisis, we know thousands of people have lost their jobs and are struggling to pay rent, we know domestic violence is on the rise, and we know these situations can lead to homelessness, he said. holding 20 rooms every night free of charge for healthcare workers at nearby hospitals who may need extra support or a safe place to sleep close by.

provides examples of incremental, substantial and social innovations demonstrated by hospitality leaders in Australia. From a responsible leadership perspective, we analysed stakeholders, which comprised owners and leaders, operations managers, employees and customers, and society at large, including communities in which the business operates.

We were surprised to find in this early stage of the crisis when business leaders were faced with multiple challenges (including uncertainty about how the crisis would unfold, how long it would last and how it would impact the future of businesses), awareness of the needs of others as well as examples of responsible leadership in action. In fact, our general search (which did not comprise a search term related to responsibility) yielded socially responsible innovative actions that accounted for nearly 20% of all innovative activities. Innovations that were reported are the results of responsible choices leaders made in the face of uncertainty and threats posed by the pandemic, providing evidence of responsible leadership in crisis in the tourism and hospitality industry.

Our study (see Table 4) found a variety of innovations in different areas (e.g., operations, marketing, HRM, social issues), helping owners to sustain their business operations and managers to run the operations more effectively (e.g., revamped booking systems, a switch to the long-term rental of hotel rooms, which can be linked to UN SDG #9 Industry Innovation and Infrastructure) as well as to retain and attract new customers (e.g., via the use of new social media channels) and secure jobs (e.g., via flexible working arrangements for employees, which can be linked to UN SDG #8 Decent Work and Economic Growth). While these findings of incremental innovations confirm some results from earlier studies (e.g., [36,98]), our study unravels the responsibility displayed through incremental, substantial and social innovations in the early stage of the crisis. Applying responsible leadership theory, we share the following results of the media analysis from a stakeholder perspective, particularly focusing on leaders’ responsibilities towards different constituencies, starting with leaders’ responsibility for the business itself.

Responsibilities to the enterprise. For managers of for-profit businesses sustaining business viability is an essential responsibility. Prior to the crisis, paying taxes and creating jobs were seen as basic social responsibilities (e.g., [99,100]). However, in light of the crisis and the endangered livelihoods of families, they have risen in priority, as have responsibilities for the health and safety of employees and customers. Furthermore, the closing of pubs and restaurants during lockdown has highlighted the essential role that the industry plays in society as part of the Australian lifestyle and as an enabler of social interaction (e.g., ‘played a critical role in keeping the community close’: ABC News, 14.05.2020) and this can be linked to UN SDG #3 Good Health and Well-Being. Social interaction is seen as an important factor in the maintenance of mental health [101]. The crisis has shown that the hospitality industry fulfils a social function as a community meeting place. Hence, its sustainability is of broader significance for the well-being of society.

As discussed earlier, business leaders in the tourism and hospitality industry also have to cope with and overcome personal mental challenges caused by the crisis (anxiety, depression, etc.) in order to find ways to ensure business sustainability. Our data provide evidence of leaders who showed resilience in the face of the difficulties outlined above and were able to develop positive and innovative approaches to deal with the crisis.

Among the substantial (and transformational) innovations for sustaining business operations initiated by leaders in the hospitality industry were radical diversification strategies. These included transformations of hospitality businesses into bakeries, groceries or markets. Such strategic business model changes require, apart from flexibility, additional abilities, such as the transformational use of employees’ capabilities (‘the small brigade of chefs and front of house staff have turned into bakers and assistant gardeners—it’s a means to keep staff employed’: Gourmet Traveller, 5 May 2020) which can be linked to UN SDG #8 Decent Work and Economic Growth and UN SDG #9 Industry Innovation and Infrastructure.

Responsibilities to employees. In their endeavour to ensure business survival, business leaders showed concern for the interests of different business stakeholders. For example, a hotel owner noted that ‘selling takeaway tap beer is a big break with pub tradition, but it will help ensure cashflow as we bunker down and try to see this crisis out and keep as many staff employed as possible’ (Business News Australia, 28.05.2020). Another pub owner transitioned to takeaway while being mindful of employees’ needs and acknowledging the role of community support, noting that:

It’s all about adaptation to try and keep our business alive and keep our employees in. At the moment, we’re trying to keep on as many staff as we can, and obviously, with the community supporting us and making orders, we’ve been able to hold onto some of our staff. (ABC News, 29 March 2020)

Moreover, for some business leaders, the above-mentioned substantial business model innovation became a strategy that allowed them to retain staff, realise business growth and thereby create new jobs. This helped them to exercise their responsibilities towards employees and society at large.

