A CASE STUDY OF THE PROVISION OF
HOTEL AND CATERING MANAGEMENT EDUCATION
AT THE HONG KONG POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY:
A MISMATCH OF EXPECTATIONS
Thesis submitted for the degree of
Doctorate of Education
at the University of Leicester
by
Chan Man Leong, Benny
School of Hotel and Tourism Management
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
September 2002 UMI Number: U601220
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ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION p ,„ The economic background related to tourism in Hong Kong 1-2 The importance of the hotel industry in Hong Kong 3 Social perception of the hotel industry in Hong Kong 3-5 Hong Kong's education provision for the hotel and catering 5-6 industry The Hong Kong Polytechnic University 7 6- University student expectations 8 Stakeholders and the offered curriculum 8-10 Partnership between educational institutions and the hotel 10 industry Statement ofproblems and purpose of research 11 Objectives 11-12 Significance of the study 12 Structure of the thesis 13 2. LITERATURE REVIEW Introduction 14 Background 14-17 Stakeholders in training for the hotel industry 17-20 Expectations of the hotel industry 20-22 Expectations of students 22-26 Expectations of hospitality educators 26-28 Relationships between stakeholders 28-31 Influences on the curriculum for hotel management 31-34 courses in higher education The aim/purpose of the curriculum 34-38 Pedagogy in the curriculum 39-41 The content of the curriculum 41-43 The organisation of learning — the internship program 43-4 7 Assessment/outcomes in terms o f the competency approach 47-54 Accreditation 54-56 Summary 56-59 METHODOLOGY Page Introduction 60 Research approach 60-62 Case study approach 62-65 Questionnaire survey 65-66 Interview 66-67 Interview and questionnaire 67-68 Data collection 68-69 Sample population 69-71 Sampling 71-72 Setting questions - a. questionnaire 72-74 Pilot test 74 Setting questions - b. interviews 74-75 Method of analysing data 75-77 Scheduling 77-79 Summary 79-80 Limitations 80 FINDINGS I - on past graduates Introduction 81-84 H IM qualification 84-85 Quality of HTMprogram 86-87 Impression about the strengths and weaknesses of87-88 the HTM program Summary 88-89
FINDINGS II - on students, educators and employers through the quantitative approach Introduction 90 Student 90-96 Hotel employer 97-100 Hospitality educator 101-104 Relationship between stakeholders on professional104-110 preparation Summary 111 6. FINDINGS III - on students, educators and employers through the qualitative approach page Introduction 112 Student ^ 112-119 Hotel employer 120-127 Hospitality educator 128-137 Relationship between stakeholders 138-148 Summary 148-149
7. ANALYSIS Introduction 150-151 Expectations of the hotel industry 151-153 Expectations of students 154-156 Expectations of hospitality educators 156-158 Relationships between stakeholders 158-161 Curriculum development 162 A im/purpose of the curriculum 162-163 Pedagogy in the curriculum 164-165 The content of the curriculum 165-16 7 The organisation of the learning situation 168-169 - internship program Assessment/outcomes in terms of the competency approach 170-176 Accreditation 177 Summary 178-180
8. CONCLUSIONS Introduction 181-182 Reasons that graduates are not joining the hospitality 182-183 industry Expectations of training for the hospitality industry 183-186 Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality 187-189 industry Curriculum development 189-191 Internship programme 191 Accreditation 191-193 The relevance of the finding to the health of the industry 194 Recommendations for the Hong Kong hotel and194-200 catering management education, students and the hotel industry Summary 200-201 Significance o f research findings 201-202
9. REFERENCES 203-229
10. APPENDICES 230-244 Tables and figures Page
Table 1.1 Admission ratio 7 Table 1.2 Students joining the industry after graduation8 Table 2.1 The curriculum control in Hong Kong hospitality33 education Table 3.1 Data collection 65 Table 3.2 Summary o f the considerations when applying68 interviewing and questionnaires Table 4.1 Year o f program completion 82 Table 4.2 Types o f industry for the first job 82 Table 4.3 Nature o f your recent job 83 Table 4.4 Gender (for past graduates) 83 Table 4.5 Title o f qualification for highest degree 84 Table 4.6 Paired Samples Statistics for subject materials 85 Table 4.7 Quality o f HTM program 86 Table 4.8 Quality o f HTM program perceived by graduates87 who are currently working in the hospitality industry Table 5.1 Course you are studying in 91 Table 5.2 Gender (for current students) 91 Table 5.3 Students have developed the skill and competency92 during their study Table 5.4 Preferred to have internship programme 92 Table 5.5 Suitable period for internship training 93 Table 5.6 Internship job should be sought by 93 Table 5.7 Best duration o f training 94 Table 5.8 Training performance should be evaluated94 Table 5.9 Materials provided by program is relevant 94 Tables 5.10 Sort ofjob most suitable for graduates 95 Table 5.11 Work in hospitality industry for first job 95 Table 5.12 Comparisons of mean o f degree and higher 96 diploma students Table 5.13 Skills and competency needed for graduates97 from the employer expectation Table 5.14 Overall performance 98 Table 5.15 Preferred to have internship program 98 Table 5.16 Suitable period for internship training 99 Table 5.17 Internship job should be sought by 99 T able 5.18 Best