Talent management and unions The impact of the New Zealand hotel workers union on talent management in hotels (1950-1995) David Williamson Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand, and Candice Harris School of Business, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the Hotel Workers Union and its impact on talent management in the New Zealand hospitality sector using the corporatist framework drawing primarily on the works of Schmitter (1979) to construct a critical, historical employment relations approach. Design/methodology/approach – The data for this paper were gathered as part of a history of employment relations in the New Zealand hotel sector from 1955 to 2000. The main methods were, namely, semi-structured interviews and archival research. Findings – This study found a historical employment environment of multiple actors in the employment relationship, with hotel unions playing a more complex and nuanced role to influence talent management in the New Zealand hotel sector. The paper suggests that neither the hotel union nor employers effectively addressed talent management challenges in this sector. Research limitations/implications – The study contributes detailed empirical knowledge about historical relationships between hotel unions and talent management issues in New Zealand. Originality/value – The paper argues that applying a corporatist perspective to the history of the Hotel Workers Union and the issues of talent management that result from that history provides a unique and insightful contribution to the field Keywords Employment relations, Talent Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction Conjecture remains on what “talent” really means and how to effectively manage talent. Concomitantly talent management has been described as still lacking in theoretical foundations and uniformity of definitions (Festing and Schäfer, 2014). Most writing on talent management stresses the need to retain talented staff, hence, it links with several other organisational concepts such as work-life balance, social-exchange, job satisfaction and organisational commitment. The call for wide consideration of talent management is also extended by scholars advocating for more work considering gender or culture-specific challenges as factors to explain variance in the effectiveness of talent management approaches (Tatli et al., 2013). A macro level view that includes the voices of, and roles played by, multiple actors (e.g. unions) in talent management in the tourism and hospitality field remains obscured. This paper argues that taking a historical employment relations approach provides an original and new perspective on understanding challenges in managing talent in the hotel sector. This paper uses the Corporatist framework drawing primarily on the works of IJCHM 31,10 3838 Received 31 October 2018 Revised 21 March 2019 Accepted 1 April 2019 International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management Vol. 31 No. 10, 2019 pp. 3838-3854 © Emerald Publishing Limited 0959-6119 DOI 10.1108/IJCHM-10-2018-0877 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0959-6119.htm