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This paper aims to explore the reasons why descriptive phenomenology (DP) can provide an improved understanding of hospitality, tourism and event experiences. This is achieved through two objectives: first, by revealing the complexities and philosophical depths of DP; second, by providing a practical, stepped method that offers rigour and transparency.

This paper is based upon a study that explored the lived experience of the popular music festival-goer. It generally discusses the phenomenological philosophies of Husserl (1965 [1911]) and the descriptive phenomenological method in psychology of Giorgi (2009). It identifies not only some of the challenges and criticisms of DP but also the strengths of using a scientific approach to phenomenological research.

The philosophical strengths underlying DP afford a deeper understanding of the phenomenon being studied. The lived experience music festival study illustrates that the method of data collection and analysis highlights the intricacy of the philosophical debate and research findings. Although the bracketing, or epoché, method of DP has been criticised, the actual application is far more complex than trying to blank out prior knowledge. The aim is to ensure that it is the participants’ experiences that are used to identify the structure that is the phenomenon rather than the personal interpretation of the researcher.

It is recognised that researching the lifeworld affords a greater depth of understanding of experiences in people’s lives. One of the disappointments has been that one branch of phenomenological research, DP, has been underutilised and at times misunderstood in hospitality, tourism and event research. This paper aims to demonstrate and illustrate why and how DP should be considered in the future research of such experiences.

This paper aims to illuminate the possibilities of phenomenology in hospitality, enriching methodological rigor necessary to study holistic experiences, which are increasingly recognized as a central component of hospitality businesses.

It first presents the main tenets of phenomenology, along with its two orientations (descriptive and hermeneutic) and three associated methods (descriptive phenomenology, hermeneutic phenomenology and interpretive phenomenological analysis). Second, it undertakes a critical review of post-2010 hospitality and tourism phenomenological studies. Third, the author focuses on Giorgi’s phenomenological method in psychology and illustrates the main methodological aspects with the data gathered for the study on the user experience of hotel smartphone apps. Finally, it discusses challenges and suggests prospective areas for hospitality phenomenological research.

Phenomenology can address a variety of subjects in hospitality, ranging from hospitality guests and workers to business owners, entrepreneurs and members of larger communities.

For the academic audience, the paper demystifies philosophically rich methodology of phenomenology by highlighting its methodological aspects and practical applications. It also hopes to contribute to practitioners’ greater appreciation of phenomenological knowledge of lived experiences.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on two research questions. First, how are emotional competencies related? Second, are organizations emotionally intelligent?

This study used a new instrument (Organizational Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, ORG‐EIQ) to measure emotional and organizational intelligence competencies of 1,506 employees in 20 Italian organizations. Structural equation modeling, intraclass correlation coefficients and tests of mean differences were used to analyze the research questions.

This study suggests that organizational emotional intelligence (EI) is an important framework to examine in future research.

Usefulness of the findings for public and private companies is explored.

The study provides preliminary feedback on the possibility of detection of variations in EI levels across organizations and highlights relevant implications accordingly.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the prevalence of workplace bullying in an Italian university.

More than 200 workers have completed the Italian version of the Negative Acts Questionnaire and the General Health Questionnaire.

The results show a spread of low to medium negative actions in the specific setting. In addition, the effects of negative actions on health are less serious than believed by most of the studies on workplace bullying.

In particular, a quadratic regression model appears to be more appropriate than a linear model.

In this paper we provide estimates of the short-run elasticity of substitution between male and female workers, using data from Italian provinces for the period 1993–2006. Our identification strategy relies on a natural experiment. In 2000, the Italian Parliament passed a law to abolish compulsory military service. The reform was implemented through a gradual reduction in the number of draftees; compulsory drafting was eventually terminated in 2004. We use data on the (planned) maximum number of draftees at the national level (as stated in the annual budgetary law), interacted with sex-ratios at births at the provincial level, as instruments for (relative) female labor supply. Our results suggest that young males and females (who are those mainly affected by the reform) are imperfect substitutes, with an implied elasticity of substitution ranging between 1.0 and 1.4. Our results have important implications for the evaluation of policies aimed at increasing female labor market participation.

Oppositional organizational identities are fraught with conflict and often evoke powerful social and cultural identities. Such identities may be a divisive force among consumers. The purpose of this paper is to understand how consumers construct frames that facilitate identification with oppositional organizational identities.

