Hospitality and organizations: Enchantment, entrenchment and reconfiguration

Abstract

This article examines the complex relationship between hospitality and organizations. It is argued that a variety of organizational practices can be understood by considering how hospitality is mobilized and experienced by multiple stakeholders. The article begins by synthesizing 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 organizations and management. The article first considers how hospitality is extended to or oriented towards external stakeholders and thus mobilized 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 organizational norms and to reciprocate. Second, the article considers how hospitality emerges within organizational 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 organizational spaces and networks, and hospitable acts may thus help to reconfigure power relationships and become focal points of resistance. The article concludes by reflecting upon emerging questions, challenges and potential avenues for further research and intervention.