Purpose -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. Design/methodology/approach -The paper uses the survey method and interviews to provide qualitative and quantitative data on the participants' reactions to the initiative. Findings -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. Practical implications -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. Originality/value -This article offers unique evidence of an employer engagement initiative aimed at supporting sector specific management graduates as they transition from university into industry.

In the strategic human resource management (SHRM) field three approaches have dominated, namely, the universal or best-practice, best-fit or contingency and resourcebased view (RBV). This study investigates evidence for the simultaneous or mixed adoption of these approaches by eight case study firms in the international hotel industry. Findings suggest there is considerable evidence of the combined use of the first two approaches but that the SHRM RBV approach was difficult to achieve by all companies. Overall, gaining differentiation through SHRM practices was found to be challenging due to specific industry forces. The study identifies that where companies derive some competitive advantage from their human resources and HRM practices they have closely aligned their managers' expertise with their corporate market entry mode expertise and developed some distinctive, complex and integrated HRM interventions, which have a mutually reinforcing effect.

No abstract

No abstract

Management AbstractPurpose -This article explores 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.Design Methodology/Approach -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.Findings -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, 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.Research limitations/implications -This study indicates that further research on strategic groups will enhance the theoretical understanding of strategic human resource management (SHRM) 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 of realising international expansion ambitions in the hotel industry.Practical implications -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.Originality/value -Developments in strategic human resource management have relied upon 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.