The Effect of CS strategy on employee: An exploratory study of the influence of corporate sustainability strategy to prevent food waste on employee perception and engagement.

Abstract

In addition to the environmental impact of food waste, many studies have shown the substantial economic losses and social implications of food waste. Thus, food waste plays a key role on long-term global sustainability. In the European Union, estimation shows the hospitality sector produces about 12% of the food waste within the FSC, which is the third largest figure. Consequently, food waste prevention in the hospitality sector is a vital corporate sustainability activity in the business pursuit of sustainable development. Technological innovations such as software and apps developed specifically to assist food service professionals in quantifying and characterizing the content of food waste are examples of sustainability management tools that hospitality enterprises adopt with their CS strategies to prevent food waste. The research investigates the relationship between CS strategies and employees’ perception and engagement with food waste activities in five hospitality enterprises in the Netherlands. The paper connects theories on CS strategy and employee engagement with CS. Overall, results confirmed H1- CS strategy to prevent food waste that is integrated with business strategy positive influences employees’ perception about CS strategy and H2- employees’ perceptions about their companies CS strategies, when positive, positively influence employee engagement in food waste activities. From a scientific point of view, the research contributes to the micro-foundations of CS. From a societal point of view, results give valuable managerial insights into the design of CS strategies to prevent food waste.