3. Organisational Culture and Community Culture in the Hospitality Sector

The aim of this chapter is to contextualise the arguments expressed in Chap. 2 concerning the roles of organisational culture and community culture in community tourism initiatives and joint business ventures through a review of the literature. First the meaning of the term ‘hospitality’ is discussed as the case study is embedded in the hospitality sector including the influence of the culture and attitude towards the societal understanding of ‘hospitality’. This is followed by a review on the role of organisational culture in the hospitality sector, which has been identified as an unsystematic scientific debate as it is generally reluctant “to engage with the range of philosophical and social scientific literature where consideration of the nature of hospitality has taken place” (Brotherthon & Wood, 2008, p. 59). Nevertheless it can be observed that there has been an increase in the number of publications in the last 3–4 years “investigating the essence of hospitality” (Golubovskaya, Robinson, & Solnet, 2014). Case studies on organisational culture in cross-cultural hospitality sector are still rare, which is surprising when one considers that the hospitality and tourism sectors in particular are confronted with staff and clients of different cultural backgrounds all the time. Nevertheless, the literature has identified that it is advisable for hospitality management to try to gain an understanding of how to manage ethnical diversity by analysing the organisational culture of a company. This is a task that a ‘Creative Organisational Culture Appraisal’ (COCA) aims to assist with.