The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted the global hospitality industry. In response, international chain hotels increasingly adopted High-Performance Work Systems (HPWS) to strengthen organizational resilience and sustain operational performance. This study investigates how leadership support shapes the adoption and sustenance of HPWS within international chain hotels in the aftermath of the pandemic crisis. Using a qualitative exploratory design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten managerial and frontline employees across international chain hotels in Bali, Indonesia. Thematic analysis, facilitated through ATLAS.ti 7, yielded four principal themes: strategic leadership alignment, crisis-driven adaptability, employee-centric leadership, and systemic sustainability barriers. The findings indicate that leaders who purposefully integrated HPWS into post-pandemic recovery frameworks, exercised adaptive decision-making, and sustained employee well-being were instrumental to system-level success. The study is geographically bounded to Bali and relies exclusively on qualitative data, which constrains broad generalizability. Future investigations are encouraged to employ mixed-method designs and to examine cross-cultural variations in HPWS adoption across diverse hospitality markets. This study contributes an empirically grounded perspective on the intersection of leadership support, crisis management, and HPWS within hospitality human resource management, with actionable implications for enhancing workforce engagement and operational efficiency in international hotel environments.
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