Celebrating Success – Dr Weizheng Zhang
Congratulations to Dr Weizheng Zhang and his co authors whose paper entitled “The Rebounding Paradox in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry: Why Strategic ESG Strengthens Organizational Resilience While Responsive ESG Undermines It” has been published in International Journal of Hospitality Management.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated significant disruptions for hospitality and tourism (H&T) firms, which exhibited resilience through an initial financial decline followed by recovery. However, the mechanisms for enhancing organizational resilience in this sector remain scarce. We address this gap by examining how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) influence organizational resilience, grounded in the resource-based view and signaling theory. Existing literature predominantly measures organizational resilience through absolute magnitudes of financial performance, treating recovery and loss as discrete dimensions. Departing from conventional measurements, we propose an advanced method to achieve a novel resilience index that quantifies the interplay between recovery and loss by calculating the ratio of the average recovery speed to the average loss speed during COVID-19. Drawing on stakeholder theory, we classify ESG implementation into two typologies: strategic ESG and responsive ESG. Using a quarterly reconstructed dataset of China’s A-share listed H&T firms during 2010–2023, the estimations from the regressions demonstrate that strategic ESG significantly strengthens organizational resilience, whereas responsive ESG undermines it. It also revealed that marketing capabilities enhance positive effects of strategic ESG on organizational resilience and weaken negative effects of responsive ESG. Earnings aggressiveness mitigates positive effects of strategic ESG and exacerbates negative effects of responsive ESG.