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This paper aims to present a systematic literature review (SLR) of continuous improvement (CI) research in the hospitality and tourism management (HTM) literature. The paper also notes trends, parallels, inconsistencies and opportunities towards a clearer understanding of current scholarship.

This SLR finds a dearth of research in the field. After parameter expansion and exclusions, 35 papers across 11 journals are reviewed.

Studies of CI methodologies and practices are published infrequently, tending to focus on total quality management in European contexts. Despite the guiding customer-centric principles of CI methodologies, studies focus on improving internal processes rather than the service encounter.

The review is guided by sections of the ABS 2015 list, which excludes some journals. Books, conference papers and trade magazine articles are not reviewed.

This paper identifies clear needs for CI research with a specific hospitality management focus, the development of CI toolkits and curricula for hospitality managers. The development and deployment of CI methodologies and practices in HTM literature and industry should lead to long-term service improvements.

This study asserts the need for further context-specific, practice-led research into the refinement and long-term utility of CI methodologies and practices, towards demonstration of significant bottom-line industry impact. The paper also offers a clear SLR methodology and a definition for CI in hospitality.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to explore how commercial hospitality has contributed to the development of urban areas in relation to commerce, hospitality, religious and imperial patronage in early modern, Safavid Iran (c. seventeenth century). Second, to combine material culture research methods in an analytical framework for future use.

Data were collected during 27 site visits over three years to 14 caravanserai six bazaar complexes. A material culture methodology is proposed, designed and implemented, supplemented by analysis of textual sources.

The form and function of caravanserai at Zein‐i Edin broadly reflect the form and function of desert caravanserai common in much of the Islamic world. However, the complex within the Qaysariyya Bazaar in Isfahan reflects the convergence of specific dynastic, geopolitical and economic issues facing seventeenth century Safavid Iran shaping both urban form and commercial focus. These are consolidation of the Safavid dynasty, rivalry with the Ottoman Empire and the vital importance of trade with Mughal India.

The research is limited by its specific contextual scope but invites further investigation in analogous contexts across this milieu as well as further implementation of the material culture methods it adopts to both historical and contemporary commercial contexts.

The paper explores, for the first time the development of commercial hospitality in early modern Iran and invites further consideration of the development of capitalism outside of Eurocentric teleologies. Furthermore, it presents a new and explicit methodological framework for using material culture as a means of enquiry.

This paper is a critical literature review of corporate social responsibility (CSR) research in both general management and hospitality management literature. This paper aims to discuss trends, commonalities and inconsistencies to better understand the state of contemporary scholarship, and it calls for a context-specific conceptual engagement with the phenomenon.

Systematic literature review, noting and critiquing a general tendency towards measurement of financial and other internal benefit impacts.

Hospitality management is well-positioned to evaluate the opportunities and challenges of CSR; yet, research has uncritically adopted the instrumental emphasis on assessing processes, perceptions and private profitability from the general management literature, without engaging on a contextually specific and/or theoretical level.

CSR research is abundant and therefore difficult to summarise in one paper. The primarily Anglo-American and Asian contextual bias is reflected in this review.

Consistently inconsistent results challenge the portability of financial impact studies. Studies are needed to re-evaluate the concept of CSR, as it pertains to hospitality and measure the effectiveness of CSR activities relative to context and resource availability.

Further research into the scope of CSR in hospitality management, with an emphasis on recuperating social value, would lead to widespread positive social implications.

This critical review offers a new perspective on CSR in the hospitality literature and industry, calling for a reconsideration of the concept in context, and formulates a working definition.

Augmenting employees’ commitment is of important interest to hospitality managers, particularly in the branded restaurant industry where the workforce is often transient. This paper aims to identify and analyse if levels of personal motivation and flow are drivers of commitment, and if the relationship between the variables is moderated by length of service, age and gender.