The authors use online reviews from TripAdvisor.com and Yelp.com of the Creation Museum in Kentucky, USA. The Creation Museum is an ideal research context due to its location within American public discourse regarding religion and science. Through a grounded theory approach of the reviews, the authors propose three identity frames.

The data suggest that consumers primarily construct three frames to identify with the Creation Museum: transformational experiences, interpretive bricolage and oppositional scripts. Together, these frames engender resonance and facilitate consumer identification.

This paper is one of the first to examine how oppositional organizational identities garner consumer support. Given that consumers are increasingly attentive to organizational processes and the ubiquity of information technology, which reduces the costs of information and interaction, the study provides a much more holistic perspective on oppositional organizational identity and offers a multitude of future avenues for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to outline research which aimed to explore psychotherapists’ experience of working with despair, in the UK prison setting, through a qualitative phenomenological approach. Within the forensic psychological literature, despair is considered a pathology, associated with suicide and self-harm, resulting from the prisoners histories and the coercive prison setting. In turn, therapeutic writings outline the importance of therapy in the prison setting with despair in providing coping skills, containment and learning opportunities for the prisoners involved.

Within the study, ten psychotherapists were interviewed as to their experience of working with clients in despair in the prison setting. The data were analysed via the phenomenological research method Empirical Phenomenological Analysis (EPA), and a secondary analysis through reverie.

Through the analysis by EPA, despair emerged in the prison setting as a destabilising phenomenon to which there was no protocol for working with it. Participants also described the prisoners’ despair and the despairing prison setting, touching on their own sense of vulnerability and despair. However, drawing on the secondary analysis by reverie, the researcher also became aware of how the phenomenon of despair emerged not simply through the said, but also through the intersubjective.

It was therefore through the secondary analysis by reverie that the importance of the attendance to aspects of intersubjectivity in prison research emerged. This paper contributes to the therapeutic writings on despair in the prison setting, alongside holding implications for qualitative research in the prison setting.

The paper seeks to validate a structural model wherein workplace bullying is depicted as related to health by way of mediating the relationship between organizational climate with health.

Over 700 Japanese employees completed a shorter version of the Majer D'Amato organizational questionnaire 10, the Negative Acts Questionnaire Revised and the Center for Epidemiologic Study for Depression. Lifestyle variables (alcohol consumption and sleeping hours) were also collected from participants. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypothesis.

A model of bullying at work was developed which incorporated relationships among organizational and health factors. Workplace bullying partially mediated the climate‐health relationship.

The model developed within this paper integrates prior theoretical work on workplace bullying and helps researchers and organizations understand the process through organizational risk factors that might have a negative association with employees' health. Further, this paper contributes an understanding of workplace bullying in a non‐Western context.

Purpose — The purpose of this chapter is to provide knowledge and insights gained into Canadian expatriates' perspectives of living and working in Indonesia and to enhance the reader's understanding of the lived experience of being immersed in another culture.

Methodology — A descriptive phenomenological qualitative method was employed, which uncovered paradoxes that were lived by Canadian expatriate managers.

Findings — The following paradoxes are presented using participants' words and lived experiences of the authors: powerful-powerless, understanding-not understanding, being supported-not supported, belonging-not belonging and freedom-restriction.

Research limitations — While the qualitative findings may not be ‘generalisable’ according to a quantitative viewpoint, they are certainly applicable to others' experiences as demonstrated by the authors' description of their own experiences.

Practical implications — Enhanced understanding of this lived experience will spark improved expatriation strategies and lead directly to significant improvement in the overall performance of international organisations because an effective expatriate will be more capable of facilitating the two-way sharing and blending of the local and exogenous knowledge, therefore fulfilling a key role in knowledge transfer.

Social implications –– The importance of being open to others' lived experiences and supporting others who are immersed in another culture has universal appeal from a social perspective.

Originality/value of chapter — This is a unique research chapter describing research findings and joining participants' words and experiences with the authors' experiences. As well it is hoped that readers will relate to the paradoxes.

This paper aims to propose an organizing framework of a possible relationship between working environment and bullying at work.

A total of 926 Italian employees completed the Majer D'Amato Organizational Questionnaire 10 (MDOQ10) and the Negative Acts Questionnaire Revised (NAQ‐R) in order to test the relationship between climate and bullying.

The study finds that organizational climate is a critical antecedent of bullying at work. Organizational climate dimensions at a singular level, and interaction among them, impact on bullying at work.

The impact of working environment on bullying at work is supported.