Post on 06-Mar-2023
A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT RESEARCH
1. Introduction
An emergent contemporary hospitality literature is
dedicated to methodological appraisal and development.
Much of this work harnesses the spirit of interpretive
and reflexive perspectives (e.g. Lashley, 2008; Lynch,
2008; Lugosi, Lynch & Morrison, 2009). Indeed, since
Litteljohn (1990) a plethora of texts agitate for the
development of mature hospitality studies, including
those campaigning for the articulation of a ‘hospitality
philosophy’ (e.g. Taylor & Edgar, 1996). Despite the
contemporary diversity of research methods applied to
hospitality management problems (Rivera & Upchurch,
2008) and the significant contribution of many resources
to inter-, multi-, extra- and trans-disciplinary
methods, (e.g. Lashley & Morrison, 2000; Lashley et
al.,2007), hospitality studies’ scholars continue to
lobby for the development of research approaches,
particularly those pertaining to qualitative enquiry
(Riley, 2008; Lynch, 2005).
Although many hospitality research topics are
social scientific in nature (Jones, 1998; Slattery,
A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY RESEARCH 2013
1983) there appears consensus in the literature that
(post)positivism is the (often unstated) dominant
research paradigm in this field of enquiry (Botterill,
2000). Even so, hospitality management researchers have
generally avoided articulating and debating research
philosophies (and methodologies), as they relate to an
actual project. This paper seeks to systematically lay
bare the methodological praxis of an empirical study to
provide a portal into the crafting of a hospitality
research project. While this discussion is occurring in
journals with broader cultural and sociological leanings
(see Lynch, Molz, McIntosh, Lugosi & Lashley, 2011), and
some work deploys not oft-used methods for hospitality
workforce investigations (e.g. Sheehan , 2012; Slavnic,
2013) it is useful to bring this debate to the
mainstream hospitality management academy. This paper
does not claim to showcase any unique or novel
methodologies as such, but instead offers an invitation
for hospitality management scholars to consider how they
‘know what they know’. This article, which seeks to find
a balance between its methodological and research
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finding ambitions, pivots around a study which aims to
disentangle an umbilical hospitality and tourism
workforce challenge – organizational and occupational
commitment.
Framing this study is phenomenology, a branch of
the interpretative philosophical sciences. As Pernecky
and Jamal explain a phenomenological approach “in
tourism is highly pertinent as phenomenology is
concerned with the study of lived experience” (2010,
p.1056). In this study however, our gaze is directed at
the lived experiences of those that are often
responsible for the generation of tourist experiences –
the workers – notwithstanding that their services are
also enjoyed by other constituencies. Thus the
overarching purpose of this paper is to showcase a
research methodology, which demonstrates that with
judicious attention to philosophical approaches, framing
paradigms, research strategy and design, prudent
selection of analysis and interpretation tools, and
candid research evaluation, hospitality research can be
robust and rigorous and emancipate itself from an
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“apologetic or inferior stance relative to its inclusion
in the ‘academy’ ” (Morrison & O’Gorman, 2008, p.219).
The research described in this paper presents a
particular challenge in that it follows a sequential
mixed method design, which incorporates an exploratory
quantitative phase preceding the substantive qualitative
phase. While some authoritative mixed methods scholars
(e.g. Creswell, 2009; Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009)
advocate a value-neutral, or ‘aparadigmatic’, position
this research directly negotiates the methodological
challenges inherent in the commensuration of
quantitative and qualitative studies.
2. Research background
Workforce development and labour issues vex tourism
and hospitality operators, industry representative
bodies and governments globally (Cooper & Ruhanen 2009),
yet a paucity of literature, at least in hospitality and
tourism’s preeminent journals, address workforce issues
(see from Pizam, 1982 to Ladkin, 2011). The critical
hospitality industry imbalance between labour supply and
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demand in advanced economies is particularly acute for
professional cooks, or chefs, and is reported so by
industry, policy makers and in the literature (Young &
Corsun, 2010). In Australia, the context of this
research, there is an undersupply of well trained and
available qualified chefs (About the National Skills Needs List,
2010), critical given hospitality and tourism are
projected as growth industries (Quinn, Bailey, & Chen,
2013). The standout reason of the undersupply is a high
attrition rate (McDermott & Carter, 2010). Although
relatively healthy numbers are attracted to the vocation
of cookery the dropout rate amongst apprentices and
recently qualified chefs is high (Robinson & Beesley,
2010). In Australia, previous data suggest attrition
represents a 40% wastage rate of qualified chefs within
eight years of occupational entry rising to 65% by 10
years (Casey, 2003). Furthermore, regional government
data collected across the 2000s reports that
apprenticeship completions in commercial cookery
(training chefs) were steadily declining to less than
20% (Commercial Cookery Apprenticeships, 2010).
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Work attracting attention to these trends however,
has been conducted since the 1970s (e.g., Chivers,
1971). Since the mid-1980s through to the present, a
plethora of literature has examined various aspects of
the phenomena of chefs’ organisational and occupational
mobility. Most however, adopt positivist or post-
positivist approaches (e.g., Chuang, Yin & Dellman-
Jenkins, 2009; Lee-Ross, 1998; Sellah & Riley, 1994;
Young & Corsun, 2010; Zopiatis, 2010). As workforce
issues are beginning to attract greater research
attention, given the plurality of issues demanding
consideration (Baum, 2007; Zampoukos & Ioannides, 2011),
research is increasingly utilising emergent research
perspectives (e.g. Janta, Brown, Lugosi & Ladkin, 2011)
– as this paper aims to showcase.
