A growing body of research has tested the protective effect of pre-COVID-19 CSR reputation or during-COVID-19 CSR action for hospitality and tourism firms but has obtained inconclusive results. These inconclusive results may have been because of the decoupling of during-COVID-19 CSR action from pre-COVID-19 CSR reputation. From the perspective of institutional theory, we use a sample of Chinese hospitality and tourism listed firms during the COVID-19 pandemic and a cluster-adjusted panel data regression with robust standard errors to reveal that the decoupling of a firm’s during-COVID-19 CSR action from its pre-COVID-19 CSR reputation negatively impacts firm value, and the negative impact is amplified for firms under stronger stakeholder scrutiny. Our findings could contribute to institutional theory by proving that decoupling is under close stakeholder scrutiny during crises and by identifying a specific type of CSR decoupling, and could offer practical implications for firms to protect their firm values during crises.
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