Responsibilities to customers. Responsibilities to customers discussed in the literature range from food and product safety to nutritional health (e.g., [102,103]). Apart from widely discussed incremental innovations that were introduced by business leaders to comply with government regulations and to protect the health and safety of customers and employees (such as social distancing protocols, improved cleaning procedures, and provision of hand sanitiser, often at extra cost), our data show that responsible leaders went beyond compliance and developed their own innovative approaches. Examples include but are not limited to the development of product innovations, such as affordable and healthy ’survival menus’. As one restaurateur noted: ‘It’s about providing food that ensures I can pay my wages, and people who have lost their jobs can still afford to feed themselves. It’s not just survival for ourselves. It’s for everyone else’ (Gourmet Traveller, 24 March 2020). This can be linked to UN SDG #2 Zero Hunger and UN SDG #10 Reduced Inequalities. This quotation shows the other-oriented approach underlying some innovations driven by the intention to meet the needs of different stakeholder groups. This approach of integrating the interests of self and others created win-win-win situations (ensuring the sustainability of the business, securing jobs for employees and providing affordable meals for customers).

Other innovative and flexible ways to respond to stakeholder needs were decisions by hospitality owners to contribute to the supply of essential goods during phases of supply-chain bottlenecks and panic buying, as exemplified by ‘selling bags of flour to customers who are experiencing difficulty sourcing it due to panic-buying in supermarkets’ (Gourmet Traveller, 16 March 2020). This can be linked to UN SDG #9 Industry Innovation and Infrastructure and UN SDG #12 Responsible Consumption and Production.

Apart from these incremental innovations, we also found evidence of substantial customer-serving innovations developed by business leaders. An example is the digital innovation ‘#EatAloneTogether hashtag’ initiated by the Restaurant and Catering Association. This initiative went viral and evolved into a social movement in April 2020. It was developed as a collaboration among stakeholders inside and outside the industry with the purpose of helping the restaurant industry survive the pandemic by providing new digital services to customers through pick-up and delivery orders. The innovation provided benefits for existing and new customer groups (e.g., people with physical disabilities or other mobility challenges). It received support from celebrities and business associations as well as companies (e.g., [104]). As one CEO reported, ‘venues, which were once competitors, are now helping each other cross-promote to their customers and generate takeaway/delivery transactions’ (The Hotel Conversation, 12 May 2020). This can be linked to UN SDG #17 Partnerships for the Goals. Here we also observe an integration of pursuing the interests of self and others coupled with a collaborative approach, creating another win-win solution.

Responsibilities to community members in need. Leaders make socially responsible choices. These choices are not limited to business stakeholders. They include a broad range of social constituencies ranging from communities to people in need (e.g., Maak and Stoetter, 2012) [105] and are directed towards the public good [4].

The data provide a number of examples. A restaurant owner kept the venue open despite being understaffed (due to restrictions), pointing out that the restaurant fulfils a social role in the community and helps combat the loneliness felt by some community members (‘the decision to stay open was driven by community need. There are people in this suburb who live on their own and we’re the only people they see that day’: Gourmet Traveller, 15.05.2020). This can be linked to UN SDG #3 Good Health and Well-Being. Furthermore, some hospitality owners decided to repurpose hotels as quarantine facilities (also called ‘medi-hotels’) (The Hotel Conversation, 24 March 2020) to assist their communities and travellers during the coronavirus crisis. Others proactively offered their facilities for social purposes for free and repurposed their facilities to provide shelters and accommodation for homeless people (e.g., the InterContinental Hotels Group, the Housing All Australians initiative). Others held rooms for healthcare workers for free (‘holding 20 rooms every night free of charge for healthcare workers at nearby hospitals who may need extra support or a safe place to sleep close by’: The Hotel Conversation, 27 April 2020) or opened their doors to victims, particularly women and children ‘fleeing domestic violence’ (Hospitality Directory, 21 April 2020), as a response to the increase in domestic violence resulting from the lockdown. Those actions can be linked to UN SDG #3 Good Health and Well-Being and UN SDG #17 Partnerships for the Goals.

