CSR Perceptions and Brand Attitudes in Chinese Luxury Hospitality: The Moderating Effect of Ads vs. Media Reports
Mahsa Ghaffari
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
|
Originality and contribution |
||||||||
|
The study is, to my knowledge, original. If the topic of CSR and luxury business and consumer behavior is not new, the approach taken by the authors is new to me and interesting. Also, I compliment the authors for conducting an experiment.
Quality of Structure and Clarity |
||||||||
|
The paper is clearly structured and well-written.
Some remarks:
1. The following sentence in the abstract should be revisited: “the fit between CSR and luxury in the hospitality industry is determined by whether consumers positively or negatively perceive CSR initiatives.” I question the phrase: “the fit between CSR and luxury in the hospitality industry is determined by...” I do not think that the fit is determined by consumer perceptions. It is now clear that businesses MUST engage in CSR, no matter what consumer think if it. (Same issue in section 5.3 of the paper). This argument needs to be addressed in the paper. Consumers do play a role, but the competitive environment and the regulatory environment play also important roles. CSR should have an impact, not only on the consumers, but more importantly on the business, the sector, and society. That there can be corporate hypocrisy and greenwashing is another problem... but large luxury firms are increasingly taking CSR and the environment seriously (e.g., LMVH, Kering, etc.), including hospitality luxury companies...
2. The experiment is based “on the source of CSR information (advertisements vs. media reports).” However, the role of firm communication on consumer perceptions is not addressed in the literature review. I would recommend writing a paragraph about this topic in the literature review. In addition, in section 5.3, you write about “theoretical implications for CSR communication,” but you don’t try to explain or discuss them. This is indeed, I think, an important contribution of the paper, and you need to discuss it further. Referring to the literature is needed here.
3. You mention that “A recruitment advertisement was posted and shared on social media.” Can you elaborate? What was the social media? How was it selected? How often was the advertisement posted?
4. In section 4.3, you repeatedly use the term “gender.” Is it correct? Aren’t you talking about sex (i.e., Male and Female) instead of gender (social construction)?
5. The study is set in China. How does that influence the results? Also, with respect to cross-cultural research methodology, you cite Brislin (line 294) with respect to the “back translation technique”, but Brislin and several other authors (see cross cultural research methods in tourism book chapters) make further recommendations to address validity issues when translating items for a questionnaire and using such questionnaires in foreign languages and cultures. |
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
Editing:
Line 79: “Luxury is difficult to be defined because” should read “Luxury is difficult to define because”
Line 482: “Meanwhile, it is also important to corporate with media to increase the media coverage of CSR initiatives.” This sentence is probably missing one or more words; I don’t understand it.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 1:
We are grateful for your constructive comments and we have made revisions according to your comments. We hope you could satisfy with our revisions and responses.
- The following sentence in the abstract should be revisited: “the fit between CSR and luxury in the hospitality industry is determined by whether consumers positively or negatively perceive CSR initiatives.” I question the phrase: “the fit between CSR and luxury in the hospitality industry is determined by...” I do not think that the fitis determined by consumer perceptions. It is now clear that businesses MUST engage in CSR, no matter what consumer think if it. (Same issue in section 5.3 of the paper). This argument needs to be addressed in the paper. Consumers do play a role, but the competitive environment and the regulatory environment play also important roles. CSR should have an impact, not only on the consumers, but more importantly on the business, the sector, and society. That there can be corporate hypocrisy and greenwashing is another problem... but large luxury firms are increasingly taking CSR and the environment seriously (e.g., LMVH, Kering, etc.), including hospitality luxury companies...
Reply: This comment is valuable and our argument is indeed problematic. I have changed this argument to “the fit between CSR and luxury in the hospitality industry is closely associated with whether consumers positively or negatively perceive CSR initiatives”. We have also checked this problem throughout the article.
- The experiment is based “on the source of CSR information (advertisements vs. media reports).” However, the role of firm communication on consumer perceptions is not addressed in the literature review. I would recommend writing a paragraph about this topic in the literature review. In addition, in section 5.3, you write about “theoretical implications for CSR communication,” but you don’t try to explain or discuss them. This is indeed, I think, an important contribution of the paper, and you need to discuss it further. Referring to the literature is needed here.
