A unique setting for organizational research

Hospitality, food and wine compose a microcosm of our socioeconomic landscape.
The hospitality, restaurant, and wine sectors constitute a rich microcosm of our socioeconomic landscape. Organizations in these industries face—and often anticipate—a wide variety of issues: cultural transformations, technological innovation, environmental challenges, labor dynamics, market reconfigurations, and evolving professional practices.

Although numerous studies have emerged in recent decades, they often evolve separately. The aim of this conference is to bring together scholars (as well as practitioners, policy makers, artists, etc.) interested in contributing towards an organizational perspective on the hospitality, food, and wine industries.

The 2026 conference follows up on the highly successful (and fun!) "A Tavola!" subtheme at EGOS in Milan.

An open call for contributions

We welcome empirical papers on the hospitality, food, and wine industries. We are open to contributions at various stages of advancement, and to any theory, topic and method that could contribute to the joint development of an organizational perspective on food.

Some examples of potential directions include, but are not limited to, the following:

• How do people and organizations in the restaurant, and more broadly hospitality industry engage with grand challenges (e.g., sustainability, climate change, hunger), by developing new practices and forms (e.g., regenerative practices)?
• What about new forms of collaboration across actors (entrepreneurs, policy makers, activists) and local (and global) communities (e.g., chefs-led food relief and social kitchens)? How can the hospitality industry shift tastes and behaviors towards sustainable consumption?
• How is the hospitality industry addressing its own challenges (e.g., labor precarity, harassment culture), while sustaining its creativity and impish sense of fun?
• How are food- and hospitality-related technologies (e.g., cultivated meat, AI, augmented reality, immersive worlds) influencing organizations? What new categories are emerging? How are the traditional forms of hospitality being challenged and changed?
• What new frontiers and meanings are being developed in relation to the hospitality industry in
• relation to technology, science, and art? (e.g., culinary genomics, space hotels; restaurants as essential infrastructures for food security)
• How are interactions with various third parties (critics, suppliers, customers, platforms) shaping behaviors for organizations in the restaurant, and more broadly hospitality industry?
• What about other trends and dynamics that affect the behavior of organizations in the restaurant, and more broadly hospitality industry?

We are looking forward to your cool research and are cooking up secret recipes to make this conference a productive and fun experience of encounters, discussions, and not least meals. À table!

► Call for contributions

► Please submit your 3,000-word short-paper by February 15th, 2026 to HoFoW2026@proton.me

A remarkable setting: Lyon, World Capital of Gastronomy

The conference will take place at iaelyon School of Management and emlyon business school.

Lyon, French Capital of Gastronomy and home to emblematic chefs such as Paul Bocuse, has much to offer. Situated at the crossroads of trade and travel routes since Roman times, the city enjoys a rich and long-standing tradition of hospitality.

From “mères lyonnaises” (female cooks who ran accommodation facilities renowned for outstanding home cooking) to world-class chefs; from authentic “bouchons” restaurants to exclusive fine dining; from the UNESCO World Heritage listed old city to the vast vineyards of Beaujolais and Côtes-du-Rhône, this conference does not only invites participants to an exciting reflective journey into hospitality but enables them to personally experience its multiple facets.
 

Scientific and Organizing Committees

Natalia Agrel, Institut Lyfe
Marco Bottura, Institut Lyfe
Giada Di Stefano, Università Bocconi
Bernard Forgues, emlyon business school
Isabelle Royer, iaelyon School of Management
Jesper Strandgaard Pedersen, CBS - Copenhagen Business School
Silviya Svejenova, CBS - Copenhagen Business School