Harris, Candice

Rasmussen, Erling

Ravenswood, Katherine

Williamson, David D

English

Digital Commons @ TRU Library (Thompson Rivers University)

Critical Tourism Studies Proceedings
Volume 2017 Article 11
2017
Where is the Critical Employment Relations
Research in Hospitality and Tourism?
David D. Williamson
Auckland University of Technology, david.williamson@aut.ac.nz
Candice Harris
Erling Rasmussen
Katherine Ravenswood
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Recommended Citation
Williamson, David D.; Harris, Candice; Rasmussen, Erling; and Ravenswood, Katherine (2017) "Where is the Critical Employment
Relations Research in Hospitality and Tourism?," Critical Tourism Studies Proceedings: Vol. 2017 , Article 11.
Available at: http://digitalcommons.library.tru.ca/cts-proceedings/vol2017/iss1/11
  
Title: Where is the Critical Employment Relations Research in Hospitality and Tourism?  
Author: David Williamson, Candice Harris, Erling Rasmussen, & Katherine Ravenswood 
Affiliation: Auckland University of Technology 
Contact: david.williamson@aut.ac.nz 
Session Type: Presentation 
 
Abstract: 
This paper questions the lack of ‘traditional’ employment relations research in the 
hospitality and tourism sectors. Based on recent doctoral research into New Zealand hotels, the 
paper presents theoretical approaches that could bring a more critical and insightful focus to 
employment in these industries. 
Recent government reports in Australia and New Zealand have highlighted escalating 
problems in the hospitality and tourism labour markets (Deloitte, 2015; New Zealand Tourism 
Industry Association, 2015). The reports contrast the rapid growth and economic success of the 
sectors (both being among the largest export-earning sectors for their countries) with longstanding, 
yet steadily worsening, labour market problems. These problems include major skills shortages, 
high labour turnover, low pay, lack of full-time work, and poor career path information (Cropp, 
2016; Deloitte, 2015; New Zealand Tourism Industry Association, 2015). This contemporary 
data highlights the intensification of long-identified problems around human resource 
management, employment relations, and labour markets in the international hospitality and 
tourism literature (Baum, 2007, 2008; Deery, 2002; Enz, 2009; Lucas, 2004). 
Despite its crucial economic importance and the fact that the hospitality and tourism 
sector is demonstrating all the symptoms of a labour market in dire crisis, traditional 
employment relations research in this field remains scant. There is copious international research 
on the problematic nature of work in international hospitality and tourism, highlighting the well- 
trodden themes of high labour turnover, poor career progression, low pay, poor work conditions, 
poor work-life balance, and weak occupation and safety systems (Ancheri & Kandasamy, 2009; 
Baum, 2007, 2008; Chen, Cheung, & Law, 2012; Davidson, McPhail, & Barry, 2011; Deery, 
2002; Enz, 2009; Harkison, Poulston, & Jung-Hee, 2011; McGing & Connolly, 2007; Mooney, 
2007; Mooney & Ryan, 2009; Poulston, 2008; Richardson, 2009; Wickramasekara, 2011; 
Williamson, 2009; Williamson, Harris, & Parker, 2008; Wong & Ko, 2009; Wood, 1997). 
However, little of the above research focusses on power, gender, and class relations between the 
tri-partite stakeholders in the employment relationship. 
The paper will argue that, despite calls to liberate hospitality and tourism research from 
‘presentist’, positivist, unitarist paradigms (Lashley, 2007; Lashley, Lynch, & Morrison, 2006; 
Lashley & Morrison, 2000; Lynch, Molz, Mcintosh, Lugosi, & Lashley, 2011; O’Gorman, 2005; 
Walton, 2012; Zampoukos & Ioannides, 2011), there remains little in the way of contemporary 
critical employment relations research in the field. Based on recently completed research in the 
New Zealand hotel industry, the paper will call for a re-engagement with multi-level 
employment relations analysis of hospitality and tourism. The paper concludes by highlighting a 
number of valuable areas of research that resulted from the application of a critical employment 
relations approach, including a re-analysis of the role of unions in hospitality and tourism and the 
historical origins of managerial attitudes towards collective bargaining. 
 
  
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