The Antithesis of Hospitality: Unpacking Workplace Bullying and Advancing a Māori-centric Response
Date
Authors
Harris, Candice
Haar, Jarrod
Williamson, David
Brougham, Dave
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Abstract
This paper examines workplace bullying in the hospitality sector – an industry paradoxically defined by welcoming others – through a mixed-method approach integrating large-scale quantitative analysis with an in-depth qualitative case study. Study 1 draws on survey data from 2,302 hospitality employees in Aotearoa, New Zealand, to identify the prevalence, patterns, and perpetrators of bullying, and employees’ confidence in employer responses. Over half (56%) reported experiencing or witnessing bullying, with women and supervisors most affected. Study 2 explores a Māori hospitality business guided by manaakitanga (care), whanaungatanga (relationships), and tika (fairness), illustrating how Māori values can counter bullying behaviours. Together, the studies reveal the gap between hospitality’s ideals and workplace realities, proposing Māori-informed approaches as a pathway towards more respectful, inclusive, and restorative organisational environments. The paper contributes to management and hospitality scholarship by demonstrating how Indigenous relational ethics can operationalise organisational care as an antidote to workplace harm.Description
Keywords
3504 Commercial Services, 35 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services, 1303 Specialist Studies in Education, 1503 Business and Management, 1505 Marketing, 3505 Human resources and industrial relations, 3507 Strategy, management and organisational behaviour, bullying, hospitality, employees, employer, indigenous management, Te Ao Māori, workplace bullying
Source
Journal of Management & Organization, ISSN: 1833-3672 (Print); 1839-3527 (Online), Cambridge University Press (CUP), 32(1), 96-110. doi: 10.1017/jmo.2025.10076
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press in association with Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. You are not required to obtain permission to reuse this article.