Despite being heavily affected by COVID-19, leaders in the tourism and hospitality industry have played an important role in providing socially responsible responses to the crisis. Leaders applied various strategies, going beyond compliance (e.g., with hygiene standards) and cost-cutting strategies, demonstrating creative and innovative approaches, ranging from incremental innovations to substantial innovations. Particularly surprising during this time of crisis were findings of leadership innovations in the area of social responsibility (e.g., repurposing hotels, survival menus) that can be linked to UN SDG #3 (Good Health and Well-Being), UN SDG #9 (Industry Innovation and Infrastructure), UN SDG #12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and UN SDG #17 (Partnerships).

The question of “whether the hospitality industry should maintain pandemic prevention measures after the pandemic has ended” is multifaceted and depends on a variety of factors. On the one hand, certain measures such as enhanced sanitation and hygiene practices and socially responsible strategies have become integral components of the hospitality industry’s operations and could help mitigate potential social and health issues in the future. Furthermore, demonstrating responsible leadership through community-centric approaches and socially responsible behaviour could positively impact long-term business development by enhancing a company’s reputation and attracting customers who prioritise sustainable and socially responsible practices. As a result, in the post-pandemic era, customers and communities may feel more comfortable patronising businesses that take additional precautions to ensure their safety and promote societal well-being.

For future emergencies, it is imperative for businesses in the hospitality industry to develop contingency plans that can be rapidly and efficiently executed in response to diverse crises. This necessitates establishing a framework for responsible leadership, prioritising the well-being of employees, customers, and the broader community, as well as being flexible and innovative in response to evolving circumstances. Certain pandemic prevention measures may also have applicability to other types of crises, such as heightened sanitation and hygiene practices to prevent the transmission of other infectious diseases and adaptable staffing arrangements and contingency plans to address natural disasters or other disruptions. Overall, hospitality industry businesses must focus on constructing operational resilience and flexibility to respond effectively to a variety of crises. This includes creating a crisis management plan, regularly reviewing and updating it, and investing in the required resources and infrastructure to support it. This approach will enable businesses to better anticipate and react to potential future crises while maintaining responsible and sustainable operations.

5. Conclusions, Limitations and Future Research

This analysis provided insights into a new leadership approach, namely responsible leadership, demonstrated by leaders in the tourism and hospitality industry during the early months of the COVID-19 crisis in Australia. This leadership approach is associated with innovations that serve the broader public good. Overcoming the different challenges posed by the crisis, responsible leaders integrated self-interest with consideration for the interest of others, showed socially responsible behaviour, and engaged with and formed partnerships with other stakeholders. This approach resulted in win-win solutions and socially responsible innovations (both incremental and substantial) by helping employees keep their jobs to provide for their families, helping customers maintain access to essential food, supporting communities and people in need by providing accommodation, and helping with social issues such as loneliness and domestic violence. This demonstrates that responsible leadership can offer a pathway for transforming the tourism and hospitality industry towards a more sustainable and community-centred ‘new normal’.

5.1. Future Research Directions

More research is needed that examines the link between responsible leadership, stakeholder engagement and innovation. Questions that arise include: How do responsible leaders build trustful relationships with different stakeholders? How do they engage in partnerships and coordinate actions that lead to value creation for business and society and contributions to the public good? What are boundary conditions affecting responsible leadership in the tourism and hospitality industry (e.g., ownership structure, government regulations, country culture)?

Another question for future research is: What could responsible leaders learn from the crisis about shaping a positive post-crisis reality and creating a better, more socially responsible tourism industry that actively contributes to the UN SDGs and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development? Responsible leaders need to engage in both incremental and substantial innovations to tackle crises, and these often go hand in hand [32]. Incremental innovations often allow for a quick response to ensure short-term survival. However, responsible leaders can make substantial innovations—which often require more time to be developed—to achieve profound change and for post-crisis success (including preparedness for future pandemics). In light of the tourism industry’s social role, responsible leaders should be encouraged and supported to think about ways to further develop successful substantial innovations for the benefit of society. An example would be to think about further developing the ‘#EatAloneTogether hashtag’ initiative to foster togetherness to serve the public good [4]. This could mean using this successful digital innovation to create a virtual hospitality context (e.g., facilitating virtual food gatherings). The social purpose of creating togetherness via technology would be to help particular stakeholder groups overcome loneliness (either due to lockdown or other personal circumstances) and/or to provide opportunities to engage in hospitality experiences for those customers who could otherwise not participate in social gatherings due to constraints on their mobility.