duration o f training 100 Table 5.19 Training performance should be evaluated 100 Table 5.20 Materials provided by program is relevant 100 Table 5.21 Skill and competency have taught by the hospitality 101 educator Table 5.22 Preferred to have internship program 102 Table 5.23 Suitable period for internship training 102 Table 5.24 Internship job should be sought by 103 Table 5.25 Best duration o f training 103 Table 5.26 Training performance should be evaluated 104 Table 5.27 Materials provided by program is relevant 104 Table 5.28 Comparisons of mean o f students and hotel 105 employers on skill and competency needed Table 5.29 Comparisons o f mean o f students and hospitality 106 educators on skill and competency needed Table 5.30 Comparisons of mean o f hotel employers and 107 hospitality educators Table 5.31 Summary of results o f one way AN OVA o f levels 108 of importance in the work compared by student, hotel industry and hospitality educator Table 5.32 Factor analysis of skill and competency of 110 hospitality students Table 6.1 Expectations o f the students in training for the 114 hospitality industry Table 6.2 Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality 115 industry perceived by students Table 6.3 Strengths of the hospitality management program 116 perceived by students Table 6.4 Weaknesses o f the hospitality management program 117 perceived by students Table 6.5 The importance o f internship program 118 Table 6.6 Students consider that the current hospitality 119 management program can be improved Table 6.7 Expectations o f the hotel employers in training 121 for the hospitality industry Table 6.8 Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality 123 industry perceived by hotel employers. Table 6.9 Strengths of the hospitality management program 124 perceived by hotel employers Table 6.10 Weaknesses o f the hospitality management program125 perceived by hotel employers Table 6.11 The importance o f internship program 126 Table 6.12 Hotel employers consider that the current 127 hospitality management program can be improved Table 6.13 Expectations of the hospitality educators in 130 training for the hospitality industry Table 6.14 Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality 132 industry perceived by hospitality educators Table 6.15 Strengths o f the hospitality management program 133 perceived by hospitality educators Table 6.16 Weaknesses o f the hospitality management program 135 perceived by hospitality educators Table 6.17 The importance o f internship program 136 Table 6.18 Hospitality educators consider that the current 137 hospitality management program can be improved Table 6.19 Expectations of the students, hotel employers 139 and hospitality educators in training for the hospitality industry Table 6.20 Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality 141 industry perceived by students, hotel employers and hospitality educators Table 6.21 Strengths of the hospitality management program 142 perceived by hotel employers and hospitality educators Table 6.22 Weaknesses o f the hospitality management program 144 perceived by students, hotel employers and hospitality educators Table 6.23 The importance o f internship program 145 Table 6.24 Suggestion for improving the current hospitality 147-148 management program Table 7.1 Expectations of the main stakeholders 161 Table 8.1 Suggested curriculum control in Hong Kong 192 hospitality education Figure 2.1 The relationship between the stakeholders in 18 hotel industry Figure 2.2 A utility model for education 34 Figure 2.3 Qualifications pathways post 16 in U.K. 54 Figure 8.1 Revised curriculum management 190 Figure 8.2 Revised relationships between the main stakeholders 195 in the hotel industry
Appendix 1 The major universities/institutions providing 230 hospitality management education Appendix 2 Institutions providing hospitality programmes 231 in Hong Kong Appendix 3 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University 232 co-operative Education Agreements with firms Appendix 4 Questionnaire for the HTM past graduates 233-236 Appendix 5 Questionnaire for the hotel employer 237-238 Appendix 6 Questionnaire for the hospitality educator 239-240 Appendix 7 Questionnaire for the student 241-243 Appendix 8Interview schedule 244 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my sincere appreciation to a number of generous people who have contributed invaluable help in the whole process of my thesis. My profound thanks go to
Dr. Marianne Coleman, my thesis supervisor. Her continual advice, encouragement, guidance and support have played a critical role in my thesis. I would also like to thank
Professor Les Bell, Dr. Mark Brundrett, Dr. Maggie Preedy and Professor Ray Pine for their advice so that I can complete the thesis. CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
The tourism industry is one of the main sources of income to Hong Kong. If qualified employees provide better service, Hong Kong can potentially attract even more visitors. The purpose of the study is to investigate perceptions of stakeholders relating to hotel and catering training in Hong Kong with the aim of improving the level of service, and also to see whether the current curriculum design matches with the current industry needs. By looking at different expectations from the main stakeholders’ perspectives, recommendations can be made to remedy the mismatch of expectations as and where they occur with the aim of improving training for all those concerned.
