Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between ethnography and hospitality management. It argues that ethnographers studying this area become members of broader communities, and therefore have obligations to multiple interest groups, including hospitality academics, industry practitioners, social scientists, the workers employed in the industry, the consumers of commercial hospitality, and to a global community. The paper maintains that the issues surrounding the application of ethnographic methods and epistemologies to hospitality management can be understood by examining the diverse practices, values and interests of these communities. The paper considers three sets of issues: first, the reasons for the absence of ethnographic research into hospitality management; second, drawing on three ethnographic studies of commercial hospitality operations, the conflicts and tensions that arise when ethnographic research is conducted in commercial hospitality settings; and third, the potential role of ethnography in the teaching of hospitality, and its subsequent impact on management practice. It concludes that building the relationship between ethnographic research and hospitality education and practice requires the development of new communities of interest. To do this it will be necessary to a) build a body of work through applied research, and to develop alternative means of dissemination that challenge existing definitions and perceptions of hospitality management; b) use emerging pedagogic practices to legitimise the application of ethnographic principles to hospitality management; and c) build networks between hospitality academics, social scientists working outside the constraints of hospitality management scholarship, and the increasing number of social scientists working in business schools.