Collective Learning Process of Behavior by Accidental Cooperation with the Customer and the Restaurant

From the Management of the French Restaurant

Abstract

From a macro–economic viewpoint, the relationship between the customer and the restaurant is regarded as the co–existence of two communities to mutually prosper. However, from a micro–economic viewpoint of restaurant management, their advantages and purposes differ: one is the proposing side; the other, the selecting side. In this study, with a French restaurant setting, particular occurrences of customers’ deviant behavior were analyzed through participant observation. Through the results, it can be inferred that the customers’ deviant behavior resulted from being asked to conform to norms unheard of in a traditional French restaurant, by the restaurant concerned. Moreover, the restaurant was unaware of their stance on certain norms until a customer displayed an unusual behavior. Customers and the restaurant interacted depending on the situation. Consequently, the restaurant’s norms fluctuated. Thus, new norms were generated; this can be considered a learning scene, where the customers and the staffs—two communities with different purposes—negotiate in a boundary crossing space, the restaurant, thereby rebuilding existing norms.