Typical approaches to hospitality human resource
management (HRM) problems though, are characterised by a
Marxian tone and underscored by the ‘marginal worker
thesis’ (Wood, 1997), which presupposes that hospitality
employment is only attractive to those at the fringes of
both society and the formal economy. Moreover, the
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literature fixates on perceived poor working conditions
as catalysts for organizational and occupational
mobility (Kang, Twigg & Hertzman, 2010), a well
understood individual expression of job malcontent. Much
energy has been invested in identifying the costs of
mobility (Davidson, Timo & Wang, 2010) and combating the
apparent inherent ambivalence towards, or ‘culture’ of,
turnover (Deery, 2002). The study nested within this
methodological paper however, investigates causality –
and at that an alternative explicator for the mobility
of chefs – creativity.
Turnover theory is one platform from which to
investigate the causation of mobility. Mobley’s (1977)
first labour turnover model has been adapted to explain
intra- as well as inter-occupational mobility (Blau,
2007) thus providing a framework for understanding
occupational attrition as well as hospitality industry
‘churn’ (Rowley & Purcell, 2001). Turnover theory
provides for the identification of both extrinsic and
intrinsic work motivators. To view intrinsic motivators
occupationally it is useful to do so via an occupational
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community perspective (Van Maanen & Barley, 1984), since
intrinsic values are, in a large part, shaped by the
occupational cultures in which individuals are immersed
in the workplace. Here too there is a tradition in
hospitality studies pertaining to chefs (e.g. Cameron,
2001; Chivers, 1971; Fine, 1996; Lee-Ross, 1998). A
defining feature of a shared occupational community, or
culture, of chefs, is creativity (Fine, 1996; Peterson &
Birg, 1988).
The generic literature in creativity also is rich
(e.g. Kirton, 1976; Sennett, 2008). Creativity is
associated with individual performance (Amabile, 1997),
organizational success (Tan, 1998), and in the
hospitality industry managerial competencies (Wong &
Pang, 2003) and employee motivations (Wong & Ladkin,
2008). Concomitantly, a literature in deskilling,
generically (Braverman, 1974; McGuinness & Wooden,
2009), outlines the disempowering effects of stripping
out the craft-based and artistic functions of a job.
Deskilling for the occupation of cookery has been a
phenomena observed in the literature (e.g. Lashley,
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2009; Zetie, Sparrow, Woodfield & Kilmartin, 1994) and
one that is an increasing industrial reality due to
technological advances, outsourcing and standardization
practices in contemporary professional kitchens
(Robinson & Barron, 2007).
These four concepts – turnover, occupational
community, creativity and deskilling – are thus
intertwined to formulate the question that frames the
study this paper reports:
Does deskilling inhibit the expression of the
occupational community-conditioned intrinsic work
motivator of creativity, thus undermining occupational
satisfaction and commitment, leading to turnover and,
ultimately, the occupational attrition of chefs?
The next section of this paper is dedicated to
critically appraising the methodological development of
the research scaffolding and informing the two empirical
phases of this study designed to address this question.
This is captured in figure 1.
PLEASE INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE
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3. Paradigmatic framework
Paradigmatic positions permeate the entire research
process from its conceptualisation to operationalization
and finally to its communication. Whether consciously or
not, research is “guided by a set of beliefs and
feelings…” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, p.19). Yet an
overwhelming quotient of hospitality research is guided
by a neutral or aparadigmatic positivism and post-
positivism (Botterill, 2000). This study however,
utilises phenomenology, a “research praxis that ha[s]
followed in the wake of the so-called interpretive turn
and the so-called literary turn of the human sciences”
(Hollinshead & Jamal, 2007, p.85). Although
phenomenology has historically traversed paradigmatic
positions (Pernecky & Jamal, 2010), as Hollinshead and
Jamal hint above it is the Heideggerian (1962)
interpretivist application of phenomenology to
illuminate understandings and meanings of human existence and
experiences that consign it as a valuable approach for this
study.
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Rejecting the predicating detached, foundationalist
and deterministic truths, deductive principles and
generalisability of positivism and post-positivism, the
interpretivist sociological ontology of phenomenology is
founded on a relativist reality – declaring that a
multiplicity of fragmented, or plural, realities co-
exist (Heidegger, 1962). Hence, the phenomenologist’s
etiological position is that a number of explanations
are plausible for causal relationships when
investigating human interactions, in this case the
occupational commitment of chefs. Theory building thus
manifests through an inductive approach and, generally,
is substantive only. These phenomenological principles
are clearly applicable to this study since chefs’
‘reality’, is largely informed by their ‘constructed’
experiences within an occupational community (Lee-Ross,
2002). Moreover, this position has an axiological
empathy given the sharing and inculcation of values and
beliefs rest at the core of an occupational culture
(Sandiford & Seymour, 2007a).
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To capture the richness of lived experience the
phenomenologist assumes an epistemology unlike that of
the positivists and post-positivists. A dialectical
process of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis between
experienced and described phenomena, human actors and
researcher facilitates the reaching of shared
understandings of how each perceives (their) realities.
As such the observable world and its actors are subjects
in the research process. Hermeneutics, a foundational
principle of phenomenology (Heidegger, 1962), provides a
methodological framework for researcher and participant
to arrive at a mutual understanding, whereby both move
regularly from descriptions of phenomena to
understandings of experiences encountered.
This researcher/participant relationship
necessitates an important disclosure. The first author
is a qualified chef, who practised across a range of
hospitality sectors for 18 years, about half of that
time in managerial positions. This allowed the
researcher to adopt an emic, or ‘insider’ posture
(Botterill, 2000), relative to the phenomena under
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investigation, which lubricated and augmented the
hermeneutic cycle. This stance is not entirely
unproblematic and will be discussed later. Nonetheless,
this emic rapport facilitated deep insights into the
workplace experiences of chefs, and a reflexive
hermeneutic cycle, such that participants’ comments
became catalysts for the reconsideration of various
themes discussed in the light of personal and
professional experiences – a process continued into
analysis and beyond. This reflexivity enabled re-probing
from alternative standpoints – both in the field and at
the desk. As Schwandt notes “[t]he fact that language
and history are both the condition and the limit of
understanding is what makes the process of meaning
hermeneutical” (1998, p.224). These issues of language
and history shall be pursued further but before
departing the study’s epistemological domain the matter
of commensurability arises.
