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This article aims to explore how understanding the challenges faced by companies' attempts to create competitive advantage through their human resources and HRM practices can be enhanced by insights into the concept of strategic groups within industries. Based within the international hotel industry, this study identifies how strategic groups emerge in the analysis of HRM practices and approaches. It sheds light on the value of strategic groups as a way of readdressing the focus on firm and industry level analyses.

Senior human resource executives and their teams across eight international hotel companies (IHCs) were interviewed in corporate and regional headquarters, with observations and the collection of company documentation complementing the interviews.

The findings demonstrate that strategic groups emerge from analysis of the HRM practices and strategies used to develop hotel general managers (HGMs) as strategic human resources in the international hotel industry. The value of understanding industry structures and dynamics and intermediary levels of analysis are apparent where specific industries place occupational constraints on their managerial resources and limit the range of strategies and expansion modes companies can adopt.

This study indicates that further research on strategic groups will enhance the theoretical understanding of strategic human resource management and specifically the forces that act to constrain the achievement of competitive advantage through human resources. A limitation of this study is the dependence on the human resource divisions' perspectives on realising international expansion ambitions in the hotel industry.

This study has implications for companies' engagement with their executives' perceptions of opportunities and threats, and suggests companies will struggle to achieve competitive advantage where such perceptions are consistent with their competitors.

Developments in strategic human resource management have relied on the conceptual and theoretical developments in strategic management, however, an understanding of the impact of strategic groups and their shaping of SHRM has not been previously explored.

The purpose of this paper is to examine where and how coaching and mentoring disciplines overlap or differ in approach. Coaching and mentoring have emerged as important interventions as the role of helping relationships have gained prominence in human resource development. However, there appear to be contexts where one or other is preeminent, without consistent explanation of their suitability. Such inconsistency arguably creates confusion and doubt about these interventions and their efficacy notably amongst those who commission such interventions and their potential beneficiaries. This study focuses on this inconsistency of coaching or mentoring by exploring practitioners’ approaches within six disciplines: executive coaches, coaching psychologists, sports coaches, mentors of leaders, mentors of newly qualified teachers and mentors of young people, with the aim of assisting those seeking support with development.

This exploratory study was undertaken using a qualitative methodology, where in-depth interviews were completed with experienced practitioners to elucidate their approaches and practice.

The findings show that approaches may be discipline-specific, where practitioners specialise in a particular type of coaching or mentoring requiring distinctive knowledge and/or skills. However, the sharing of good practice across disciplines and the value of understanding the common dimensions which emerged is also evident, providing clients and those who commission coaching and mentoring with reassurances regarding the nature of these helping relationships.

As the research focused only on the practitioners’ experiences of their work in these disciplines, it is vital that the mentees’ and coachees’ experiences are captured in future research. There is also value in further exploration of the model developed.

By deploying the model concerned with the future development of these interventions suggests practitioners can expand their capacity and scope by adopting interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches.

By directly exploring the shared and distinctive approaches of coaching and mentoring practitioners in six contexts, this study provides opportunities to understand where practitioners can benefit from imparting best practice across these interventions and highlighting specific aspects for their context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of an alumni and employer engagement mentoring initiative in a hospitality and tourism school within a UK university.

The paper uses the survey method and interviews to provide qualitative and quantitative data on the participants’ reactions to the initiative.

The main components of successful mentoring programmes; matching, preparation, interaction and evaluation are explored to help identify the long‐ and short‐term challenges and benefits of mentoring students as they transition into the graduate labour market. The findings highlight the benefits to mentors and mentees and the challenges for ensuring participant engagement and ongoing development. The article concludes with an agenda for further mentoring developments in the midst of the dynamic challenges facing UK higher education institutions and the hospitality and tourism industry.

The article highlights the importance of a systematic approach to developing a mentoring programme and engaging industry in a distinctive way with the transitioning of undergraduates into the workplace.

This article offers unique evidence of an employer engagement initiative aimed at supporting sector specific management graduates as they transition from university into industry.

Purpose: This chapter aims to critically explore the nature of mentoring initiatives through the conceptual lenses of social capital and communities of practice offering a distinctive understanding of talent management (TM) innovations in the international hospitality industry.

Methodology/approach: It achieves its aim through identifying and analysing current mentoring initiatives operating in the international hospitality sector, and scrutinises how they provide a sector level approach to TM challenges.

Findings: Industry level mentoring initiatives emerge as TM innovations connecting employees within networks across the international hospitality sectors. Mentoring creates bonds and bridges between senior and junior employees beyond their own workplaces, connecting them to the industry and supporting TM by enhancing the identification of opportunities and the recognition of talent. These initiatives also act as learning communities where contemporary TM dilemmas can be explored by participants from diverse backgrounds and between generations.

Research limitations/implications: The findings rely on the identification and exploration of publically available data, and therefore future primary data collection would yield richer insights into the experiences of stakeholders of these mentoring initiatives as TM innovations.

Social implications: Mentoring initiatives can exemplify innovative ways of supporting TM and addressing diversity and inequality issues in fragmented and dispersed sectors, such as the international hospitality industry.

