Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure and Market Reaction: An Indonesian Study

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY DISCLOSURE AND SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING-2 513

SUSTAINABILITY DISCLOSURE ON MALAYSIAN HOTEL WEBSITES

Corina Joseph ([email protected])

Centre for Graduate StudiesUniversitiTeknologi MARA (UiTM) Sarawak, Malaysia

Valerie Chan Sue Lin ([email protected]) Academy of Language Studies,

UniversitiTeknologi MARA (UiTM) Sarawak, Malaysia

Esmie Obrin Nichol ([email protected])

Faculty of AccountancyUniversitiTeknologi MARA (UiTM) Sarawak, Malaysia

Patricia Melvin Jussem ([email protected])

Faculty of Hotel and Tourism ManagementUniversitiTeknologi MARA (UiTM) Sarawak, Malaysia

ABSTRACTThere has been an ongoing sustainability issue in all types of organizations globally including hotels. En-gagement of stakeholders is vital in advancing the sustainability agenda. One useful tool for stakeholders’ engagement is by using the website. This study aimed to determine the extent of sustainability information communicated by Malaysian hotels via websites. A content analysis technique was used to determine the extent of the sustainability information disclosure on 300 city hotel websites. A modified checklist from past literature was used to record the absence or presence of sustainability information reported on these websites. The sample frame for this study was obtained from Malaysian Association of Hotels website. Data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). Results show that hotels gener-ally communicated information regarding marketing and promotional activities on their websites. Hotels included more economic information as compared to social and environment information in their vision and mission statements. The hotels did not fully utilize the websites to provide awareness about sustainable development. This research contributes to the CSR in hotel industry particularly in an emerging economy.

Keywords: Sustainability, sustainable development, university, websites, stakeholders’ engagement

IntroductionGlobally, most organizations have been and continue to promotethe sustainable

development agenda. These organizations would have active collaboration and knowl-edge diffusion to advocate issues related to the environment protection and economic prosperity. Hotel is without any exception, being an integral part of the tourism industry. In Malaysia, for example, “the tourism industry and its related services have emerged to become the second most important industry over the last twenty years” and “is perhaps in the better position in integrating and balancing competing economic, environmental and social interests.” (Liew-Tsonis&Cheuk, 2012, pg.179).Ensuring the very environment

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in which thehotel and tourism industry thrive remains unpolluted and attractive is a challenge, as the very high consumption of water, energy and other resources, and the generation of large amounts of wasteby the industry has a detrimental effect on the future sustainability of the industry, if not properly managed and controlled. The tourism indus-try is expanding rapidly to meet the rapid increase in international arrivals and domestic tourists. It has become a major source of income and employment for many countries who had taken advantage of the natural resources that they have which include: pristine beaches, various types of climates, clean air and natural landscape formation among others (Bhatiah, 2001; Mensah, 2005).

As hotels continued to be built all over the globe, they will exert mounting demands on resources (natural and human generated), producing more wastes thus, affecting the revenue, environmental performance and public image of the hotel sector. Hotels, either local or internationally managed, consumes vast amount of energy and water resources and at the same time discharging vast amount of gaseous, liquid and solid waste into the environment. Collectively, they could harm the long-term sustainability of this tourism sector. Like other buildings, hotels used electricity for lighting, heating, cooling and to run appliances. In addition, electricity is also used by hotel structures or individual units that have their own appliances for heating, cooling and run the appliances used in them.

Previous studies revealed that the hotel industry is an industry whose activities con-stitute a threat to the environment due to its high consumption of energy, water, and non-durable goods (Kassim, 2009; Mensah, 2006;Chan&Wong, 2009; Bramwell&Alletorp, 2001). When hotels provide food, drinks, accommodation, service and conveniences to guests they consumes huge amount of energy, water and non-durable goods in the process of providing guest rooms, kitchen, recreational facilities, housekeeping services and toilets (Chan&Wong, 2009) as well as disposing off various kinds of waste into the environment. Studies suggest that hotels afflict the environment by polluting the air, water and generate wastes (Park, 2009; Kassim, 2009; Chan& Wong, 2009).

