Sustainable Human Resource Management in the Context of Sustainable Tourism and Sustainable Development in Africa: Problems and Prospects

Employment and workforce issues have been largely overlooked in sustainable tourism and efforts to address this shortcoming have drawn on sustainable human resource management (SustHRM) without regard to limitations of SustHRM theorization. This chapter addresses this oversight, three problems are identified in current SustHRM theorization and prospects for theory development are proffered in the context of sustainable tourism and development in Africa. First, at the organizational level, current SustHRM theorization needs to move beyond outcomes focused on superficial and moderate organizational change to include scope for more radical change to organizational strategies, structures, business models and paradigms. Second, at the level of interfirm collaboration, current SustHRM theorization needs to address sustainability within supply chains and global value chains while paying attention to power relations and inequalities between developing and developed nations. Third, current SustHRM theorization needs to move beyond an instrumental, Western-centric and narrow approach to incorporate a more assertive, ethically grounded and broader role in promoting sustainability within the wider society