Fast vs. slow rhythms: balancing human resource change and corporate strategic development in tourism firms

Haoming Li, Guojun Zeng, Xueru Yang and He Wang

Current Issues in Tourism, 2025, vol. 28, issue 21, 3468-3486

Abstract: Due to the dynamic and complex environment in which tourism firms operate, it can be challenging to align the pace of human resource change with corporate strategic development. In this study, we introduce strategic rhythm theory to explore the antecedents of strategic human resource management from a temporal perspective. We construct an innovative theoretical framework categorising strategic rhythms into market and non-market types to elucidate how these rhythms influence the evolutionary process of strategic human resource management within tourism firms. Based on a longitudinal case study, our findings indicate that aligning strategic development with human resource change is a non-linear, sequential, and dynamic process. Both non-market and market strategic rhythms exhibit an entrainment mechanism, achieving an intermittent fit between strategic development and human resource change through optimisation and complementary functions. Furthermore, this study deconstructs the process by which strategic rhythm drives strategic human resources, summarising three action logics: strategic follow-up, strategic leadership, and strategic lag. It also identifies the states of rhythmic systems into three stages: arrhythmia, polyrhythmic coordination, and eurhythmia. This study extends the scope of strategic human resource management by showing how tourism firms can achieve strategic fit, offering practical value to help them leverage strengths to thrive.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2024.2395987

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