Sustainable business practices are rapidly gaining visibility and importance in the hospitality industry. As the public is increasingly concerned about environmental issues and the demand by guests that hotels share their commitment to the environment, sus-tainable management or green management is rapidly becoming a strategic tool that can enhance a hotel’s competitive advantage. While implementing sustainability initiatives can be challenging, it also brings great benefits – new guests, improved efficiency and profitability.

Hotels and resorts around the world are recognizing that responsible environmental and social practices translate into benefits for business, the environment and the global community. Hoteliers are now adopting environmentalmanagement systems as a means of improving resource use efficiency, reducing operating costs, increasing staff involve-ment and guest awareness, and obtaining international recognition in the travel and tourism marketplace. These initiatives provides cost savings and reputation benefits to ensuring the long-term appeal of a destination to travellers, good environmental and social practices make good business sense. As Liew-Tsonis and Cheuk (2012) emphasized, there should be less concentration on design and promotion of theoretical framework and idealistic concepts but more on applicable practices, which will assist in advancing sustainable development, focusing on identification and application of lessons from practical experience. Hoteliers can actually learn from their successful counterparts in


the area of sustainable practices.

In Malaysia, the environmental management practices at hotel are still at its infancy stage. Only 50% of hotels in Malaysia have committees on environmental issues and about 40%-45% on energy consumption (Abdul Samad, Abdul Rahman and Ibrahim, 2008). It was asserted that, small and medium hotels, for example, in Kuala Lumpur, have an im-portant role to play in advancing sustainability because their cumulative effects of small and medium hotels on the environment is substantial and may lead to biodiversity loss and natural resources degradation (Kassim, 2009).

Hotels practices in advancing sustainabilityare greatly influenced by the formal and informal pressure of guests, suppliers, the local folks and the government. These include purchasing environmentally friendly products, recycling and reusing resources, which for example encourage guests staying more than a night to reuse their towels and bed linens, and the employment of the local people.In Malaysia, for example, “at least 50% to 100%” of operational and management levels staff are local “due to the employment policy in the country” (Siti-Nabihaet al., 2011, p.59).

Being a key sector in tourism, regardless of sizes and types, hotels needs to play a role in several key environmental and social impacts namely: (1) energy management; (2) water use management (3) waste management; (4) wastewater management; (5) chemical use and atmospheric contamination; (6) purchasing/procurement and (7) contribution to community development; (8)contribution to biodiversity and nature conservation;(9) social issues in the workplace; (10) environmental management systems (Sweeting & Sweeting, n.d.).However, it is put forward in the paper that, for the sustainability agenda to be realistically planned and achieved, these sustainability principles should be regularly disseminated and communicated to both internal and external stakeholders in hotels. In this technological rapidly changing era, website maybe used as a strategic tool to com-municate sustainability information to both groups of stakeholders. Of all the various communication media by companies, the Internet “is fast becoming the most popular because it offers an exciting, interactive, and proactive means of making company envi-ronmental information available to a diverse audience quickly at little cost”(Jose & Lee, 2007; Jones et al., 1998; Marken, 1998, Rikhardssonet al., 2002).

Sustainability reporting is one of the sustainability research areas that is still gain-ing prominence throughout the world (Joseph, 2010a). Researches in CSR in Malaysia have been on companies’ annual reports (Jangguet al., 2007; Amran& Devi, 2008; Amran&Haniffa, 2010) although CSR information could also be found in other mediums, such as, websites, internal bulletins, newspapers, advertisement and others (Zeghal& Ahmad, 1990). There has been a research on sustainability reporting on Malaysian local authorities websites by Joseph (2010a) and suggested that websites could be used as a strategic tool to communicate sustainability information.Based on this premise, the aim of this study is to determine the extent of sustainability information disclosed on Malaysian hotels’ websites. Thus, the corresponding research question is:

What and how much sustainability information is reported on Malaysian hotel web-sites?

