Skills, organizational performance and economic activity in the hospitality industry: a literature review

This monograph aims to understand the pressures which push organisations to adopt particular routes to competitive advantage. The monograph aims to discover if the best practice high skill, high wage and high quality route is used in the hospitality industry. It seeks to determine the influence of companies' product market strategies and their in-company and external structural factors on skills levels, work organisation, job design and people management systems. The monograph looked at the notion of 'best practice' approaches and then moved on to consider the best way to carry forward the future research agenda of reviewing the nature of human resource management (HRM) in the hospitality sector. Conclusions were drawn from a range of interviews and from existing work which has sought to address the issue of HRM in the hospitality sector. The monograph's findings demonstrate that it is difficult to make generalisations about the hospitality sector and that there is much evidence to suggest that a common approach to HRM in the hospitality industry is a 'best fit' rather than 'best practice' (high skills, high wage, high quality) approach. Show less