The study is a large-scale empirical investigation of hospitality staff in the UK branded restaurants through 1,133 survey responses, measuring levels of personal motivation, flow and commitment, as well as the moderating effects of multi-group differences among age, gender and length of service. Partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is used for analysis of data.

Using PLS-SEM found personal motivation to be important in determining employees’ level of flow and, in turn, employees’ commitment. Using multi group analysis, results revealed that relationship among personal motivation, flow and commitment played superior role for older employees and working for a long time in a hospitality organisation than those younger and working less than five years. No significant differences between male and female staff are found.

Through finding flow and personal motivations to be drivers of commitment, branded restaurant practitioners can focus on emphasising these elements in their employees to increase commitment. Further, part-time roles are often taken by people likely to be non-committal in their job needs, e.g. students funding their studies. By focussing on extending lengths of service to meet the optimum years identified, managers can fortify their businesses.

The paper is one of few large-scale quantitative studies to examine personal motivation, flow and commitment in the context of UK branded restaurants. It identifies that employees exhibit higher levels of commitment through intrinsic values over time, and establishes relationships between the constructs of flow, personal motivation and commitment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between consumer motivations, their interactions with hospitality spaces and experiential outcomes. Enhancing consumer experience is of clear interest to industry professionals. This quantitative study explores the impact of escapism and entitlement to leisure upon involvement in liminoid consumptions spaces, thereby contributing a theory of liminoid motivators within commercial hospitality.

This study adopts a quantitative methodology, using a survey of a sample of student nightclubbers in the UK. Data are analysed through Partial Least Squares.

Hospitality consumers are positively affected by the feelings of increased involvement experienced in consumption spaces that exhibit liminoid characteristics.

Surveys involve potential for error regarding respondents’ ability to agree with questionnaire statements. Data collection was conducted in Scotland, and so, results may not be generalised to other commercial hospitality spaces outside of Scotland.

Hospitality consumers become more involved, and thereby more satisfied, in liminoid consumption spaces when motivated by escapism and entitlement to leisure. Attending to the liminoid motivators that drive consumers away from work and domesticity, and towards commercial hospitality spaces, will go some way towards creating the desired consumer experience.

This is the first quantitative study to investigate consumer motivations to escape and entitlement to leisure as antecedents of involvement in a commercial hospitality context. It develops a theory of hospitality consumption using the liminoid anthropological concept.

This paper aims to explore some of the different historical roots of commercial hospitality in three distinct epochs with the intention of promoting further empirical research and beginning an informed debate into the origins and evolution of the contemporary hospitality industry.

The paper is a report on empirical research based on texts, artefacts and archaeological evidence. Wherever possible all the primary sources were consulted in the original languages; all translations are the author's own unless otherwise stated.

Contrary to established and often fanciful rhetoric, commercial hospitality has at least 4,000 years of history in the area of investigation. The rich and incredibly diverse heritage of the hospitality industry is illustrated and the conclusions emphasise that hospitality research should focus on deepening understanding of the industry through empirical research: learning from the past helps to inform the future.

The particular focus of this article is restricted to reporting to empirical studies of three epochs: Mesopotamia (c. 2000 BC), Pompeii (79 AD), and Middle Eastern Trade Routes (c. 700 AD onwards). These distinct time periods illustrate the different roots and highlight the need for further research into the evolution of the commercial hospitality industry.

The origins of commercial hospitality is an under‐researched area in hospitality management and this paper highlights the rich data that is available through disciplined empirical study.

The emergent paradigm of hospitality studies does not have a coherent philosophical foundation. In seeking to identify a philosophy of hospitality this paper explores Derrida's contribution, along with other writers in philosophy and postcolonial theory, who are either writing in the field or have developed his works.

Derrida and others are often cited within the context of the emerging paradigm of hospitality studies. In order to examine and critically evaluate the possibility of the construct of a philosophy of the phenomenon of hospitality, the review of the philosophical concepts is set within three perspectives: individual moral philosophy; hospitality and the nation states, and hospitality and language.

