A research agenda for occupational safety, health, & well-being in hospitality & tourism management

Abstract

With the exception of the most recent years following the global pandemic, hospitality and tourism-related research specifically examining worker safety, health, and well-being has not been a topic at the forefront in the discipline. Pre-pandemic studies investigating worker well-being frequently used dependent variables such as job satisfaction, turnover intention, and organizational commitment as proxies. The purpose of this research was to identify the gaps in occupational safety, health, and well-being priorities within the contemporary hospitality and tourism and adjacent literature. Utilizing a content analysis of 531 academic journal articles reduced from 4170 originally mined, 11,109 coded segments formed 9 clusters in which 3 overarching themes emerged. Based on the emergent themes, an interdisciplinary research framework adapted from Sorensen et al. (2016) and Peters et al. (2020) is proposed to improve the design and inclusion of occupational safety, health, and well-being constructs in future hospitality and tourism management research.