Enabling and Managing Authentic Experiences: The High-Class Escort Sector in the Netherlands

In this paper we explore how potentially authentic experiences are brought forth by experience providers on a managerial and individual employee level. We do so by researching the Dutch market sector of high-class, agency-based, female escorts, in which the Girlfriend Experience is offered to clients. Authenticity in the experience is treated as a criterion variable; it being a possible outcome of multiple specified predictors. The findings offer insights into which individual behaviours and managerial efforts need to be in place in market exchange relations to deliver a “commodified authentic experience,” thereby supporting responsible behaviour in the organization and enhancing our practical understanding of the employment sector. Within the Management, Spirituality, and Religion Interest Group domain, the basic philosophical categories we deploy offer a necessary and strategically useful complement to spiritual and religious terminology for “creating a better world together” in pluralistic societies.