5.2. Limitations

While our study presents timely insights into the COVID-19 challenges and innovative leadership responses, it also comes with limitations. Firstly, our data are based on a particular time window (the first three months of the crisis) and the Australian context, thereby, the approaches to dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic might be culture-specific. Future research should compare our findings with leadership approaches in other countries and also consider contextual differences in terms of government support.

Similarly, further research should be conducted on the role and potential of responsible leadership in generating and sustaining substantial innovations as well as redefining the post-crisis role of the tourism and hospitality industry in society. We particularly suggest a longitudinal research design that investigates whether and how social and substantial innovations developed during the crisis can contribute to shaping a better and more responsible post-crisis ‘new normal’.

Secondly, while we have applied a stakeholder focus, we had to limit our analysis to a few stakeholders (owners, employees, customers, and communities) represented in the data. Future research should consider a broader range of constituencies, such as suppliers, intermediaries, governments and tourism education, which may yield further insights for business leaders, educators and policymakers alike.

While we have focused on responsible leadership and social innovation at the start of COVID-19, future research should also investigate approaches to tackling the environmental challenges that the pandemic has posed (e.g., the increase in plastic and other toxic waste due to hygiene measures) and ways to resolve them (e.g., replacing plastic containers with biodegradable or compostable packaging).

5.3. Recommendations for Policymakers

‘The social responsibility activities and actions that we identified in our study have demonstrated not only stakeholder solidarity in times of crisis, but also ambiguity tolerance on the part of business leaders as they handle the paradoxical tension between profit-making and purpose-driven contributions to society. However, the industry can only provide temporary relief for profound societal problems, not resolve them. Government support and cross-sector collaborations are needed.

The crisis entails an opportunity to transform the tourism and hospitality industry to better align with the UN SDGs, and to embrace responsible leadership with its potential to unleash innovation to achieve the UN SDGs and a better ‘new normal’. We, therefore, provide some recommendations for paving the way towards a more socially responsible ‘new normal’ in the tourism and hospitality industry.

During crisis situations, leaders are needed who are able to leverage incremental innovations for short-term crisis management and survival while, at the same time, developing substantial innovations for business and society and post-crisis success (including preparedness for future pandemics). We discovered that even under duress, leaders have a positive attitude to collaborating with stakeholders and demonstrating social responsibility. Their self-transcending spirit to create value for stakeholders, communities and society should become part of a better post-crisis ‘new normal’. Policy and government support would be well invested to leverage the existing positive spirit, incentivise a socially responsible business approach, promote it in the tourism industry and its national and regional associations, and support cross-sector collaboration between industry leaders and their stakeholders to generate substantial innovation and work towards the UN SDGs.

Moreover, business leaders are not born as leaders but develop over time (Black and Morrison, 2014) [106]. Accordingly, educational opportunities should be offered to develop relevant leadership capabilities. One pathway could be to initiate and support the design and delivery of customised responsible leadership development programs for industry leaders that raise awareness of ways the tourism industry can contribute to achieving the UN SDGs (see [13,107]), and help leaders to recognise and respond to stakeholder needs, to lead responsibly through crisis situations, to build a values-based culture of trust focused on human and planetary well-being, to foster innovation to pursue the UN SDGs and to engage in partnerships with external stakeholders to develop such innovations. Such programs could be developed in partnership with universities with expertise in responsible leadership, sustainable development, and the hospitality and tourism sector.

Further, crisis situations such as COVID-19 are challenging on many levels and are expected to reoccur. Businesses and their leaders not only profit from financial support during crises but would benefit from preventive measures to avoid burnout, increase health and well-being, and build resilience in preparation for the future. Mindfulness training, even through short courses, is a way to alleviate stress and build resilience (e.g., [108,109]) and can support recovery in crisis situations. Policymakers would be well advised to systematically invest in preventive measures (including mental health initiatives and mindfulness programs) for business leaders and staff.

Last but not least, a systematic training agenda is needed (across all sectors of business and society) that raises awareness and builds skills for contributing to the UN SDGs, and for building partnerships and developing innovations. As [14] stressed, deep structural change is needed to achieve the UN SDGs. This requires a systematic UN SDGs awareness and training agenda across different sectors of society and business (tailored to the needs of different industries, such as tourism, extractive, etc.). Policymakers need to develop, promote, implement and fund a systematic training agenda to enable business leaders and citizens to contribute to the achievement of specific SDGs at the country level. A partnership approach across sectors, including businesses, professional associations and universities, is recommended.