Cultura organizacional em empreendimentos hoteleiros: um olhar para além da cordialidade

Abstract

Considering the services area, specifically the lodging industry which has facing, just like others business segments, a huge concurrence and growing level of consumers´ exigencythe differential represented by human beings, which are part of the organization, is not just a competitive advantage: it is an essence issue. After all, the hotel business is related to the hospitality concept, and hospitality, in its essence, it is an attribute of people, and not an attribute of places or accommodations. Considering the importance of the people in a lodging organization, and that the behavior of these people influences and it´s influenced by the organizational culture, justify an deeper look to the cultural elements which defines behavior patterns. In this way, it introduces a study case in a hotel that looked for a marketing repositioning, and it involved relevant organizational changes. The information collected on documental research, interviews with managers and employees, and participant observation tried to understand how the organization culture makes the hotel and the people be how they are. The data analyses suggest that changes were made on superficial levels of culture, and the managers' desired results, in productivity terms, were reached.