This essay is a reflection about the relevance of overcoming eminently prescriptive approaches to the management of service delivery. It underlines new possibilities for knowledge production about the act of service delivery in service encounters, using the social interaction perspective proposed by Berger and Luckmann (2002). The focus is on the encounter of high impact service in the area of professional hospitality. Hospitality is considered at two levels: first, in a broad manner, with the object of salvaging the implications of the term itself; and, secondly, as a management prescription applied to professional hospitality, which has high impact service encounters as one of its principal characteristics. In conclusion, the possibility of knowledge production which overcomes management prescription and incorporates the practices of differing and interacting rationalities is emphasized, with the question of non-authenticity posited by Souza (2000) as a point of reference.