This paper is significant for the following reasons. Firstly, to the best of the researcher’s knowledge there is no published research in Malaysia examining sustainability information


reported on the website using content analysis technique—particularly in the hotel setting. Secondly, this paper extends the categories of environmental communication used by Jose and Lee (2007) and modifies these into environment, economic and community/social categories to suit the hotel’s environment objectives. Therefore, this extended work will provide new insights into sustainability reporting in hotels.Finally, the paper contributes to the growing literature on the extent of sustainability website reporting. This is in line with suggestions made by past literature to focus on media other than annual reports to disclose sustainability information (Zeghal&Ahmed, 1990; Tilt, 2001; Adams & Frost, 2006).

Literature reviewIn relation to the research question posed in this paper, it is imperative to discuss the

content of sustainability reporting on the websites. Researches on website sustainability reporting have focussed on large corporations in developed countries (Jose & Lee, 2007; Rikhardsson et al., 2002; Esrock&Leichty, 1998; Hsieh, 2012). More companies reported on social information compared to environmental information (Rikhardsson et al., 2002; Esrock&Leichty, 1998). On a similar note, a review by Holcomb et al. (2007)of the top world ten hotel companies’ websites, annual reports and corporate social responsibility reports available on the internet found that “the environmental category was the one that was not heavily reported”. Holcomb et al. (2007) categorized social responsibility into five, namely; community, environment, marketplace, vision and values, and workforce.

In conjunction with a specific industry, Gill et al. (2008), in their study on a web analy-sis of sustainability reporting in the oil and gas industry revealed that most of the firms reported on environmental responsibility, followed by economic and social information. This probably stems from the fact that the oil and gas industry generally has substantial direct and greater damagingimpact on the environment, when compared to the hotel industry, for example, and so face greater pressure to report its environmental practices.It was concluded that there was attempt for improvement in fulfilling stakeholder calls for greater business sustainability.

In a developing country, Dutta and Bose (2007) attempted to fill the gap in the non-existence of study on web-based corporate environmental reporting in Bangladesh. Find-ings revealed that this type of reporting is still in its infancy and the level of disclosure is very low. Consistent with previous studies on environmental disclosure in the annual report of a developing country, such as Malaysia, most of the information was qualitative in nature and only represented by positive information (Yusoffet al., 2006; Sumiani et al., 2007). The point of view put forward in this paper is that the examination of different media of reporting in the developing countries produces a similar result, that is a low level of disclosure, which is narrative in nature.

The website study of the top 50 hotel companies listed in Hotels (2009), having 45,245 hotel units worldwide indicate that only 46 percent of the sampled companies include environmentally related information on their web sites. Of those, 69 percent were Europe-based hotel companies, 37 percent were North America-based hotel companies, and 33 percent were based in Asia (Hsieh, 2012).

Website environmental and sustainability reporting of Malaysian local authorities and companies, other than the hotel industry, are generally emerging,for example, Joseph (2010) study of Malaysian local authorities anda study of Malaysian companies by Amran


(2012). However, to the best of authors’ knowledge, research on website sustainability information communicated by Malaysian hotels via websites is limited, if not non-existent. This is consistent with Hsieh (2012) conclusion that environmental reporting on web sites of the hotel industry did not compare favourably with the web site reporting of global corporations in other industries. Only 38 percent of the 50 hotel companies use the internet to report, compared to the 60 percent of top Fortune 500 and 200 companies in other industries (Rikhardssonet al., 2002; Jose & Lee, 2007 as cited in Hsieh, 2012).

Previous researches on sustainability in hotels in Malaysia have focused on the envi-ronmental initiatives and practices of selected hotels (Siti-Nabihaet al., 2011; 2012). The findings of these studies were the results of observations and interviews with various departments of hotel management. Therefore, based on the review of the limited lit-erature on hotel web-based sustainability disclosure above, it is interesting to determine the extent of sustainability information reported on Malaysian hotels’ websites.