The economic background relating to tourism in Hong Kong
In the year after the hand-over of Hong Kong to mainland China on 1st July 1997, Hong Kong also experienced a financial crisis and a high rate of unemployment. Although the hotel and tourism industry has shared in these hard times, with less tourists visiting Hong Kong and with a diminished hotel occupancy rate, the number of visitors from mainland China is still growing and it is hoped this will help an economic revival in the Special Administrative Region. The opening of mainland China should provide a lot of opportunities to Hong Kong.
Tourism is the top foreign exchange earner among the service industries in Hong Kong. A report released by the Hong Kong Tourism Board in January 2002, reported that the total number of visitors in year 2001 was 13,725,332. The total tourism receipts was HK$64.3 billion from January to December 2001. This represents a growth of 5 per cent in total tourism receipts when compared with the same period in year 2000 (http://hktourismboard.com). From a more global perspective, the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) reported in 1999 that there will be 56.6 million visitors to Hong Kong by 2020 and Hong Kong will then become the fifth most visited destination. In 1999, Hong Kong was ranked the eighteenth favourite destination in the world (Anon, 1999a).
1 The Tourist Association Executive Director, Mrs. Amy Chan, after the association’s annual meeting on September 29, 1999 said that Beijing would be asked to make it easier for mainland business travellers to obtain visas and permits to visit Hong Kong. This is also likely to increase the number of visitors to Hong Kong (Bowman, 1999). The arrival of mainland Chine*se hit a new heights of 544,163 in May 2002 (http://hktourismboard.com).
Tourism also creates a large number of job opportunities in the service industries, which represent over ten per cent of the total labour force. In terms of employment size, the wholesale, retail, import/export, restaurant and hotel sectors remain the largest, with 1,027,300 persons engaged in 2001 ('http://info.gov.hk/censtatd/eng/press/labour2).
Despite these positive predictions, the industry is at present experiencing some major challenges. A report released by the Government in 1999 stated that the unemployment rate rose to five per cent in June 1998 and it reached a 15-year record of 6.1 per cent (220,000) by the third quarter of 1999. More than 2,000 hospitality workers lost their jobs in 1998. Among those laid off, most were from the hotel industry, including retrenchments from Holiday Inn and Mandarin Oriental (Pegg, 1999). In general, the hospitality industry is still in a recovery period and the Vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, Mr. Leung, claimed that the jobless rate was still high in this sector (So, 1999). On another occasion, the Director of the Hong Kong Hotel Association, Mr. Lu claimed that the hotel industry has employed an additional 1,500 staff this year which is a response to the increasing number of visitors (Anon, 1999b).
However, the September 11 attacks in New York made the situation worsen again. The unemployment rate rose to 5.5 per cent in October 2001 and is predicted to peak at about 6.6 per cent in early 2002 (Chan and Gould, 2001). In fact, according to the labour force statistics released in May 2002, by the Census and Statistics Department, the unemployment rate went up to a historical record high of 7.1 per cent (http ://info.gov.hk/censtatd/ eng/press/labour 1). The importance of the hotel industry in Hong Kong
Within the tourism industry, hotels are one of the most important sectors. In 2001, Hong Kong had ninety-eight hotels with a total of about 38,500 rooms. Around 27,000 people were employed in tie hotel industry as at June 2001. According to the HKTB quarterly report (2001), the number of hotels in Hong Kong will be increased to 114 by the end of 2004, and consequently, the number of rooms will reach around 45,500 (HKTB, 2001).
