Political ideology and the discursive construction of the multinational hotel industry

Abstract

How might political ideology help to shape an organizational field? We explore the discursive construction of the multinational hotel industry through analysis of one of its leading actors, Hilton International (HI), conceived by Conrad Hilton as a means of combatting communism by facilitating world peace through international trade and travel. While the politicized rhetoric employed at hotel openings reflected institutional diversity, it resonated in parallel with a strong anti-communist discourse. We show that through astute political sensemaking and sensegiving, macro-political discourse that is ideological and universalizing may be allied to micro-political practices in strategic action fields. Our study illuminates the processes of early-stage post-war globalization and its accompanying discourses, demonstrating that the foundation of a global industry may be ideologically inspired. Our primary contribution to theory is specific acknowledgement of the importance of political ideology as a particular ‘social skill’, helping to determine how international business has been ‘won’.

Exploring the antecedents of sustainable tourism development

“…Recent historical work on tourism has focused on Hilton (Maclean et al, 2017), large multinational hotel development (Quek, 2012), heritage and ancestral tourism (Murdy et al, 2018), and ecotourism development (Jones and Spadafora, 2017). Nevertheless, historical analyses in hospitality and tourism remain relatively few (Heslinga et al, 2018).…”

“…Thus, this study enhances extant sustainability literature within the field of hospitality and tourism by adopting a novel historical perspective, using Andrews and Burke's (2007) 'five Cs' of historical theory (context, change over time, causality, complexity, and contingency) to analyse both cases and reveal the antecedent factors impacting upon sustainable and legitimate tourism development, meeting recent calls for such work (Perchard et al, 2017). Historical perspectives have become increasingly common in contemporary business and management research due to their inherent ability to (1) reveal changes over time and (2) consider the applicability of existing theories to different temporal and spatial contexts simultaneously (Maclean et al, 2016;Maclean et al, 2017;Perchard et al, 2017). Buckley's review (2012) of the sustainable tourism literature charted the development of the field over the preceding two decades, identifying key texts and themes.…”

Management Learning in Historical Perspective: Rediscovering Rowntree and the British Interwar Management Movement

“…However, we sought to consider the material with fresh eyes, stripped of its ideological distortions, to remain amenable to discovery. In reading the material, we were alert to evidence of shared assumptions that might suggest an emerging climate of ideas in which management reformers operated, indicative of an interwar business ideology and emerging management consciousness (Maclean, Harvey, Suddaby, & O'Gorman, 2018b;Urwick, 1956). We discerned initial themes by re-reading the texts, but when coding commenced we progressively honed our ideas (Berg, 2009;Miles and Huberman, 1994).…”

History and the micro‐foundations of dynamic capabilities

“…That is, stakeholders must be convinced that the “imagined new social order is understood as the natural result of adopting an emerging, unproven technology” (Bátiz‐Lazo, Haigh, & Stearns, , p. 105). The success of the world's first multinational hotel chain, Hilton International, occurred, in part, because of Conrad Hilton's ability to position the notion of a global hotel chain within a teleological historical narrative of America's history of fighting communism (Maclean, Harvey, Suddaby, & O'Gorham, ). Similarly, Bátiz‐Lazo et al () demonstrate how the international banking community, interested in the potential cost savings of moving away from cash, helped to orchestrate a global conversation about the “cashless society,” an imagined future of electronic commerce.…”