3.1 Commensurability
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This mixed methods study employs an exploratory
quantitative phase prior to the substantive qualitative
phase. Phenomenological and interpretivist purists would
thus be critical on the grounds of the Kuhnian (1970)
‘incommensurability of paradigms’ doctrine. The
doctrine’s proponents argue that, in simplistic terms,
certain research methods are fit-for-purpose only within
prescribed paradigms. From an epistemological
perspective several approaches can avert the
methodological criticism that the methods employed
breach the incommensurability of the paradigms maxim.
Some contemporary proponents of mixed methods
research have coined the terms ‘situationalist’ and ‘the
pragmatist paradigm’ (Creswell, 2009; Teddlie &
Tashakkori, 2009) to rationalise the use of convenient
and appropriate research methods. The aim of
phenomenological approaches is not to produce universal
theory it certainly endeavours to achieve unified
accounts. Indeed, Guba and Lincoln (2005), champions of
interpretivism, are adamant that an inclusive approach
to method is appropriate and does not compromise
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epistemic position. While they maintain that qualitative
techniques are most appropriate for the phenomenological
family of approaches: “[t]here are times, however, when
the issues and concerns voiced by audiences require
information that is best generated by more conventional
methods, especially quantitative methods” (Guba &
Lincoln, 2005, p.200). Indeed, Husserl (1970), who
aligned with the positivistic phenomenological
traditions (Pernecky & Jamal, 2010), was not averse to
quantitative methods, himself a mathematician and
logician. As Giorgi (2005) explains, Husserl “did not
absolutize the quantitative approach” (2005, p.80). So
in the field of psychology combining quantitative and
qualitative approaches, or ‘numerically aided
phenomenology’ (Kuiken & Maill, 2001), is well accepted.
4. Research strategy
While some researchers reduce the process of
navigating from the philosophy of science to research
praxis as a straightforward choice between methods,
Blaikie (2000) advocates a more ‘strategic’ approach. It
involves formulating a strategy that is the most
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appropriate way to answer a research problem. Denzin and
Lincoln explain: “a strategy of inquiry comprises a
bundle of skills, assumptions, and practices that the
researcher employs as he… moves from paradigm to the
empirical world” (2003, p.36). Strategizing research is
cerebral, the mind-mapping, or conceptualisation, of the
research process. Underpinning this research is
life/work history, a strategy that accommodates
quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods. The import
of the strategic research flexibility afforded by
life/work history is that an exploratory quantitative
survey can inform the ‘what’ and ‘where’ and ‘when’,
while the substantive qualitative interviews can explain
the ‘how’ and ‘why’.
4.1 Life/Work History
Life history approaches are adaptable to various
methodological orientations (Bertaux & Kohli, 1984) and
are compatible with quantitative, qualitative studies
and mixed methods (Dex, 1991). The Chicago School
embraced this approach applying it to the broader study
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of “individuals, groups and social organizations”
(Ladkin, 1999, p.38), including, the workplace, its
occupants and their relations. Life/work history
approaches are employed in the hospitality field
(Ladkin, 1999) This approach is further suited to this
study since it acknowledges the out-of-work factors that
may impact on career history, for instance occupational
selection, and the influence of the personal life cycle
on chefs’ occupational mobility as suggested in the
literature (e.g. Pratten, 2003).
This life/work history research strategy was
operationalized in this study by the adoption of a four
career domains model which approximated a career in a
broad temporal sense. These career domains, which
reflected the occupational selection (Guerrier & Adib,
2003) and occupational socialization (e.g. Gomez-Meijia,
1984) themes apparent in the literature, preceded the
third (in the present) career domain – that of
organizational satisfaction. Finally, the fourth career
domain integrated into the work/life history research
strategy was occupational satisfaction, which Blau
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(2007) differentiated from organizational satisfaction.
This fourth career domain invited research participants
to consider not just the present but also their futures
– in other words occupational commitment. This
conceptual framework is modelled in figure 2.
PLEASE INSERT FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE
4.2 Research design
Before detailing the research design the reader is
reminded of the key research question:
Does deskilling inhibit the expression of the
occupational community-conditioned intrinsic work
motivator of creativity, thus undermining occupational
satisfaction and commitment, leading to turnover and,
ultimately, the occupational attrition of chefs.
Not since Chivers (1971) has a significant study of chefs
investigated many of the concepts and constructs this
research problem integrates. A plethora of predominantly
qualitative studies (e.g. Bartholomew & Garey, 1996;
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Birdir & Pearson, 2000; Cameron, 2001; Fine, 1996; Johns
& Menzel, 1999; Murray-Gibbons & Gibbons, 2007; Pratten,
2003; Rowley & Purcell, 2001), but also some quantitative
studies (e.g. Chuang, Yin & Dellman-Jenkins, 2009; Lee-
Ross, 2002; Zopiatis, 2010) were useful in informing and
refining the research problem. Thus it was determined
necessary to explore previous constructs in the
literature that were relevant to occupational selection,
socialization, job (organizational) and occupational
satisfaction. A key construct of interest across these
domains was creativity. This prompted the adoption of the
eight stage mixed method research design for the overall
project (see figure 3).
PLEASE INSERT FIGURE 3 ABOUT HERE
Evidently, each of the eight stages (see figure 3)
of the multi-strand (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009) or mixed
methods study (Creswell, 2009) research design are
informed by the previous stage and in turn inform the
next. As introduced the focus of this paper is on the
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development of the research scaffolding of this study,
particularly commensurability and the operationalization
of the qualitative phase. Consequently, only a brief
passage is devoted to the design of the first phase’s
instrument design and administration.