Research DesignThe extent of sustainability reporting on Malaysian hotelwebsiteswas measured us-

ing the content analysis technique.In this paper, the extent of sustainability reportingis the presence / absence(1 or 0) of sustainability information reported on the website. The main reference for categorization is taken from Jose and Lee(2007). Their study is chosen as a guideline because they used websitesto analyze the environmental information. Jose and Lee (2007) analyzed thecontent of website corporate environmental disclosures of Fortune’sGlobal 200 companies in seven areas which consisted of 37 specificenvironmen-tal parameters. In this paper, there were four steps involvedin developing the content analysis instrument:

Step 1 - Use of Jose and Lee’s (2007) categorization list for theenvironment categoryStep 2 - Removal of some items from Jose and Lee’s (2007)categorization list. These areas

are chosen after analyzing afew websites of hotel in May 2013. Step 3 - Extension from environment to social and economy themesand justified by other

literature.Step 4 - Addition of other items from other literature.

The final content analysis checklist consists of 9 environment items, 11 social items and 10 economic items. One basic decisionin the category definition as mentioned by Weber (1990) is the mutualexclusivity of the categories. All the three categories should beinde-pendent to each other. Data pertaining to the disclosure of sustainability informationwere analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS)software version 20.0.

The websites for 300 cityhotels in Malaysia from the Malaysian Association of Hotels (www.hotels.org.my) websites were accessed and printed for the month of June 2013. The reason for confining data collection to one month was due to the rapid changes of information on the web. This is supported by, for example, McMillan (2000) who claimed “many web studies collected data in one or two months”.


Results and DiscussionsTable 1 presents information on the minimum, maximum, mean and standard devia-

tion of the total disclosure and individual categories of sustainability information.

Table 1: Descriptive Statistics

Minimum Maximum Mean Total

Total Disclosure 0 12 4.41 1323Total Environ-ment

0 5 0.36 108

Total Social 0 5 1.12 335Total Economy 0 6 2.93 880

Table 1 show that the range of items disclosed is between 0 and 12. On average, there are 4 items (out of 30 items) disclosed which represents 14.7% of the overall disclosure. This result is lower as compared to Joseph (2010a) that provided an average of 26.8% of the total disclosure of sustainability information on Malaysian local authority websites. This is in line with Gill and Yates-Mencer(1998)suggested that the website was being utilized by different types of organizations with different speeds, purposes and results.

The highest disclosure was from the economy category (880), followed by the social(335) and environment (108) categories respectively.Consistent with past studies, more hotels reported on social information compared to environmental information (Rikhardsson et al., 2002; Esrock&Leichty, 1998)

Range of economic information disclosed is between 0 and 6. More than 80% of the economic information reported are related to economy services - room, facilities, leisure and room rate, wedding package. Information on contact person on economic matters, for example, Marketing Executive and Public Relation Officer is reported by 47.7% of the hotel’s websites (refer Table 2).Generally, hotels merely communicate their role as busi-ness service providers on their websites.

As for the social category, the highest discloser is 5 itemsand the lowest disclosure is 0. Prince Hotel’s website provided comprehensive information related to the community engagement or hotel social responsibility.40% of the hotels reported on stakeholder’s engagement and 28% on the job employment (refer Table 2). The examples of disclosure of hotel stakeholder’s engagement and job opportunity are provided in Example 1 and 2 respectively.

Example 1 - Example on social stakeholders’ engagementMarriot’s hotel website disclosed information related to the engagement with stake-holders, that includes philanthropy, education, health and career opportunities. In carrying out these activities, Marriot works closely with stakeholders, in which the disclosure example identified ‘associate’ as the stakeholder.

Marriott’s commitment to society blends corporate financial contributions with in-kind


giving and the volunteer service of our associates around the world. We participate in efforts to provide shelter, food, and children’s health, while creating career opportunities for our associates in the workplace and supporting education in the hospitality industry.

Example 2 – Example of job opportunityOne of the most disclosed information in the social category is on job opportunity.

This could be due to the government’s employment policy i.e. “at least 50% to 100%” of operational and management levels staff are local (Siti-Nabihaet al., 2011, pg.59). Example 2 demonstrated how job opportunity information is communicated on Empire Hotel’s website.

