Thinking job embeddedness not turnover: Towards a better understanding of frontline hotel worker...

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.


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).


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

32


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

33


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

34


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

35


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

36


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

37


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,

38


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

39


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

40


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

41


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

42


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

43


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

44


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.


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


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.

46


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

47


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

48


(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-,

49


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.

50


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

51


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

52


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.

53


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