Original scientific paper

The commercial home enterprise: Labour with love

Candice Harris ; Management and Employment Relations, Faculty of Business, AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand
Alison McIntosh ; Department of Tourism & Hospitality Management, Waikato Management School, University of Waikato, New Zealand
Kate Lewis ; Department of Management and Enterprise Development, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract

Within the wider context of critical discourse, this paper examines the personal experiences of commercial home hosts in New Zealand, focusing on issues of copreneurship and work-life balance. When the home has a commercial domain, the impact of hosting on a host’s life can be immense; hence the commercial home provides a unique context in which to examine the issue of work-life balance. This paper presents the findings of a study of 12 commercial home hosts conducted to explore the strategies commercial home hosts employ to meet their objectives and maintain a sense of home and a balanced lifestyle. The study employed an interpretive and inductive approach to data collection and analysis. Key themes to emerge from the data elucidate the unique nature of the commercial home as a business, strategies for managing ‘work’ and ‘life’ in the commercial home effectively, and the dominant role of women taken in the operation of the commercial home; a role the women enjoy as ‘labour with love’. Although gender roles have been widely discussed in the commercial homes literature, the nature and impact of copreneurial activity, and the personal perspective of how life and business is balanced specifically within a commercial home accommodation enterprise remain relatively unexplored. The paper concludes with the authors questioning whether current copreneurship theory is adequate for understanding the commercial home enterprise, given the skewed division of roles and the motivations and life stage of operators. This leads the authors to call for further research on gendered roles in commercial home enterprises.

Keywords

commercial home; host; work-life balance; copreneurship; New Zealand

Hrčak ID:

24667

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/24667

Publication date:

22.12.2007.

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