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To investigate the questions raised earlier, I spent eight months as an ethnographer at a hotel company (which I will call HotelCo). Built in the 1970s, HotelCo is an

internationally recognized, AAA four-diamond hotel, with more than 1400 rooms and 130,000 square feet of meeting space, located in the downtown of a large North

American metropolitan city. HotelCo is a privately owned and operated property of one of the world’s largest hotel companies, HotelCo International, which operates more than a thousand proprieties comprising hotels, resorts spas and vacation residences. Although there are five “sister” properties in the same metropolitan area, HotelCo is considered the flagship property due to its size and location. During the period of my study, HotelCo’s monthly occupancy rates — a simple measure of the company’s performance — ranged from 75% during the winter months to 89% in the summer season. To compare, average occupancy figures in North America for the period 2012-2014 ranges between 49.7% in January to 69.8% in July (Statista, 2012-2014).

At the time I began the study of the 760 employees of HotelCo, approximately 210 were working in Housekeeping and 135 in the Front Desk departments. During special events (e.g., conferences), up to 160 part-time employees are added to these departments on a temporary basis. The remaining employees work in other areas such as Food & Beverage (F&B), Conferences, Banquets, Sales & Marketing, Information Technology and

Engineering, as well as Finance and Human Resources1. Except in the administrative

areas (e.g. Finance or HR), work at HotelCo is divided in three eight-hour shifts, starting at 7:00 AM. While some employees are permanently assigned to particular shifts (e.g., the midnight shift, from 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM), others work on a rotating and staggered basis as assigned by managers.

HotelCo was an ideal site to study the provision of service for three reasons. First, the relationship between HotelCo and HotelCo International provides an interesting set-up to study managers’ organizing activities. Because HotelCo is owned and governed by

HotelCo International, HotelCo’s managers are for the most part focused on organizing the provision of accommodation as envisioned at the head quarters. For instance, the decisions regarding the type or category of accommodations HotelCo provides (e.g., boutique, luxury, resort, conference, or limited-services) are made at the head quarters. Likewise, as I was informed by the General Manager of HotelCo, “curved shower curtain rods, red carpets with black writing, and ice buckets in the fridge in every single room” are examples of “brand standards,” and such decisions are made by the managers at HotelCo International. The remaining organizing activities related to provision of accommodation, given the vision defined by HotelCo International, are within the realm and focus of HotelCo managers.

Second, due to its physical layout and accessible location, HotelCo attracts a wide array of local, domestic, and international customers. Beyond tourists or international

travellers, HotelCo attracts customers attending conferences, banquets, conventions, and weddings, many of which are hosted by, and held at, HotelCo. In addition, the average length of stay at HotelCo is 2.5 nights with a standard deviation of 4. Therefore, while there are transient customers who stay for a night or two, some stay for longer periods,

even weeks.2 These add to the complexity of provision of accommodation, which in turn

heighten the need for organizing. In a sense, HotelCo would meet the criteria for an “extreme case,” one in which the theoretical phenomenon is more transparent than it would be in other settings (Eisenhardt, 1989).

Third, the high level of access I was granted to HotelCo marks this site as an ideal setting for the research. For ethnography, gaining and maintaining access is an ongoing

challenge (Feldman, Bell, & Berger, 2003). The process of obtaining initial access took approximately six months. Initially, it consisted of contacting high-ranking executives at more than 30 worldwide hotels. In the email communications, I explained my dissertation research and interest in studying their organizations. From those contacted, I received six

2 These figures are dramatically different among hotels. At the one extreme, there are airport hotels that mostly attract overnight customers. At the other extreme are hotel residences where customers stay for weeks.

invitations to meet, either via Skype or in person. I presented a brief outline of my research interest, and the type of access I would require, as well as a tentative timeline and length of engagement with the company. Only one of the six, a general manager of a luxury boutique hotel in the city, agreed to grant access. However, he suggested HotelCo would be a more appropriate research site, given its size and complexity. He further offered to refer me to, and arrange an in-person meeting with, the executive vice

president of HotelCo International, since the two were former colleagues in another hotel. Eventually, the EVP of HotelCo International agreed to ask the general manager of HotelCo to grant me full access. Although initially reluctant, after several in-person meetings, the general manager finally agreed to grant me access to HotelCo. He decided that it would be best if I began my study at the Front Desk, since this group had a new director, a former hotel manager at a luxury cruise line. This decision stemmed both from the general manager’s perspective that the Front Desk services were the most

“hospitable” group at HotelCo, and from his personal interest that I should follow the new director as she was going through her “on-boarding” process. I began my work as an ethnographer at HotelCo in December of 2012.