Tourism workforce research: A review, taxonomy and agenda

Published Date
Annals of Tourism Research
September 2016, Vol.60:1–22, doi:10.1016/j.annals.2016.04.003

Author 

Tom Baum ^a,1

Anna Kralj ^b,1

Richard N.S. Robinson ^c,1

David J. Solnet ^c,,1,

aUniversity of Strathclyde, Scotland, United Kingdom

bGriffith University, Australia

cUniversity of Queensland, Australia

Received 5 November 2015. Revised 12 April 2016. Accepted 15 April 2016. Available online 30 May 2016. Coordinating Editor: H. Tucker

Highlights

• Workforce research is neglected in the top 8 T&H journals, rated by Impact Factor.
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  The term ‘workforce’ unifies the multiple levels at which research is conducted.
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  T&H workforce research is disjointed in topics, analysis, theory and method.
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  Tourism vs. hospitality research gives different treatment to workforce issues.
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  A multi-level model presents a contextual framework for future workforce research.

Abstract 

This paper offers a critical review, purview and future view of ‘workforce’ research. We argue that the tourism (and hospitality) workforce research domain, beyond being neglected relative to its importance, suffers from piecemeal approaches at topic, analytical, theoretical and methods levels. We adopt a three-tiered macro, meso and micro level framework into which we map the five pervasive themes from our systematic review across a 10 year period (2005–2014). A critique of the literature, following a ‘representations’ narrative, culminates in the development of a tourism workforce taxonomy, which we propose should provide the starting point for a pathway to guide the advancement of a more holistic approach to tourism workforce knowledge development.

Keywords

Labour/labor

Employee

Workforce

HRM

Macro–meso–micro

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  Corresponding author.
  
  

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