Tourism Workforce Resilience in Crisis: Paradox Dynamics Across Multi-Level Actors

Tourism’s workforce resilience remains vitally important as the industry continues to build capacity in its long recovery from recurring global crises. Resilience is hindered by persistent structural issues that obstruct recovery efforts. Adopting and extending a novel paradox dynamics model, this research holistically considers employees, operators, and stakeholders, by modeling the process across four dimensions of unresolved paradoxical tensions. Based on qualitative data engaging multiple stakeholders in impacted regional tourism destinations, the results reveal a “vicious-virtuous” process in explaining workforce resilience building from a shifting paradox dynamics view. Theoretically, we augment the shifting paradox dynamics by recognizing the complexity of multiple tourism workforce actors, the diffused nature of organizational agency, and the lack of a central orchestrator. We augment the model to accommodate these empirical insights. Practically, the study identifies resolutions to further deep structural issues that obstruct resilience and recovery.