Meanwhile, the disclosure of the social responsibility in concept is illustrated in Ex-ample 3. Meliá Kuala Lumpur (a part of Meliá Hotels International from Spain) presents their Corporate Social Responsibility clearly on their website (refer to Example 3). The hotel has proved its worthwhile effort as they received Earth Check Gold Certificate and ASEAN Green Hotel Award.

Example 3 -Meliá Kuala Lumpur (a part of Meliá Hotels International from Spain)CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

TOWARDS OUR CUSTOMERS

Offer our guests the best personalised accommodation experience, exceeding their expectations with the excellence of our best service.

TOWARDS SOCIETY

Actively seek to generate prosperity and sustainable development in the communities where we are present, respecting and promoting their culture, traditions and values, and paying particular attention to children and the most vulnerable groups.


TOWARDS THE ENVIRONMENT

Contribute to preserving the environment and landscape, monitoring the impact of our business and promoting awareness about sustainability among our stakeholders.

TOWARDS OUR SUPPLIERS

Use our size and professionalism to build lasting relationships based on trust, respect and mutual benefit.

TOWARDS OUR EMPLOYEES

Offer the best opportunities for professional development, based on the stability of a family company and the strength of a leading international player which knows how to recognise commitment, talent and achievements fairly.

TOWARDS OUR SHAREHOLDERS AND INVESTORS

Manage the company according to criteria for transparency, and ensure strict and proper governance to achieve profitability and increase value in the medium and long term.

TOWARDS OUR OWNERS AND PARTNERS

Offer the best comprehensive services to capitalize on its investment, managing with the professionalism, integrity and confidence of a large internationally-renowned brand.

Disclosure is now done through the various social media including Youtube. Pulau Springs Resort does their promotion on Youtube portraying it as an eco-friendly resort, with a lot of surrounding foliage emphasized and also caption like ‘tranquillity’ as part of their promotional video. This also shows that hotels are becoming more aware of the need to disclose their sustainability effort in order to sell their products as sustainability reporting encourages stakeholders’ engagement and it is an important factor in moving towards sustainable development. As asserted by Liew-Tsonis and Cheuk (2012), “There is a strong recognition that effective sustainable development can only be achieved with the engagement of society as a whole.”As well, hotels’ websites have their special link to social media such as Facebook and Twitter. This extensively promotes the stakeholders engagement related to social activities. This is in line with the suggestion by Joseph and Taplin (2012) that the social media be used to disseminate the sustainable development agenda.

As shown in Table 1, the range of items disclosed under the environment category is between 0 and 3. The low level of environmental information disclosure is consistent with Holcomb et al. (2007) and not consistent with Rikhardssonet al. (2002) and Gill et al. (2008). Also, this is consistent with Hsieh (2012) conclusion that environmental reporting on web sites of the hotel industry did not compare favourably with the web site reporting of global corporations in other industries. As shown in Table 2,there is no disclosure on stakeholders’ engagement on environment issues on social media, individual department and contact number related to personnel in charge of environment.

Other hotels with sustainability disclosure on their website and has benefitted from it includes Mines Wellness Hotel (a part of Mines Resort City). It was awarded the ASEAN Green Award from 2010-2014 and in its website; they present their aim clearly as “we are heading to become an eco-friendly hotel with sustainable practices.” In their Media


Hub, a number of social and green activities are listed and these include BerbukaPuasa Charity Dinner, Stroke Rehabilitation Charity Day, Earth Day 2011 and Green Makeover.

In addition, the Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur (a part of Starwood Hotels & Re-sorts), includes their sustainability efforts in their webpage. The top management has shown their strong support towards sustainability issues by communicating via the hotel’s website. Various sustainability campaigns were disclosed on the website, namely Save Mother Earth Campaign, Earth Hour 2013, UNICEF Challenge 2013 and developing envi-ronmentally products such as reusable mugs, Toastina Mugs. A part of their official Press Release clearly shows their sustainability efforts. (Refer to Example4).