4.3 Research administration
Briefly, the first phase questionnaire design
comprised 14 questions, to explore the ‘what’, ‘where’
and ‘when’. Six categorical questions obtained workplace
specific demographics. Next, a further two questions were
designed to establish historical turnover, and an
additional two questions tested for commitment, or
‘intention to quit’ – both for current job and current
occupation (cookery). Lastly, 59 attitudinal items were
split between four banks of questions - that is
structured according to the life/work history-informed
four career domains (see figure 2). Responses to each of
the 59 attitudinal items were measured on a Likert scale
ranging from ‘1’ (strongly disagree) to ‘7’ (strongly
agree) with ‘4’ being a neutral point. The questionnaire
was designed to also provide a sub-sample from which to
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select candidates for the second phase, the in-depth
semi-structured interviews.
Administered to a population of chefs working in the
Southeast Queensland club sector, Australia, 196 useable
surveys were returned representing a 26.5% response rate.
Data analysis using SPSS focussed on first, identifying
relationships between the sample’s demographics and the
respondents’ past and intended turnover patterns and
second, identifying relationships between the attitudinal
items and how these might vary as a function of the
various demographics and life/work history variables.
Summarily, results confirmed high turnover, high
intention to quit, both current job and occupation, and a
linkage between dimensions of creativity and both these
turnover intentions (see Robinson & Beesley, 2010). In
short, the study’s first phase suggested that there was a
positive relationship between organizational and
occupational commitment and workplace creativity
expression. Cognisant of the limitations of quantitative
research, which can sacrifice important data in pursuit
of mathematical precision (Walle, 1997) these
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relationships were prised open in the study’s second
qualitative phase.
Congruent with the sequential mixed method research
design the purpose of the study’s qualitative interviews
was to collect rich, relevant and revealing life/work
histories (Ladkin, 1999; Tierney, 2000), specifically
those that further illuminated causal relationships
between the four key literatures that underpinned the
theoretical framework and were explored in the first
phase of the study - deskilling, creativity, occupational
community values and occupational commitment. As such the
qualitative phase, which was operationalized as a series
of semi-structured in-depth interviews, manifest more as
conversation given the researcher’s emic posture
(Botterill, 2000). It allowed the researcher to identify
with the chefs, to interpret non-verbal cues, (redundant)
nuances and most critically, engage and elicit
occupational rhetoric.
For the study’s second phase an interview protocol
was developed structured in a biographical and
chronological manner, harmonious with the life/work
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history approach (Dex, 1991; Ladkin, 1999) (see figure
2), concomitant with the first phase. Four key interview
questions, the responses and the ensuing dialogue which
were actively manually recorded and audio-taped, were
extrapolated from the research question. The first
question explored the validity of ‘creative’ and
‘artistic’ as integral to occupational selection and
socialization; the second the impact of these on job
satisfaction; the third to probe any influence on career
mobility patterns; and lastly, to determine whether any
of these factors had an identifiable relationship with
career and life goals (which may manifest in occupational
attrition).
Participants for the interviews were sought from
the willing respondents in the first phase. Ultimately,
32 interviews were conducted. Neutral venues for
interviews were preferred to defuse any power issues
between the researcher and participant (Wasserfall,
1997). Interviews ranged in length from 65 minutes to
nearly three hours but averaged two hours in length.
According to the interview structure the participants
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were encouraged to talk, recollect and contextualise
experiences. Various probing techniques, for instance
‘laddering’ (Rugg, Eva, Mahood, Rehman, Andrews &
Davies, 2002), congruent with hermeneutical practice,
were used to elicit the best responses possible relating
to the key research question. While analysis begins
reflexively during data gathering this project’s
analysis followed several structured steps.
5. Analysis and evaluation
While discussion to this point implies that “theory
cannot simply ‘emerge’ from data, because interpretation
and analysis are always conducted within some pre-
existing conceptual framework brought to the task by the
analyst” (Pidgeon & Henwood, 2004, pp.627-28), some
practical tools were employed in the analysis to assist
in ‘objectifying’ the data. First, data was managed via
the use of the qualitative analysis software package
NVIVO. Some 45 x 8.5/11 (A4) pages and 55 hours of
audible digital recordings transcribed into 1,500 pages
of single-spaced text were imported into this package.
Concurrently, the data was inductively and iteratively
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analysed in an exploratory manner to develop codes and
themes. Thirdly, the themes were reinterpreted from a
specific investigative analysis theoretical framework,
that of rhetoric analysis. In this way data was
principally managed and initially analysed in the chosen
software, but the substantive analysis was conducted
external to the properties of the package capabilities.
The integration of multiple analytical techniques,
specifically qualitative analysis software and rhetoric
analysis, has pedigree in the literature (Kitay & Wright,
2007).
Data were now organised sufficiently for the deeper
exploration of key themes relating to the research
question, and this was undertaken within a framework of
rhetoric analysis.
PLEASE INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE
5.1 Rhetoric Analysis
Rhetoric itself is the art of using language to
effect persuasion, be it with tone, parody, figures of
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speech, metaphors, idioms or even colloquialisms. As
Atkinson and Coffey (2004, p.73) explain “rhetorical
devices… get a particular point of view across to others.
We draw on conventions that are widely shared within our
culture.” More than this, from a Heideggerian
perspective, rhetoric is language, and “language is the
house of being” (Pernecky & Jamal, 2010, p.1064).
Rhetoric obeys the style of the community and culture
from which it derives and so occupational rhetoric
perpetuates and evolves and becomes the living, breathing
fabric of an occupational culture (Kitay & Wright, 2007).
Rhetoric, for chefs in this instance, communicates
occupational membership to their community, it conveys
core values, self-image and identity - even should this
involve self-deception (Livesey, 2002). In other words
occupational rhetoric generates and perpetuates both
truths but also mythical states that a community aspires
to (Bain, 2005).
