Análise das ações estratégicas da Booking Holdings sob a ótica da responsabilidade social corporativa e dos objetivos de desenvolvimento sustentável

Abstract

There is less than a decade left for the 2030 Agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end and they are far from being achieved, they have become even more distant with the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2030 Agenda recognizes the importance of the private sector in the quest for Sustainable Development and in meeting the SDGs. Businesses can play a relevant role in achieving the SDGs, due to their vast financial resources, broad reach, innovation power and creativity. In this sense, many companies have adopted Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives to mitigate the negative impacts resulting from their activities and move towards the SDGs. In particular, the tourism sector, made up of a diverse range of companies that, when developing tourist activities, cause positive and negative impacts of global extension. This work investigates the relationship between CSR strategies oriented towards achieving the SDGs and the Financial Performance (DF) of Online Travel Agencies (OTA) “Booking Holdings”, in the period from 2011 to 2021. To measure CSR strategies oriented for the SDGs, a systematic interpretive documental analysis was carried out and to measure the relationship between PD and CSR strategy oriented towards the SDGs, the analysis of the company's financial statements was used as a function of the CSR strategies. In this way, it was found that Booking Holdings has intensified its CSR practices over the last six years and all practices are related to achieving at least one SDG of the 2030 Agenda. The social dimension is the pillar of sustainability in which the company most invests, several programs and actions by Booking Holdings are directed towards SDG 8, 10, 13 and 9. Confronted with the company's financial data, CSR practices behave like a long-term investment, that is, the benefits acquired by them it may take a year or two to become noticeable. The importance of the care that the company must take with signaling CSR actions to its stakeholders was also evidenced, because although Booking Holdings invested heavily in CSR actions in 2017, the communication of these actions only occurred in 2018 and consequently, as it is a long-term investment, the market reaction takes place in the following year. In this sense, the results allow us to conclude that Booking Holdings invests in CSR actions in conjunction with the company's strategies. Since most of its investments seek to intervene in social aspects and its business is directly associated with people. In addition, the company's PD starts to be positive after communicating and carrying out CSR practices, which means that there is a positive relationship between PD and the company's CSR actions.