Example 4 - Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur (a part of Starwood Hotels & Resorts)Press Release

Hotel’s cafe embarks on a unique Save Mother Earth campaign with the Sustainable Toastina Mug

Kuala Lumpur, July 2013- Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur has taken many efforts to help conserve mother earth and the hotel associates have always joined hands to come up with unique and efficient ways to go green! So, once again, the hotel takes on an active role in Starwood Hotels and Resorts’ Sustainability program. Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur Hotel’s very own deli-styled café, Toastina Café and Bar recently introduced its very own Toastina Mug as part of its’ go-green initiatives.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts has a legacy of caring for the environment and commu-nity with three main focus of the sustainability program - ‘Conserve Energy, Protect Water & Reduce Waste’. With great commitment in caring for the planet, Starwood goes forth in an attempt to maintaining exceptional guest services, as well as envi-ronmental sustainability. Thus, one of the major projects done by Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur was the installation of a Three-Phase Inverter&Dual Flow Tap Aerator. Both have greatly benefited the hotel in managing cost and reducing usage of elec-tricity and water efficiently. There was also full support from the Sales & Marketing team of the hotel in the ‘Recycling Program’ in the collection of recyclable materials, in one month amounting to 150kg! Furthermore, the Catering and Banquet teams have implemented The Sheraton Clutter-free meeting room setup so as to offer more room for meeting delegates to connect as well as to be more sustainable. Clutter-free meetings help planners and guests stay organized and productive, with an open room design and environmentally friendly amenities, which we provide to keep the main work area uncluttered and organized. “Green” features include double-sided notepads and water pitchers in lieu of bottled water, help eliminate waste and reduce consumption.

Continuing with its’ green focus, the hotel’s Food & Beverage team has recently came up with a unique idea when they unveiled the Toastina Mug! The Toastina Mug is a reusable, stainless steel and environmentally friendly mug, designed in striking silver and warm red. The red tone which envelopes the mug represents the Sheraton brand’s service culture of warmth and connecting to the community.

From Table 2, 14.7% of the hotels disclosedinformation related to environmental is-sues in their general statement as shown in Example 5.


Example 5- Prince Hotel& Residence Kuala LumpurThe Directors, Managers and Staff of the Prince Hotel & Residence Kuala Lumpur recognise and accept that the activities involved in running the business necessarily impinge upon the environment. In an effort minimise these effects, the hotel is com-mitted ta policy of sound and responsible environmental management, leading ta sustainable use of resources and optimal management of waste. Therefore, the hotel undertakes that it will:

• Ensure that all employees at all levels are aware of the potential environmental ef-fects of their activities and the benefits of improved environment performance.

• Communicate this environmental policy and promote environmental awareness amongst all employees.

• Display this policy statement in a prominent position within the Hotel.• Make this policy statement available tall interested parties on request.• Comply with all applicable environmental legislation as a minimum standard.• Promote the principle of ‘sustainable development’ whereby the present needs

of the hotel will not compromise the abilities of future generations tmeet their own needs.

• Take all measures that are reasonably practical to: • Reduce waste at source.• Re-use waste components where it is safe and practicable tds.• Recover/recycle those fractions of the waste stream where an outlet is available.• Dispose of final waste by the most environmentally suitable means.• Adopt the practice of responsible energy management through reduced consump-

tion and encouragement of energy efficiency throughout the business.• Aim for continuous improvement.

This policy statement will be reviewed annually tensure that it remains applicable the activities of the Hotel and any agreements made between the Hotel and stakeholders.

Our Continued Commitment• As a pro-active organisation, we are committed to taking hands-on steps, involving

sizeable investments, to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions associated with our hotel operations.

• We will continue to work with our advisors McKinnon & Clarke on improving en-ergy efficiency and voluntarily reporting our carbon emissions as a way of driving future improvements and encouraging those with whom we work to do likewise. –Prince Hotel

This indicates that Prince Hotel & Residence Kuala Lumpur is showing its strong com-mitment in advancing sustainable development. A lot of environmental protection initia-tives have taken place in the hotel and these have been communicated on their website.