Independent of rhetoric analysis, there are three
key rhetorical elements; first, ethos, relating to core
values and character, second, logos, pertaining to logic
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but best understood as a rationale, reasoning or even
raison d’être, and the third element, pathos, appealing to
emotion, or empathy and sympathy (Banks, 2001; Hessler,
2001). Within a methodological rhetoric analysis
framework these three elements were adopted as the coding
schema. Thus themes in the interviews that related to the
shared and understood foundational belief systems of
chefs’ occupational culture and community were assigned
the logos code. These themes were broadly attitudinal in
nature. Similarly, those themes that revealed a more
pragmatic and reasoned common rationale and occupational
application were coded ethos, and largely represented
occupational behaviour. Lastly, sentimental pleas
mobilised to elicit empathy with the participants and
their experiences, expressive in character, were coded as
pathos.
Similar analyses have been employed to unravel
occupational rhetoric for other creative occupations
including musicians (e.g. Groce, 1989; Kubachi, 2008)
and indeed, for chefs (Fine 1996). Fine’s (1996)
particular contribution to the field is the
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identification of a number of rhetorical stances (for
chefs) that represented various occupational identities
that group members strategically mobilised. Fine (1996),
in his analysis of the occupational identity of chefs in
the USA’s mid-west distils four alternative, but not
mutually exclusive, occupational rhetoric. These were
the professional, the artist, the businessman and the
labourer (Fine, 1996). He did not however, use the four
rhetorical elements identified above as a coding schema.
Hence, this current rhetoric analysis recasts Fine’s
analysis according to the above four elements of
rhetoric, which are the result of subsequent
methodological developments in the sociological
application of rhetoric analysis in industrial and
occupational contexts (e.g. Kitay & Wright, 2007;
Kubachi, 2008; Livesey, 2002). Before reporting the
findings of this application of rhetoric analysis
however, to gain some closure to this methodological
discussion it is necessary to evaluate the research
process. Specifically, criticisms of the methods used
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are addressed and so too validity/dependability,
reliability/trustworthiness and reflexivity.
6. Research evaluation
Beginning with ontological and epistemological
perspectives some scholars criticise the lack of fluid
praxis, rigour and application of phenomenology
(Groenewald, 2004) and even the philosophical purity in
hospitality emergent theory research applications
(Szarycz, 2009). Life/work history is also not without
its critics. As Ladkin (1999) encapsulates, most
criticism is the same as that generally levelled at
qualitative researchers. Issues of technical research
design and analysis problems asserts Dex (1991), are
solvable with the assistance of software packages, as in
the case of this study. But the criticism that
phenomenological approaches in hospitality studies and
the life/work history approach lack theoretical
generalizability, and risk the intrusion of bias from
the subjective researcher, are generally respondable to
by Denzin and Lincoln’s assertion that “[t]he age of
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value-free inquiry for the human disciplines is over”
(2000, p.19). Reliability and validity, alternatively,
are problematic labels for qualitative (Sandiford and
Seymour, 2007b) and mixed methods research, especially
when phenomenologically framed. Hence, these research
evaluation terms are used below to describe the first
quantitative phase but other evaluative terms, such as
dependability and trustworthiness, are proffered to
describe the second qualitative phase.
6.1 Reliability/Dependability
Reliability, simply stated, refers to whether a
research technique yields the same result when repeated
on the same phenomena (Bouma & Ling, 2004). Three key
aspects of reliability were addressed in the study’s
first quantitative phase: split-half, established methods
and research-worker reliability, in accordance with
Babbie (1995). Repetitive distribution of various
constructs, across the 59-item attitudinal scale spanning
the four career domain life/work history research
strategy, related to the occupational experience of chefs
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accords with the split-half reliability measure. As an
exploratory study the instrument, although customised,
sought to consolidate and integrate a body of studies
pertaining to the occupational experience of chefs and so
adapted some previously used items which yielded reliable
findings (e.g. Chivers 1971). Moreover, Babbie (1995)
posits that research-worker consistency is another key to
reliability and on this count it has been described how
the primary author conducted all the first phase
fieldwork, data management and analysis independently.
Reliability is more problematic for the study’s
second qualitative phase. For interpretative qualitative
research, because variables are not controlled to the
same degree as in quantitative work, dependability is a more
appropriate concept (Hollinshead, 2004). Foremost, a
consistent interview design was adopted. Dependability
can also be achieved by detailing a multisource process.
Several were deployed, including audio recordings, field
notes (especially recording non-verbal communications),
transcripts and memos. Moreover, deploying NVIVO
augmented the integrity with which these data were
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managed (Perakyla, 2004). Triangulating data and sources
assisted dependability and examples included
triangulating individual interviews against their first
phase questionnaire responses and triangulating
participant responses with other known participant chefs.
Finally, extensive documentation was recorded during the
coding, theming, analysis and interpretive stages, for
both individual participant chef data but also during
data convergence and by adopting a self-audit process in
the form of extensive memos during data collection and
during analysis and interpretation (Henderson 2006).
6.2 Validity/Trustworthiness
Validity, on the other hand, is a measure of the
empirical, predictive and confirmatory consistency of
research (Bouma & Ling, 2004). For quantitative research
the underpinning components are face validity, content
validity, predictive validity, and construct validity
(Babbie, 1995). For the study’s first phase face validity
was addressed during a pilot survey and the instrument
design accounted for the different ways in which concepts
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A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY RESEARCH 2013
could be expressed to ensure content validity. The
predictive validity of the instrument was partly tied to
the integrity of labour turnover theory, but was further
corroborated by the findings of the second phase. Again,
given that the questionnaire instrument was grounded on
HRM theory, there was confidence to suggest construct
validity. For external validity, the strong predictive
elements of the behaviour of chefs, as manifest in
occupational community, suggests the generalization of
the findings to populations (Creswell, 2009) of working
chefs might be possible.
Validity for the study’s second qualitative phase is
another matter. The suggested measures of consistency for
qualitative data are best described as trustworthiness.
Quantitative internal and external validity measures are
substituted for the qualitative concepts of credibility,
transferability and confirmability (Henderson, 2006).
