Summary
5.2 Levensbeëindiging zonder uitdrukkelijk verzoek
Angelique Lombarts / Hotelschool The Hague, [email protected] ABSTRACT
This paper examines the role of hospitality in the contemporary, globalized world. It is argued that commercial hospitality will be central in the upcoming transformation or well-being economy characterized by meaning and reciprocity. Hospitality, as attitude and not only in the sense of behavior, will be pivotal for organizations to survive in the near future. Drawing on the literature in a variety of disciplines this paper explores how the multiple roles of hospitality may contribute to the transition to the wellbeing economy. This paper attempts to reveal several themes for further research and posits that hospitality goes beyond the hospitality industry, more particular it introduces hospitality in the healthcare industry.
INTRODUCTION
Traditionally it has been acknowledged that services especially hospitality services
distinguish themselves from products and other services. Characteristics of these services are, amongst others, the core value produced in the buyer-seller interaction, the intangibility, the inseparability of production and consumption, the heterogeneity, the consistency or difficulty to achieve and maintain consistency of services (Reisinger, 2001). As a
consequence a close correlation accrues between service quality and customer satisfaction and has been subject of ample study among social scientists (Fick & Ritchie, 1991;
Grönroos, 2000; Gutek, 1995; Jr. & Taylor, 1992; Kumar, Smart, Maddern, & Maull;
Normann, 2000; Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1985; Rahman, Khan, & Haque, 2012;
Reisinger, 2001; White, 1998; Yilmaz, 2010).
The emergence of the experience economy (Nijs & Peters, 2002; Piët, 2003; Pine & Gilmore, 1999) evokes the interest in the customer/guest journey of hospitality services. The actual consumption as well as the rest of the process i.e. pre- and post-consumption, in short the whole process, subsequently becomes part of the experience. Moreover, digitalization, the increasing transparency, collaborative and co-designing consumer markets urges the hospitality industry to enter into an evolving marketing concept: customer experience
marketing (Homburg, Jozić, & Kuehnl, 2015). The customer, guest or user experience as it is known outside the hospitality industry focuses on physical and emotional aspects such as task efficiency and effectiveness measures (tangible) and emotions, perceptions and attitudes (intangibles) (Nenonen, Rasila, Junnonen, & Kärnä, 2008). Whereas customer satisfaction is outcome- or result-oriented, customer experience is process-oriented including all the aspects during the experience (Schmitt, 1999).
Customer or - as the hospitality industry prefers to put it - guest friendliness and orientation seems no longer to be the sole hospitality industries’ trait as the user experience focus underlines. However, as guest orientation belongs to the DNA of the hospitality industry, other industries and sectors may profit from its perennial experience. Looking back at
hospitality in ancient times it concerned respect, justice and human rights of the other in most societies (Pohl, 2011). Hospitality, as Pohl states, involved welcoming strangers into
personal space, usually one’s home but also one’s community, and offering them food, shelter, protection and respect (ibid.: 482).
Furthermore, she asserts hospitality offers a useful framework for thinking about building trust, fostering wellbeing and strengthening communities.
TOWARDS A GLOBALIZING WELLBEING ECONOMY
Trust is needed to develop rapport, to be able to cooperate successfully, and to construct coherent societies (Castells, 2000; Edelenbos & Klijn, 2007; Fukuyama, 1999; Grimshaw, 2005; Lombarts, 2011; Mistzal, 1996; Woolthuis, Hillebrand, & Nooteboom, 2002). The renowned sociologist Robert Putnam argues that trust is essential to build social capital, which is required for bonding and bridging. Bonding occurs when establishing close relationships between friends and peers, bridging supports the formation of positive
connections between people out of the own peer group and strangers (Putnam, 2000). More recently Putnam has been studying the relationship between trust and diversity. He
concludes that more diversity in a community is associated with less communal trust resulting in less happiness and lower perceived quality of life (Putnam, 2007). Needless to substantiate that bonding and bridging are vital in a progressively globalizing world with a blurring of individuals with diverse ethnic backgrounds.