In 1998, a survey carried out by the Hong Kong Tourist Association, found that an average of 28 per cent of the total expenditure by visitors in Hong Kong went on accommodation-related services. The overall average hotel occupancy rate in 1998 stabilised at 76 per cent, the same as in 1997. On the other hand, the room rates in 1998 averaged HK$715, down more than 40 per cent from the HK$ 1,233 of 1997. A total of HK$19,190 million was earned by the hotel industry in 1998. As reported by the Hong Kong Hotel Association, the hotel occupancy rate in the first eight-months of 1999 rose by five percent when compared with the past year. The average occupancy rate was 78 per cent and deemed to be 80 per cent on an annual basis (HKHA, 1999).
With the continuation of an economic recession, the encouragement of tourism is even more important and the Chairman of the Hong Kong Catering Management Association, Yeung Yiu Chung, encouraged graduates from secondary schools as well as catering employees to enrol in courses in hospitality training in order to strengthen their knowledge and enable them to provide better service to customers (Anon, 2000).
Generally, with the growth of visitors coming to Hong Kong, qualified employees are needed to provide good customer service.
Social perceptions of the hotel industry in Hong Kong
Despite the fact that the hotel industry is important, there are problems in the way employment in the sector is perceived. The organisational network for Chinese people is
3 usually through personal relations. Yang (1981) commented that the Chinese tend to act more in anticipation of others and in accordance with social norms than Westerners, who tended to act according to personal wishes, motivation and attitudes. Conformity is another central theme in Chinese societies. Chinese people like obeying and tend to follow what the leader wants without any objections. Hofstede (1980) reported that South East Asian Chinese dominated societies accepted high power distance between individuals, groups and social strata. They strongly preferred hierarchical structure in the work place and in society. He pointed out that Chinese were cost-conscious, applying Confucian virtues of thrift and persistence.
Since Hong Kong was a British colony before 1997, its economic, educational and legal systems developed out of English tradition that influenced the culture considerably (Cheng, 1986). Ralston et al. (1993) commented that Hong Kong Chinese were environmentally influenced by the West and culturally remained as the East. They are the products of both capitalism and Confucianism.
Unlike the situation in mainland China, Hong Kong people under the influence of capitalism have opportunities to choose their own job or career. Freeman (1971) pointed out that expectations are likely to influence future labour market behaviours as well as the initial selection of an occupation. When expectations are not satisfied, people will modify their initial plans or career choice and will change to new occupations until their expectations are fulfilled.
Given the importance of the hotel industry to Hong Kong’s economy, it is interesting to consider perceptions of the industry from the point of view of the community. Traditionally, the Chinese have a perception that ‘low achievers’ are likely to work in the hotel industry. Those people who could not progress to higher education, and who have a limited educational background, might start their first job as waiter or bellboy in a hotel. Therefore, working in hotel industry may not be the first priority in selecting a job (Anon, 2000c, Chan and Chow, 1998).
4 In addition, most Chinese families reject the irregular working hours of the hotel industry. However, a survey of graduates conducted by Chan et el. (2000) concerning the relationship between parents’ work and the likelihood of their children working in the hospitality industry in mainland China and Hong Kong, showed that there is a correlation. The findings indicated that if a student’s parent currently were working in the hospitality industry, there would be an increase in their propensity to work in this sector after their graduation.
Apart from parental attitudes, higher pay for the government sector when compared with the hotel and catering industry and the fact that there is a range of other opportunities open to a graduate in Hong Kong from any discipline may influence student choice in entering the hotel industry after graduation.
A survey in Hong Kong (Mok, 1988) listed the factors that influence people working in the hospitality industry. These include managerial style, physical working conditions, and opportunity for advancement. She added that the unskilled or semi-skilled nature of the job, the service-based tasks involved and the unsocial hours of work increase the probability of people leaving the industry.
Hong Kong’s education provision for the hotel and catering industry
In Hong Kong, formal hotel management education started a little later than in most Western countries.
“Hotel management education did not formally begin in Hong Kong until 1979 when the first technical institution was established to offer some dipioma-level courses in hotel, catering and institutional operations” (Li et al., 1998, p. 120).
In Hong Kong, there are fourteen tertiary education institutions and twelve vocational colleges running different programme for students. Of the twenty-six institutions that offer a wide variety of courses, nine institutions provide hospitality programmes. The major providers are shown in appendix 2. According to the Hong Kong Tourist Association report 1998, these institutions supplied hotel management graduates to satisfy the great demand for labour in the hospitality industry every year (HKTA, 1998).
In addition, the Hong Kong Hotels Association provides some courses jointly with the American Hotel and Motel Association Education Institution. They only serve people already working in the hotel industry.