Because these are hard to separate a number of other more
focused measures are also presented. Descriptive, or
apparent, validity relates to a mutual consensus on the
meaning of a construct, or its measurement. The critical
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A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY RESEARCH 2013
mass of data and the iterative process between data
discovery and data analysis enhanced credibility
(Henderson, 2006). Transferability partially relates to
the relationship between data and theory, or theory
validity (Kirk & Miller, 1986) and in the discussion that
follows there is evidence of a consistency between
findings and existing theory.
Interpretative validity refers to the gap between
the meaning attached to constructs by researcher and
participant. Triangulation of the data is a technique
utilised to gain internal trustworthiness. Many of the
participants spoke of constructs both in relation to
themselves and also other participants. Perakyla (2004)
encourages the close investigation of deviant cases in
the cross-checking. At least three interview participants
promoted deviant viewpoints. Yet the constructs and
themes the chefs discussed in relation to the research
question were highly consistent with other participants.
Trustworthiness should culminate in confirmability. While
each researcher brings unique perspectives to the
research process, accessibly can ensure data is objective
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A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY RESEARCH 2013
and can be corroborated (Denzin & Lincoln, 2003). The
validity processes described gives confidence that
researcher procedural integrity, linkages between theory
and data and participant corroboration accrue to
confirmability. In summary then, while the validity and
reliability of research that is framed within an
interpretivist phenomenological approach is more
appropriately approached from a dependability and
trustworthiness perspective, traditional measures are
still appropriate for the quantitative phase as
described.
6.3 Reflexivity
A further aspect of trustworthiness is reflexivity.
Reflexivity has become ubiquitous in contemporary society
never mind as a research tool (Hall, 2004). In research,
reflexivity is an acknowledgement of the dualistic cause
and effect relationship between researcher and research
participant. This is operationalized, essentially, by the
deliberate and strategic location of oneself vis-à-vis
the research and involves taking responsibility, rather
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A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY RESEARCH 2013
than relinquishing control, of the process (Mason, 2002).
Its incorporation into the research prevents the
introspection which is a hallmark of positivist and post-
positivist postures. Indeed, reflexivity was appropriated
as a tool of validation in the pre-phenomenological
traditions (Hollinshead & Jamal, 2007). More than this,
reflexivity pervades the entire research process. It
provided the impetus for framing the initial research
question regarding the labour mobility of chefs, given
the primary researcher’s own occupational experiences in
the occupation, the research question’s refinement and
the subsequent questions controlling the research
methodology.
Attention now turns however, to the role of
reflexivity as an evaluative and communication medium.
Clearly, interviews are highly reflexive (Alvesson,
2003). It is however, mainly in the interpretation (and
reinterpretation) of data that reflexivity comes into its
own - Heidegger’s (1962) ‘double hermeneutic’ manifest.
Given the author’s occupational experience this process
was potentially rich, as noted by others in this emic
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A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY RESEARCH 2013
position (e.g. Jennings, 2005). This process embodied
‘endogenous reflexivity’ (May, 1999), that is a body of
knowledge derived from the shared understandings of a
community.
Bourdieu (2004) considers there to be three
dimensions of reflexivity for the researcher and these
are all intertwined with habitus, or the researcher’s
“set of embodied dispositions” (Johnson & Duberley,
2003, p.1289). The first is the researcher’s position in
‘social space’. Here the author has already disclosed
his ontological and epistemological biases. There is too
a confessional aspect of going to former peers to
understand a problem, or ‘talking’ through them to
understand them better (Archer, 2007) - that is being
positioned as the ‘learner’ rather than the ‘learned’.
Bourdieu (2004) considers the second and third
dimensions for a researcher to consider vis-à-vis
reflexivity as their position in first, the field, and
then second, the academy. In terms of the researcher’s
position in the field it is here that they are subject
to what Burrell and Morgan (1979) term ‘meta-theoretical
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A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY RESEARCH 2013
assumptions’. This point resonates loudly in the
hospitality academy given its’, at once, polymorphous
and ambiguous disciplinary underpinnings.
Finally, as Richardson (2000) notes, writing itself
is a highly reflexive practice. It further challenges the
scribe’s entire research and their ability to clearly
articulate desired meaning/s. Reflexivity, despite its
functions of evaluation and utility across the research
process, culminate in the communication process. Again it
is not immune to the criticisms of qualitative research,
especially those emerging from phenomenologists
(Sulkunen, 2008). Foremost among these criticisms is the
contention that ultimately it is the researcher who ‘has
the final word’. While the many cautionary steps
described in the previous section regarding the
dependability and trustworthiness of research can
safeguard against the author’s voice being the loudest
(Henderson, 2006), ultimately reflexivity facilitates the
telling of a story, or describing a phenomena, from a
particular perspective. While this admission might be
anathema to the positivist (Alvesson, Hardy & Harley,
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A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY RESEARCH 2013
2008) it is consistent with phenomenological
epistemology, as described earlier in this article. Thus,
reflexivity fulfils the dual purposes of first, acting as
an extension of dependability and trustworthiness for the
qualitative phase of the mixed methods research design
and second, when deployed by an emic researcher
facilitates an iterative analytical process that enriches
the ‘knowing’ of a phenomena.
7. Findings and discussion
Informed by the quantitative phase of the study this
paper reports, which highlighted a relationship between
creativity and turnover intentions, and being cognisant
of the parameters of research evaluation and reflexivity,
three dominant occupational rhetoric were identified
during the core qualitative phase rhetoric analysis. A
prominent rhetoric reflecting industrial reality bore out
in a set of attitudes, attributes and qualities integral
to the occupational culture of chefs. This represented a
‘practitioner’ ethos. Business acumen, knowledge and
skills, the ability to maintain professionalism under
extreme pressures (Kang et al., 2010), the obligations to
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pass these occupational fundamentals to entrants through
teaching (Pratten, 2003), and the status garnered by this
(reified) conditioning characterised the ‘practitioner’
rhetoric symptomatic of a shared, yet pragmatic,
occupational ethos. This rhetoric appealed to an
occupational shared value-system that asserted
(para)professional status (Hertzman & Stefanelli, 2008).
