Page 118 - Sustaining Accommodation SMES

6Analysis

tion providers, iso 21401 is not rejected on principle but is perceived as
difficult to pursue under prevailing operational conditions.
The pattern also suggests that the most salient constraints are those
that directly increase the behavioural cost of certification. Staffing and
time scarcity represent classic organisational bottlenecks in smes, where
managerial and operational roles are often merged and where additional
documentation and monitoring tasks must compete with day-to-day ser-
vice delivery. The prevalence of paperwork as a highly pertinent barrier
further confirms that administrative load is perceived not as a minor in-
convenience but as a decisive friction that reduces the likelihood of initi-
ating or sustaining certification. From a Stern perspective, these barriers
illustrate how contextual factors structure the decision environment by
increasing effort requirements beyond what many firms can absorb.
A second cluster of contextual barriers relates to the long-term viabil-
ity and fit of the standard. Costs of renewal (52) suggest that the barrier
is not limited to entry costs but extends to the perceived sustainability
of maintaining certification over time. Similarly, the perception that the
standard is too rigid for the firm (54) and that the firm is too small
(46) indicates concerns about design fit. These findings point to a mis-
match between the procedural and managerial requirements of iso 21401
and the operational realities of small accommodation businesses. Stern’s
framework is useful here because it highlights that adoption depends not
only on motivation and capacity but also on institutional design and the
compatibility of the intervention with routine organisational functioning.
Infrastructure and measurement related constraints reinforce this
point. The lack of monitoring tools (51) and the perception that key per-
formance indicators are too vague (27) both relate to the informational
and technical foundations required for standard aligned management. In
Stern’s terms, these are contextual constraints because they refer to the
availability and clarity of enabling systems rather than to internal motiva-
tion. Without monitoring tools and clear indicators, adoption becomes
riskier, more time consuming, and less managerially credible. Impor-
tantly, these barriers connect directly to the logic of iso 21401, which
relies on systematic monitoring and continuous improvement. Where
the monitoring infrastructure is weak or the indicators are perceived as
unclear, organisations are less able to translate sustainability intentions
into the type of structured behaviour that certification demands.
Capability constraints form a smaller but still consequential layer. Lim-
ited knowledge of the adoption process is reported as highly pertinent by

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