Hospitality that cares: a qualitative investigation into small foodservice businesses’ social responsibility

This study adopted Spence’s (2016) theorization of small business social responsibility (SBSR) to investigate how small hospitality foodservice businesses express and implement their social responsibility through prioritization of their key stakeholders. Using an abductive research methodology, 38 semi-structured interviews were conducted with small foodservice businesses located in Sheffield, UK. The findings revealed that these businesses exhibited three distinct types of business orientation, growth, value, and social entrepreneurship, which led to different interpretations and expressions of their SBSR. Prioritization of employees was important to these small businesses as they are crucial pivots of the service experience and important in the implementation of their SBSR. This study has evolved the SBSR understanding for hospitality businesses, which enriches the corporate social responsibility (CSR) scholarship by encompassing a better understanding of how small businesses prioritize different domains of responsibility in their interpretation of SBSR, through explaining the influential role of business orientation. The findings can support new and existing small hospitality business owners in making purposeful organizational changes.