www.sciedu.ca/ijba International Journal of Business Administration Vol. 4, No. 1; 2013 Published by Sciedu Press 39 ISSN 1923-4007 E-ISSN 1923-4015 Strategic Human Resource Development in Hospitality Crisis Management: A Conceptual Framework for Food and Beverage Departments Ala`a Nimer AbuKhalifeh School of Housing, Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia E-mail: ana11_hbp046@student.usm.my Ahmad Puad Mat Som School of Housing, Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia & Sustainable Tourism Research Cluster (STRC), Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia E-mail: puad@usm.my Ahmad Rasmi AlBattat School of Housing, Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia E-mail: battat_ahmed@yahoo.com Received: October 24, 2012 Accepted: December 20, 2012 Online Published: January 5, 2013 doi:10.5430/ijba.v4n1p39 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/ijba.v4n1p39 Abstract Crisis management has been a largely unnoticed territory in human resource development. Despite the increased impact of organizational crises on individual and organizational performance, it remains to be an issue that must be recognized and addressed. This paper reviews the current literature on hotel industry crisis management, its progression and effective crisis management framework. Garavan`s strategic human resource model as a guiding framework is discussed to help understand the various ways in which human resource development can build crisis management capabilities in organizations. The study applies various components of the model to the crisis management context and integrates ideas from the literatures. The paper offers specific guidelines for practitioners regarding how to align strategic human resource development with food and beverage department strategies and identify areas for future research. Keywords: Crisis management, Hotel industry, Strategic human resource development, Food and beverage, Malaysia 1. Introduction Many researchers have examined the existing crises in organizational settings (Ghaderi, Mat Som & Henderson, 2012; Gilley & Eggland, 1989; Gilley & Maycunich, 2000; Pauchant & Mitroff, 1992; Pearson & Clair, 1998; Reilly, 1987; Sayegh, Anthony, & Perrewe, 2004; Turner, 1976; Wang, Hutchins, and Garavan, 2009). Literature has suggested some level of agreement on the nature of organizational crisis and the range of organizational crisis management. Agreeing on the definition of a crisis has a proven challenging or a crisis theorist and practitioners. This may possibly symbolize the changing nature of crisis events during the last decade (Wang et al., 2009). Financial, social, industrial, health, and economic crises are terms often used to identify undesirable and sometimes unlikely events that have significant impacts. Despite the vibrations, a crisis is typically recognized as a low probability. High impact situations are unforeseen, unfamiliar, and precipitated by people, organizational structures, economics, technology or natural disasters (Pearson & Clair, 1998; Reilly, 1987). Crisis events can be instantaneous or slow to emerge or “creeping”, similar to the environmental crisis or the more recent energy surge that has resulted in a gradual increase in fuel costs for most countries (Sayegh et al., 2004). Synthesizing the literature and acknowledging six main characteristics of an organizational crisis, include the following : (1) high ambiguity with