Communicating the stakeholder engagement process: A cross-country analysis in the tourism sector

Stakeholder engagement (SE) is considered a best practice in sustainability reporting, as it increases companies' social legitimacy and reputation. Companies have to properly communicate the SE activities, paying attention to the social, cultural, and political factors that affect the perception of stakeholders. This is particularly relevant in the tourism sector, which is a typical multistakeholder context. In the academic literature, few studies have investigated the role of the country-specific determinants of corporate social responsibility, and none of them adopt a cross-country approach. The objective of this paper is to analyze the disclosure of SE, observing the content of nonfinancial reports and company websites of all companies belonging to the Global Reporting Initiative database. Cross-country analysis confirms that European and non-European firms approach SE activities differently. The research offers a contribution to the development and improvement of company relations with stakeholders from a value cocreation perspective, identifying the areas of interest on which firms can work to advance the SE communication process.