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestion. We have added a paragraph in the literature review to discuss how firm CSR communication influences consumer perceptions (Section 2.4 and Section 2.5). We also added a paragraph in the discussion to discuss this issue (Section 5.1 and Section 5.3).
- You mention that “A recruitment advertisement was posted and shared on social media.” Can you elaborate? What was the social media? How was it selected? How often was the advertisement posted?
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestion and we have provided more detailed information about recruitment in Section 3.4.
- In section 4.3, you repeatedly use the term “gender.” Is it correct? Aren’t you talking about sex (i.e., Male and Female) instead of gender (social construction)?
Thank you very much for your suggestion and we have revised it.
- The study is set in China. How does that influence the results? Also, with respect to cross-cultural research methodology, you cite Brislin (line 294) with respect to the “back translation technique”, but Brislin and several other authors (see cross cultural research methods in tourism book chapters) make further recommendations to address validity issues when translating items for a questionnaire and using such questionnaires in foreign languages and cultures.
Reply: Currently, we have not considered the role of culture in shaping CSR perceptions and this is indeed a promising research direction in the future. We implemented a small-scale pilot survey (N = 100) to test and improve the reliability and validity issues of the Chinese questionnaire. In addition, we also implemented rigorous procedures to check and improve reliability and validity.
Line 79: “Luxury is difficult to be defined because” should read “Luxury is difficult to define because”
Reply: Done! Thank you!
Line 482: “Meanwhile, it is also important to corporate with media to increase the media coverage of CSR initiatives.” This sentence is probably missing one or more words; I don’t understand it.
Reply: Done! Thank you!
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
the manuscript is well written, the story is compelling and the experimental design is simple yet sound however I have very minor concerns:
1)In the introduction some luxury clothing brands like Gucci, Prada reliance on CSR initiatives are given although the focus in the manuscript is on the hospitality sector. Hence, the suggestion is to include some examples of CSR use by luxury hotels.
2) Line 112, it is stated: " CSR is not mandatory and is voluntary corporate behaviours" however governments in different countries like UK are introducing new regulations mandating compliance with \Asustainability like ESG (Environmental, social, and corporate governance)which in a sense incorporate CSR as well. Thus this statement needs to be edited.
3)the paragraph before H5 is not corresponding well with the hypothesis development, please consider rewriting this section.
4)As has been stated in the limitation section, apart from source credibility (media report vs advertising) nothing else were manipulated to account for different CSR perceptions. although this is a limitation, one way to improve it is to suggest directions for future researches, i.e. what are the other conditions that can influence individuals' CSR perceptions.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2:
We are grateful for your constructive comments and we have made revisions according to your comments. We hope you could satisfy with our revisions and responses.
1)In the introduction some luxury clothing brands like Gucci, Prada reliance on CSR initiatives are given although the focus in the manuscript is on the hospitality sector. Hence, the suggestion is to include some examples of CSR use by luxury hotels.
Reply: Thank you for your suggestion and we have made revisions correspondingly.
2) Line 112, it is stated: " CSR is not mandatory and is voluntary corporate behaviours" however governments in different countries like UK are introducing new regulations mandating compliance with \Asustainability like ESG (Environmental, social, and corporate governance)which in a sense incorporate CSR as well. Thus this statement needs to be edited.
Reply: Thank you! We have changed this argument.
3)the paragraph before H5 is not corresponding well with the hypothesis development, please consider rewriting this section.
Reply: Thank you! We have addressed this problem.
4)As has been stated in the limitation section, apart from source credibility (media report vs advertising) nothing else were manipulated to account for different CSR perceptions. although this is a limitation, one way to improve it is to suggest directions for future researches, i.e. what are the other conditions that can influence individuals' CSR perceptions.
Reply: Thank you! This is indeed a limitation of our research as we only manipulated a single condition. We have revised the limitation section according to your suggestion. In our future research, we will manipulate more conditions, e.g., linguistic style and CSR history.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