A male chef nearing retirement conveys his take on
occupational ethos:
[Chefs] have got their own professionalism inside
them. So the job has got to be done and it has got
to be done well. It does not matter how long it
takes. It has got to be done well… I cannot handle
it not being done well.
Apparent here is a shared culture of professional
behaviour, a code of conduct that is expected of
occupational members.
Next, a range of sentiments converged in a ‘worker’
rhetoric, which appeals directly for empathy and so
represents pathos. Often manifest in the context of poorly
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perceived pay and working conditions (Murray-Gibbons &
Gibbons 2007) and an occupational self-image of
‘tradesperson’ embracing the integrity of commitment to
work (Palmer, Cooper & Burns, 2010), camaraderie (Lee-
Ross, 2002) and even masculinity (Bartholomew & Garey,
1996) the tone of rhetoric was often forlorn and self-
deprecating. A once leading chef, at time of interview
heading a community club kitchen, typifies the pathos
rhetoric, which begs sympathy for the working conditions,
whether or not one believes the finer details to be
accurate or exaggerated:
There was never a honeymoon period right from day
one. There was no such thing as a roster, you will
be at work as fast as you could be and then you get
in the fish markets at 4am in the morning after
finishing work at 11 o’clock at night. And at 11pm
there is [still] adrenaline pumping… I see myself
sitting out the back of a night time shaking after
service. I just want to hang on to my cup of tea!
That’s right, I get heart palpitations and I know
when I am being worked. And because of this kitchen
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you have to be here on a night to know what I am
talking about. I am talking about total chaos.
Overall, this pathos rhetoric reflects a shared identity
aligning with the ‘dirty work’ mantra as described in the
work off Ashforth and Greiner, whereby chefs’
occupational experiences embody a “physical, social and
moral” ‘taint’ (1999, p.429).
Lastly, however, a largely coherent bundle of shared
values and beliefs, aligning with the rhetoric of logos,
were articulated as that of the ‘creator’. The ‘logic’ of
the participants’ occupational aspirations, cauterised
during the socialization process, challenged during their
occupational experience yet enduring in their shared
community and culture, manifest in their desire to be
challenged and excited through learning, experimentation,
work variety and even an attraction to glamour, or
recognition. The expression of these aspirations was
empowered via two qualities – the ‘artist’ and/or the
‘craftsmen’. The former manifest via innovation and
inventiveness. The ‘artist’ pays great attention to the
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aesthetics of food and a mature female head chef evokes
comparisons to other artistic occupations (see Peterson &
Birg 1988).
That is the artistic side of it because you find
that they change the way they paint or the music
that they play over the years and I think chefs do
the same thing too.
On the other hand the ‘craftsman’ articulates the
‘creator’ rhetoric by the transformation of produce
through technical expertise and skill (Kirton, 1976), as
a male chef in his late twenties explained:
I believe half of being a chef is having the
technical skills to back yourself up, being able to
make a beautiful dish…
Both these qualities embodied creativity (Peterson &
Birg, 1988). An early career female chef explained:
Creating things, tastes, texture, probably the
creative things early in the piece it was big thing
I think, I just enjoyed it. Just being able to
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A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY RESEARCH 2013
create something out of food I guess and being able
to take a recipe and create it.
Consistent with intrinsic rewards in the HR literature
the factors embodied in this ‘creator’ rhetoric have the
potential to deliver job satisfaction to chefs in the
workplace, as a male chef of four decades explains
…you are always making something… it’s a short-term
thing like you have created something and cooked it,
tasted it; it tastes good, you are happy.
and even autonomy and freedom (Yang, 2010) as a semi-
retired third generation chef articulates:
I just got to cook. I will start baking cakes which
I do not normally bake cakes and stuff but I start
doing it if I get the shits with life. It is just,
it is a release.
Despite the unique characterisations of the three
varied rhetoric described, it is key to emphasise, as
indeed Fine (1996) observed, that these rhetoric are
entirely complementary – that is chefs use alternative
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A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY RESEARCH 2013
rhetoric to ascribe meaning to different aspects of their
shared occupational experiences. Figure 4 models these
characterisations, their broad association with the
rhetorical appeals of pathos, ethos and logos, and the
various concepts and themes which contributed to the
particular occupational rhetoric, or identity. In stark
contrast to the complementarity of the three rhetorical
characterisations just summarised however, also apparent
in figure 4 are several concepts that sit outside of the
dominant rhetorical identity, yet are intrinsically
linked with them. These are the rhetorical ructions or the
‘negative’ (Hessler, 2001) aspects of rhetoric and, in
the final analysis, are contributory agents of
occupational dissatisfaction – and the crux of this
study’s thesis.
PLEASE INSERT FIGURE 4 ABOUT HERE
Crucial to the research question, was that boredom
emerged as being antithetical to the creator logos
rhetoric of the shared occupational identity of the
chefs. To briefly illuminate this point a series of
45
A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY RESEARCH 2013
quotations were selected (see table 2) to highlight how
boredom was a catalyst for job dissatisfaction; which
labour turnover theory suggests triggers turnover
intentions (Mobley, 1977), for both job and occupational
and occupational dissatisfaction (Blau, 2007). Evidently
however, participants also described how the ‘bored’
ructions to the logos rhetoric pertaining to creativity
were also instrumental in actual or described acts of
organizational turnover and occupational attrition.
Evident in the statements is that organizational, or
job, dissatisfaction is actualised through deskilled
routines and pejorative references to fast food chains
are mobilized. The routinization and mundanity of kitchen
work situations devoid of learning and development led
directly to cases of participants seeking other
organizations, even in more deskilled sectors like the
nursing home case cited. More than this a failure to
being able to articulate the ‘creator’ rhetoric caused
intent of occupational attrition and actual attrition –
to occupations as diverse as truck driving, clerical and
animal handling.
