Hospitality and organizations: enchantment, entrenchment and reconfiguration.

Abstract

This paper examines the complex relationship between hospitality and organisations. It is argued that a variety of organisational practices can be understood by considering how hospitality is mobilised and experienced by multiple stakeholders. The paper begins by synthesising existing conceptions of hospitality and outlining its different dimensions. It then goes on to examine how hospitality themes and related issues emerge in, and are thus relevant to, the study of organisations and management. The paper firstly considers how hospitality is extended to or oriented towards external stakeholders and thus mobilised as tactical or strategic enchantment. It is argued that hospitality can be used purposefully to establish power relations and invoke obligations both to conform to organisational norms and to reciprocate. Secondly, the paper considers how hospitality emerges within organisational practices and may be deployed by various stakeholders as an instrument of entrenchment to perpetuate existing norms and hierarchies. However, it is also suggested that practices of hospitality can create alternative organisational spaces and networks, and hospitable acts may thus help to reconfigure power relationships and become focal points of resistance. The paper concludes by reflecting upon emerging questions, challenges and potential avenues for further research and intervention.