Table 2: Individual categories of sustainability informationItems Total %

A Environment1 General statement or policy – energy efficiency, water, waste, green product,

biodiversity44 14.7

2 Any mention about environment in the mission statement, vision, objectives and other forms e.g. logo, motto or theme

18 6

3 Any strategy related to environment issue e.g. recycling, environment control, landscape, beautification, energy saving etc

8 2.7

4 Environmental activities or programs for examples, Recycling and other Green Initiatives

16 5.3

5 Promotion of environmental issues e.g. news etc 11 3.76 Stakeholders engagement on environmental issue by forum twitter, Facebook 0 07 Award 11 3.78 Individual department 0 09 Contact information 0 0

B Social1 General statement or policy e.g. occupational, safety and health policy 27 92 Any mention about social in the mission statement, vision, objectives and in

other forms e.g. logo, motto or theme 15 5

3 Any strategy related to social issue e.g. health, staff training, safety etc 6 24 Community engagement 16 5.35 Committee 2 0.76 Promotion of social issues via news 22 7.37 Stakeholders engagement on social issue by forum, twitter, Facebook 120 408 Local employment / job opportunities 84 289 Award 18 610 Individual department 8 2.711 Contact information 17 5.7

C Economy1 General statement or policy – e.g. commitment towards investors, stakehold-

ers, partners, owners11 3.7

2 Any strategy related to economy issue 0 03 Economy activities or programs 6 24 Economy services- room, facilities, leisure 295 98.35 Promotion of economy issues – e.g. Sales and marketing distribution, Reward

loyalty scheme, Hotel membership club46 15.3

6 Stakeholders engagement on economy issue by forum, twitter, Facebook 77 24.77 Financial information – room rate, wedding package 258 868 Award – Hospitality Award, Excellence Award 44 14.79 Individual department 3 110 Contact information 143 47.7


Conclusions, Implications, Limitations and Future ResearchThe paper has achieved its objective. On the average, there was only 14.7% disclosure

of sustainability information.This indicates that Malaysian hotels have started to engage in sustainability practices and demonstrated their commitment on websites. The economy information was mostly reported on websites, which was followed by both social and environment information respectively. Results show that hotel generally communicated information regarding marketing and promotional activities on their websites. The hotels did not fully utilize the websites to provide awareness about sustainably development. Generally, hotels merely communicate their role as business service providers. Hotels could use websites as a learning tool by referring to their peers’ websites on sustainability or social responsibility best practices.

The findings from this study provide several implications. Firstly, other hotels in Malaysia should follow the example of Prince Hotel & Residence Kuala Lumpur’sbest practices in advancing towards sustainability and promoting sustainability information on website. The top management should give strong support towards embedding sustain-ability principles in hotel’s daily operations. The Malaysian Association of Hotels could play an important role in encouraging all hotels in Malaysia to promote the dissemination of CSR and sustainability information on hotels’ websites.

This paper is not without limitations. Firstly, this is a cross-sectional study whereby websites were accessed for a period of one month. Due to a rapid change of information on websites, it is worthwhile to conduct website analysis at more than one point of time - in other words, a longitudinal study. This will assist in explaining changes of the infor-mation content at different points of time. This may expand the scope of future study to consider other aspects such as format and presentation of items on websites. The paper is solely examining the disclosure of sustainability information.

Secondly, conducting a survey to obtain perceptions regarding the need and usability of sustainability information among the hotel’s stakeholders could extend this paper: for example, the customers, suppliers and other business partners. This would assist in improving the decisions regarding the usefulness of reporting sustainability information on the hotel’s website. The survey could be expanded to identify the motivations and impediments in using such information on websites.

Thirdly, this paper is a purely a descriptive study. Future studies could consider the use of theories, for example, legitimacy or institutional isomorphism conception, to explain the variability in the sustainability disclosure. A more advanced statistical analysis could be performed to explain the theoretical / explanatory variables which affect the level of sustainability information disclosure on websites.

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Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure and Market Reaction: An Indonesian Study

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