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A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY RESEARCH 2013
PLEASE PLACE TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE
The dual aims of this paper do not lend themselves
to a lengthy discussion of the findings, nor conclusions
or implications. But in summary the analysis revealed
that occupational rhetoric functions to create and
sustain occupational boundaries, intra-occupational
hierarchies and occupational community and shared
occupational values. In the context of the dominant but
largely positive rhetorical identities (see figure 4)
this lead to organizational and occupational
satisfaction. Nonetheless, during the rhetoric analysis
it became apparent that there were flaws, lapses or
ructions to the dominant, or positive, rhetorical
identities – that is they did not neatly fit. Hessler
(2001) has expressed this as ‘getting negative’. These
ructions to occupational identities as manifest in the
rhetoric generated tensions. So while on the one hand
rhetoric represented the idealized, romantic and
archetypal occupational community and its culture and on
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the other occupational reality the industrial realities
of deskilling, standardization, capitalisation of
technology and outsourcing of production (Robinson &
Barron, 2007) strain and question the occupational
identity of ‘creator’, be that as craftsman or artist.
This, in short, is a contributory catalyst for the
industrial and managerial dilemmas of organizational and
occupational dissatisfaction, where a constant tension
prevails between organizational business imperatives and
employee well-being. More pertinently however, the
rhetorical ructions, of ‘bored’, ‘boring’, ‘mundane’ and
‘boredom’ reverberate against the value-based principles
of humanism (Sennett, 2008) – a doctrine calling for
meaning in work. On the evidence of this study these
principles will need further consideration if the
hospitality industry seeks to increase occupational and
organizational commitment among its workers.
8. Conclusions and implications
Unlikely as it may be that there will be a unifying
‘hospitality philosophy’, as implored by Taylor and Edgar
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(1996), this paper has set out to do what generally has
been avoided by the academy. This paper has showcased the
development of a mixed methods study, empathetic with the
interpretivist paradigm, designed to investigate a
persistent hospitality industry HRM issue. Several key
issues of import to hospitality researchers are addressed
along the way, which question how knowledge is generated.
Deploying a phenomenological approach it has been
detailed how with epistemological cogency and clarity,
attention to research strategy, design and evaluation
regarding the scaffolding of a project, researchers can
confidently articulate how they claim ‘to know what they
know’. In addressing the thorniest of methodological
issues, such as the commensurability of quantitative and
qualitative phases of mixed method studies, this paper
departs from the perception that the majority of research
in the hospitality field is obliged to be
(post)positivist, or indeed, ‘aparadigmatic’. Moreover,
it contributes to an emerging body of work championing
interpretive and reflexive perspectives (e.g. Lynch,
2008; Lugosi et al, 2009) and imploring inter-, multi-,
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extra- and trans-disciplinary facilitated insights, (e.g.
Lashley & Morrison, 2000; Lashley, et al., 2007).
Several key points are worthy of elaboration. One
might argue that the showcased methodology is highly
structured, and in particular the qualitative study is
devoid of the ‘messiness’ characteristic of
phenomenological studies (Hollinshead & Jamal, 2007). It
is countered that, far from bearing the deterministic
hallmarks of positivism, this research scaffolding has
with integrity disclosed ‘a truth’, but not ‘the truth’,
and so invites descriptions of alternative methodologies
to unearth the other multiple truths pertaining to the
experiences of chefs, or hospitality workers, or indeed
scholars engaged in its study. The focus on
commensurability, it could be critiqued, is also a veil
for an ‘aparadigmatic’ approach. Moreover, with the
increasing commonness of aparadigmatic approaches (see
Creswell, 2009) researchers with lesser conviction would
surrender rather than subject themselves to the
theoretical and pragmatic complexities of articulating
commensurability.
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Furthermore, a unique contribution of this study is
the description of an analysis method which has
illuminated insights not facilitated by more conventional
research practices. Rhetoric analysis has brought to life
the shared meanings and alternative yet complementary
meanings that chefs attach to their occupational
experiences. While this method has previously been
partially applied in descriptive ways (Fine, 1996;
Livesey, 2002) this study has unpacked occupational
rhetoric to identify causality for occupational
dissatisfaction. Labour turnover theory proposes that
this dissatisfaction is predictive of intention to quit,
as confirmed in this study. Beyond this evidence was
found that violations of the logos rhetoric, which
represented the chefs’ raison d’être connected to an appetite
for the expression of on-the-job creativity, triggered
actual behaviours – both organizational and occupational
attrition. Thus rhetoric exposed the testing and breaking
of occupational commitment.
The study reported in this article is not without
its limitations. In methodological terms only two
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A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO HOSPITALITY RESEARCH 2013
methods, each with samples numerically, geographically
and occupationally restricted, were selected from an
ever-expanding toolkit of both quantitative and
qualitative approaches. Moreover, what could loosely be
defined as the interpretivist paradigm is replete with
approaches beyond phenomenology (Denzin & Lincoln, 2003).
The truest test of the veracity of this study’s findings
would be replication, on other samples of chefs or indeed
different hospitality and/or service occupations. It is
promising to see similarly positioned studies emerging
(e.g. Kensbock, Jennings, Bailey, & Patiar, 2014).
In practice, this paper’s remit does not allow for a
detailed description of what a humanised management style
might look like for a chef, which might mitigate the
‘boring’, ‘bored’, ‘boredom’ and ‘mundane’ occupational
rhetorical ructions. What is apparent though is that to
adopt humanistic principles in the management of a
hospitality occupation must be predicated on deeper
insights into the occupational experiences of those who
cook our meals, serve our drinks and make our beds. In
essence this paper has interrogated the ‘doing’ more than
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the ‘doers’ of hospitality scholarship. Much
responsibility then resides with the ‘doers’ of
hospitality scholarship, for in their epistemological and
methodological ‘hands’, rests the fate of the management
practices of the doers of hospitality.
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