Organisational effectiveness for ethical tourism action: a phronetic perspective

Abstract

This paper explores how small tourism firms driven by an ethical approach to tourism narrate their organisational effectiveness. The study frames the ethical approach articulated in the first-person accounts of these firms’ owner-managers using Aristotle’s notion of phronesis, that is the process of identifying “good” actions consistent with living well and with an ethical telos. The research consists of a narrative approach via unstructured interviews with owner-managers of small Italian tour operators, members of the Italian Association of Responsible Tourism (AITR) and, as such, driven by an ethical approach to tourism. Data analysis combines features of structural and linguistic narrative analysis. The research findings disclose an organisational effectiveness largely rooted in a personal intuitive disposition gained by practical first-hand experience, personal knowledge, and a moral concern for the achievement of public wellbeing. Moreover, the findings challenge a business-centred approach to organisational effectiveness and question the dominant pro-growth, profit-oriented neoliberal discourses. These considerations can be used for setting the ground in tourism studies for a novel theoretical framework revolving around the ancient Aristotelian tradition of prioritising public wellbeing and happiness over capital accumulation, that further contributes to question market-driven capitalism and neoliberal globalisation.

Keywords:

• Ethics
• small tourism firms
• phronesis (practical wisdom)
• Aristotle
• organisational effectiveness
• narrative approach

Acknowledgements

Prof. Rodolfo Baggio acknowledges the financial support of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation in the framework of the Competitiveness Enhancement Program of the Tomsk Polytechnic University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Translated as ‘Italian Association of Responsible Tourism’

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lucia Tomassini

Lucia Tomassini is a Research Lecturer in Sustainability in Hospitality and Tourism at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. Her academic research embraces studies on the relationship between the tourism and development agenda, urban planning, social-geography, sustainability and circular economy, small tourism firms and uses of narrative analysis in tourism and hospitality studies.

Rodolfo Baggio

Rodolfo Baggio is professor at the Master in Economics and Tourism and Research Fellow at the Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policy, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy and professor at the Tomsk Polytechnic University (Russia). He teaches and researches on the use of information technology in tourism and on the interdisciplinary applications of complexity and network science methods to the study of tourism destinations.