Originality/value of paper: The exploration of contemporary mentoring initiatives in the international hospitality industry identifies the value of cross-industry TM innovations stretching beyond stakeholders, such as educators, employers and policy-makers. It identifies mentoring initiatives as mechanisms for creating bonds and bridges between those industry aspirants at various career stages where diversity and inclusion may be a challenge in a fragmented and dispersed sector.

Relates the type of expansion strategies used by international hotel groups to approaches to ensuring organizational cohesion within these organizational settings. Achieves this by exploring dimensions of control and co‐ordination of managerial resources. Uses a case‐study approach which concentrates on the human resource management function to highlight current experiences in six different hotel companies and identifies their engagement in high degrees of social control. This result may be easily understood where the company both owns and operates its properties; however, the evidence suggests that franchising, a mechanism which is often seen as allowing hotel unit investors or franchisees considerable latitude in running the operation, is also susceptible to social control through management transfer and development policies.

This paper seeks to examine why and how M&A activity has been used by UK hotel companies over a 26‐year period and aims to provide a preliminary exploration of its relative success, given that the M&A literature suggests high failure rates or M&A transactions which do not achieve their objectives.

This research is based on a combination of a multiple‐case study and comparative historical analysis to bring out the different levels of analysis embedded in past M&A literature and to identify changes of motives for undertaking M&A activities based on companies and their external environment.

The paper finds that value maximizing motives are prevalent whilst non‐value maximizing motives are not supported. The acquisition of brand names and rights is a major motive for the UK hotel industry, particularly in the light of global competition and the brand power that enables companies to expedite growth while at the same time reducing financial risks.

This longitudinal study serves to reinforce the type of target companies, particularly those that share similar resources or end products, for acquiring companies to select from in order to expect a higher M&A success rate.

This paper provides the first empirical study to integrate the comparative historical analysis approach with strategic management M&A theory to trace and understand how and why UK hotel companies became leading international companies. Through this interdisciplinary approach, the importance of acquiring a brand name is illustrated and identified as an essential motive, specific to the hotel industry.

This chapter aims to examine the ways coaching and mentoring are currently leveraged to deliver leadership development in higher education institutions. By exploring the variety of coaching and mentoring approaches and their deployment at different levels and across different institutions we are able to indicate opportunities for further enhancing leadership development in the sector through coaching and mentoring. The chapter examines peer-reviewed articles, sector reports and insights from key informants crafted into mini case studies. Mentoring emerges as a default approach to leadership development, in particular at early career stages and where inclusivity and diversity feature as part of leadership development programmes. Coaching is evident at the senior levels and offers a wider range of individual leader, senior team and organisational leadership development opportunities. Our cases highlight the range of responses and sophistication of coaching approaches and practices, from the highly embedded to other more piecemeal examples. The findings emphasise the importance of empirical research in this area to better understand and inform the sector of the wider benefits and opportunities of coaching and mentoring in supporting leadership development. Opportunities to support greater inclusivity and diversity in leadership should consider coaching approaches and practices too. This exploration of coaching and mentoring identifies why shifts towards coaching may be evident. It challenges those in the sector – researchers, people management and organisational developers, as well as senior leaders – to adopt more integrated and embedded coaching and mentoring initiatives to support the sector in addressing its current challenges.

This paper aims to identify the extent to which hospitality management degree programmes are internationalised to develop graduates capable of working within the global hospitality industry.

A qualitative multiple case study approach was adopted for a UK study of undergraduate international hospitality management degrees. Interviews and document analysis were used as the data collection techniques.

The findings reveal the importance of the development of graduates' cross‐cultural competencies within international hospitality management programmes and the methods used to develop these. The study also reveals further opportunities to enhance the internationalisation of degree programmes.

The findings are based on a case study research strategy set within the context of the UK and as such, the generalisability of the findings may be limited. In addition, the study sample contained only undergraduate international hospitality management degree programmes.

This paper reveals a number of opportunities to enhance the internationalisation of hospitality management programmes and the challenges currently faced by academics and students.

The paper provides a framework comprising internationalisation at home (IaH) and internationalisation abroad (IA) dimensions for academics to assess the internationalisation of degree programmes and the extent to which cross‐cultural competencies are developed among graduates. The framework can also be used by graduate recruiters seeking candidates with the requisite cross‐cultural understanding, attitudes and skills to work within the international hospitality industry.

The international hotel industry's growth has been achieved via the simultaneous divestment of real estate portfolios and adoption of low risk or “asset light” market entry modes such as management contracting. The management implications of these market entry mode decisions have however been poorly explored in the literature and the purpose of this paper is to address these omissions.

Research was undertaken with senior human resource executives and their teams across eight international hotel companies (IHCs). Data were collected by means of semi‐structured interviews, observations and the collection of company documentation.

The findings demonstrate that management contracts as “asset light” options for international market entry not only provide valuable equity and strategic opportunities but also limit IHCs' chances of developing and sustaining human resource competitive advantage. Only where companies leverage their specific market entry expertise and develop mutually supportive relationships with their property‐owning partners can the challenges of managing human resources in these complex and diversely owned arrangements be surmounted.

A limitation of this paper is the focus on the human resource specialists' perspectives of the impact of internationalization through asset light market entry modes.

This paper presents important insights into the tensions, practices and implications of management contracts as market entry modes which create complex inter‐organisational relationships subsequently shaping international human resource management strategies, practices and competitive advantage.