Although examining the writings of Derrida and others provides an insight into the phenomenon of hospitality, a coherent philosophy of hospitality seems to be an enigma; possibly because hospitality is not a matter of objective knowledge.

In order to inform the emergent paradigm of hospitality studies there needs to be a continuing multi‐disciplinary study of hospitality; further inter and intra disciplinary research and investigation is required.

The paper illustrates that critical analysis is more important than the unquestioning acceptance of the views of philosophical theorists.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how senior leaders in the hospitality industry use storytelling to disseminate their vision to employees and to illustrate how hermeneutics can be used as a method for the interpretation of qualitative data in hospitality management research.

A purposeful criterion‐based sample design was constructed and after a period of sensitisation to their organisations, 20 phenomenological interviews with high‐level international hospitality industry leaders were conducted. These interviews are analysed using a hermeneutical framework.

Storytelling is being used as a strategic method of communication and is fundamental to leadership in the contemporary commercial hospitality industry; stories are used to strengthen and revitalise current norms and values. Stories penetrate organisations and tap into the emotions of employees in order to inspire action and understanding.

Hermeneutics is applied clearly and concisely and the paper demonstrates how hermeneutics could easily be adapted for other projects. Clear direction for further research is suggested, exploring the efficaciousness of stories from the listeners' rather than narrator's perspective.

This paper does not teach managers how to tell stories, or even make them better storytellers; however, it highlights how storytelling is used by leaders at the apex of the commercial hospitality industry to develop and enhance organisational culture.

Within hospitality management research, storytelling has mostly been ignored both as a management tool and as a form of data collection; similarly hermeneutics as a means of data analysis does not feature in the hospitality management literature.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how commercial hospitality has catalysed sustainable social change in Nepal through empowering women. Utilising a new framework, developed by combining existing theories, empowerment of women tea house owners/managers is assessed.

Within a critical feminist paradigm, primary research consisting of interviews and participant observation was undertaken over a three‐month period in the central region of Nepal.

Involvement in the hospitality industry improved the livelihoods of the women tea house owners/managers, it also has the potential to facilitate sustainable empowerment for future generations, providing them with education, choice, control and opportunities.

Although steps are taken to limit rhetorical issues, language barriers could have influenced the findings of the interviews. To fully investigate the potential for hospitality to act as a vehicle for the sustainable empowerment of women, it is suggested that this study be replicated again in another region or that a detailed ethnographic study be carried out.

The paper demonstrates how the commercial hospitality industry can be a force for good; women working in the industry are agents of change, actively improving their levels of empowerment in their immediate environment. The commercial hospitality industry has pioneered the empowerment of women and this could lay the foundation for the further emancipation of women.

To date, there has been limited research into the relationship between involvement in the commercial hospitality sector and the empowerment of women; this paper begins to fill this gap by investigating a tourist region of Nepal.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the reaction of customer facing staff and their attitude to the introduction of high profile corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes; in particular their level of awareness and willingness to implement them.

Conducted using a series of site visits and interviews with managers working within the licensed trade, this was followed up with structured interviews of “front line” staff.

Despite high levels of awareness of both the social problems relating to alcohol consumption and the legislative changes, engagement with operational CSR was limited and often disinterested. Legal and societal expectations regarding drunkenness are of little concern.

This paper is concerned with nascent legislation, the full impact and success of which has not yet emerged. Reviewing this study in five years would add to the strength of the results. Limited to Scotland due to its devolved licensing laws, however, it clearly highlights lack of employee engagement with CSR.

Despite placing CSR issues at the forefront of day to day operations within the licensed trade there is little empirical evidence around customer facing staff engagement. CSR is a dynamic process that relies on the involvement of employees for its successful implementation.

A new CSR implementation matrix is presented which allows hospitality businesses to be positioned according to levels of both management and employee engagement with CSR policies.