Corporate social responsibility initiatives and hotel guests’ green consumption behavior in China: The mediating role of environmental awareness

Abstract

This study aims to explore the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities on the green consumption of hotel guests in China through the mediation of environmental awareness. Based on Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) theory, CSR activities serve as the stimulus, environmental awareness as the organism, and green consumption behavior as the response. To measure environmental awareness, the higher-order construct of environmental knowledge and environmental attitude is used, combining the cognitive and evaluative elements of guests’ internal processing of hotel responsibility cues. This research is a quantitative cross-sectional survey that used an online questionnaire in the WeChat mini-program. A total of 382 valid questionnaires were returned. SmartPLS 4 software was used to analyze the data. The results indicate that CSR activities have a significant positive impact on environmental awareness and green consumption behavior. Furthermore, environmental awareness also has a statistically significant positive impact on green consumption behavior. The indirect effect of CSR activities on green consumption behavior via environmental awareness is statistically significant, indicating complementary partial mediation through environmental awareness. The results of this study add to the literature on sustainable hospitality by demonstrating that hotel CSR activities can directly and indirectly affect guests’ green behaviors through an integrated awareness mechanism. The findings also reinforce the validity of S-O-R theory as a theoretical approach to understanding the adoption of environmentally responsible consumption in hotels and the role played by visible responsibility practices.