Through the lens of hospitality, an industry with chronic retention issues, this article seeks to stimulate reflection on labor-intensive industries and how we can reimagine their responses to an evolving labor market environment when seeking to attract and retain management talent. Drawing on identity economics, whereby employees’ identity utility is an important incentive in employment decision-making, the necessity for a multilevel perspective of identity formation is advanced. Positing that employees’ work identity is informed by individual (micro), organizational (meso), and professional (macro) level factors, this perspective illuminates the important role that macro level stakeholders play in employee identity formation, particularly in the hospitality industry. Further, it emphasizes the interconnectedness of levels in shaping an employee's identity and career decisions. Through a series of research questions, a line of inquiry is articulated for the purpose of addressing the challenges of attracting and retaining management talent from a holistic identity formation perspective. © 2021 Elsevier Inc.
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