Professor Tom Baum

Personal statement

My academic interests address the social and strategic contexts of low skills employment, with particular focus on hospitality and tourism. This interest stems from over 40 years of experience in the strategic planning and development of vocational and professional education and training, as a research director within the public sector, as an educator in universities and as consultant to the private sector and to public sector, internationally funded projects across five continents. A key focus of my work addresses the role of public and private stakeholders in planning and HRD for the diverse employment environment of hospitality and tourism. Much of my strategic development work in this area has been located in developing country contexts in Asia and Africa. I also collaborate in research which addresses related areas of employment including migrant work and episodic, events volunteering. In all my work in these areas, I adopt a critical perspective on work and the workplace in frontline services that include hospitality, tourism and retail and use academic research as the basis for advocacy or intellectual activism designed to promote change. In this context, I am a founder member of the Global Hospitality Research Alliance (GHRA), a community of scholars from around the world with a common commitment to promoting change to work, the workplace and working conditions in hospitality. Post-COVID, I have been actively engaged with a number of policy-focused initiatives that have focused on this area, including the Scottish Fair Work Convention's Inquiry into Hospitality and the ReWage report on hospitality pay and working conditions.

I have recently been CI on two major international research projects. The first is the the One Ocean Hub (www.strath.ac.uk/research/strathclydecentreenvironmentallawgovernance/oneoceanhub/) which is a transdisciplinary study of the natural and human ecology of the ocean, focusing on improving the lives of communities in the Global South. The second is a Horizon2020 project focuses on new urban management models and mobilities in Europe and partnering 11 major universities. Prior to this, I led funded projects in partnership with universities in Kenya, South Africa, The Philippines and Uganda.

From 2014 until July 2019, I was the Head of Department in the Department of Work, Employment and Organisation and have previously spent 7 years heading up the former Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management and The Scottish Hotel School. I led the development of overseas partnership programmes in Hong Kong and Iran.  I have published extensively on themes relating to people and work within hospitality and tourism and am regularly invited to address international conferences worldwide. I have also supervised over 40 successful PhD students working in this and related areas of HRD in tourism and hospitality and have been an examiner for over 75 candidates.

I hold or have held visiting appointments to universities in Australia, Estonia, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and Wales. My current Visiting Professorships are with Auckland University of Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Taylors University, Malaysia, the University of Johannesburg and the University of Wales.

I have been a panel member and chair for institutional and programme reviews in 12 countries.