In may 2012 the social-cultural planning board (SCP) published an extensive report treating happiness as a central aspect of the well-being of citizens (Campen, Bergsma, Boelhouwer, Boerefijn, & Bolier, 2012). Happiness would have a serious impact on costs and therefore it would be imperative to explore it. However, the report stated, little research has been conducted in the Netherlands. Examining the definition of happiness, the Dutch Happiness Professor Ruut Veenhoven describes it as: “the degree to which an individual judges the overall quality of his own life favorably” (R. Veenhoven, 1984; R. Veenhoven, 1991; Ruut Veenhoven, 2011). Veenhoven distinguishes four qualities of life, which he classifies in the following categories:
Qualities of Life
Outer qualities Inner qualities
Life chances Livability of the environment Life-ability of the individual Life Results External utility of life Inner appreciation of life Source: (R. Veenhoven, 2000)
Policy-makers but also employers can influence conditions for happiness such as aspects of security, democracy, education opportunities etc., in brief conditions for the quality of living.
Life-ability, also capability, depends more upon one’s own perspective with regard to personal growth and development. And it is often placed in comparison to one’s
environment. Utility is about one’s contribution to society. It differs from person to person how is looked upon one’s contribution. The inner appreciation is commonly described as
happiness, satisfaction and/or well-being.
According to Alflen people experience hospitality if they:
• Feel welcome;
• Are treated humanly;
• Have autonomy;
• Have own responsibilities
• Have freedom of choice (2008)
To summarize, it appears that there is a relation between trust, happiness, successful cooperation, coherent societies, and costs and well-being. In short with hospitality in the classic sense according to Pohl (2011).
HOSPITALITY IN THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
A sector facing tremendous transformations is the healthcare industry (Bakas, 2013;
Idenburg & Schaik, 2010). Demographic changes and the change from curative towards
preventive healthcare are among the key trends these authors envision. Subsequently healthcare providers and systems have to adapt to new requirements and amongst others to financial challenges. Cross-fertilization of innovative ideas shared between the healthcare and hospitality sector could be beneficial for both sectors. One of the crucial issues for the healthcare industry to reduce cost while maintaining high quality will be to instill a culture of service: caring for both patients and staff, creating memorable experiences, investing in employees and coaching them on their talents are just a few of the important aspects (Hollis
& Verma, 2012). Similarly, Alflen stresses upon the fact that an important factor of the wellbeing or well feeling of people in the healthcare concerns the hospitality experience and more particularly the ‘human touch’. Likewise, she underlines the need to learn from
organizations in the hospitality industry such as hotels and elucidates that hospitality concepts demand an integral approach including intangible and tangible aspects. As a starting point the 4P-model hereunder can be used to develop a vision on hospitality.
Figure 1 4-P model of Twijnstra & Gudde (Alflen, 2008)
Combining the above ideas with the research as executed in the Raak research project of preventive wellness (Lombarts, 2013), further research on hospitality in the Dutch healthcare industry will be undertaken. Subjects like healthy ageing, life-care or continuous care
retirement communities, food-services facilities, innovative product-market-partnership combinations, recruiting and training healthcare staff, new business models for healthcare organizations can serve as a starting point for further research. Setting the agenda, the
‘what’, will be a collaborative process, which will take place with both professionals from the hospitality industry and professionals from the care sector. The ‘how’, the research methods I would possibly like to apply I will outline hereunder.
POSSIBLE RESEARCH METHODS
Rohrer (2014) made a useful overview of research methods applied in customer journey and user experience and elaborated on which type of method would be most suitable given the key question and context. She articulates that most research project would benefit if the researcher would chose, apply, and combine multiple research methods and insights.
Moreover, taking into consideration that hospitality research strives to influence individual and/or organizational attitudes; hence (organizational) culture, and the fact that the research preferably would be executed in real time and location contexts, agile methods will be utilized. While agile methods such as scrum were most commonly used in the field of software (development) research (Conboy & Fitzgerald, 2004), these methods are increasingly introduced in organizational culture research (Iivari & Iivari, 2011; Maximini,
2015). The exact how and what, the advantages and disadvantages of the combination of these methods should be investigated more thoroughly and will be subject of research.
TO CONCLUDE
In this paper I briefly touched on the points on which I would like to set up a line of research, and which builds on my previous research projects. The Dutch healthcare sector needs urgently to retrain costs. Introducing hospitality will result in happier people, patients as well as employees. Moreover it will enhance social return on investment, and I posit that this will finally results in decreasing costs. Further research needs to substantiate this.
REFERENCES
Alflen, C. (2008). Gastvrijheid in de zorg: Facility management zorgt voor het verschil.
Facto Magazine,, 1/2 januari/februari, 20-23.
Bakas, A. (2013). The State of Tomorrow
13 megatrends that will change the world. Schiedam: Dexter.