Among these institutions, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University is the only institution of higher education providing graduates with degree qualification.
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPU) is the largest tertiary institution in Hong Kong in terms of number of students enrolled on its full-time, part-time and self-financed courses. In the 2001/02 academic year, the total enrolment on programmes funded by the University Grants Committee was 16,406, including 11,310 full-time and 5,096 part-time students (http://www. po 1 vu. edu. hk).
According to the Polytechnic University Student Affairs Office annual survey of 1999 and 2000, there is a huge demand for places offered by the Department of Hotel and Tourism Management.
6 Table 1.1 Admission ratios
Programme Year Overall choice Intake No. Ratio
BA (Hon.) in Hotel & Catering Management 1998 5110 45 0.86%
1999 38(55 45 1.16%
BA (Hon.) in Tourism Management 1998 3780 35 0.93%
1999 3643 33 0.91%
Higher Diploma in Hotel & Catering Management 1998 6388 99 1.55%
1999 8734 106 1.21%
From table 1.1, it can be seen that only a small amount of students could successfully enrol in the hotel and tourism management programme.
The Hotel and Catering department was established in 1979 as the department of Institutional Management and Catering Studies, the department was renamed as the department of Hotel and Tourism Management in 1992. In October 2001, it was renamed as School of Hotel and Tourism Management (HTM). HTM offers three full-time courses simultaneously, two are courses of Bachelor of Arts degree in hotel and catering management and degree in tourism management, and the other is the Higher Diploma in hotel and catering management.
Within the department, there is thirty-eight teaching staff including four Associate Professors, twelve Assistant Professors, one Principal Lecturer, three Senior Lecturers, twelve Lecturers, two Assistant Lecturers, two Teaching Assistants and two Instructors. The mission statement of the department is to provide quality courses in hotel and tourism management, at the sub-degree, degree, and post-graduate level that offer high practical and employability value to graduates. Every year, the department produces about a hundred Higher Diploma and forty-Degree graduates in hotel and catering management (http://www.polyu.edu.hk).
7 University student expectations
According to the Graduate Employment Surveys done by the department of Hotel and Tourism Management, not many students joined the industry after their graduation (Table 1.2). The survey was done three months after they graduated from the course. *A similar survey conducted by the Chan and Chow (1998) showed that the proportion of graduates who preferred to work in hotels dropped to 30 per cent in that year.
Table 1.2 Students joining the industry after graduation
Year of graduation Degree students joining the industry after graduation
1995 32.1%
1994 38.5%
1993 35.2%
1992 41.6%
Nelson and Dopson (2001) stated that the success of hospitality education is based on the quality of graduates and the retention of those graduates in the industry. Even for those who did join the hospitality industry, Longworth (1990) commented that students tended to be drawn to functional departments within the industry such as marketing and sales, training or human resources. Graduates prefer working in these functional areas since they can enjoy better working conditions and hours.
Stakeholders and the Offered Curriculum
There are three main stakeholders in education for the hospitality industry as with any other industry: the student, the university and the employer. The design and delivery of the curriculum plays a vital role. Therefore, in designing the curriculum, ideally several parties need to be involved to achieve the best outcome. Evaluating the level of competencies of the students (output), should give a clear picture to the university of
8 whether the teaching materials are being properly delivered and received by the students. It should also help the university in designing the future curriculum.
The curriculum of the degree in hotel and catering management includes human resources management, service marketing, services management, financial management, operations management, strategic management, research methods and a final year project. The course content of the higher diploma can be grouped into five areas: accommodation; marketing and sales; accounting and control; food and beverage; and personnel and training. The main difference between these two courses is that in the higher diploma the emphasis is on enhancing students’ acquisition of operational skills, while the degree course is more focused on the development of students’ analytical thinking and management principles. Degree students, have to work a twelve-week industrial training period during the summer break in year one and two, while higher diploma students need to have at least one thousand and two hundred hours of internship training during their third year of study.
Li and Kivela (1998) studied hotel management skills of Hong Kong Polytechnic University degree students. They identified that the curricular arrangements at HKPU emphasised technical skills such as menu design, beverage purchasing and room management rather than management skills. They argued that hotel management education in Hong Kong had for years been following the European hotel education model, which was craft-oriented and emphasised the technical skill of restaurant and hotel operations even for degree students. This was seen as a potential problem in terms of effective training.
Appendix 1, shows hospitality programmes that are provided by major universities. There appears to be a common trend that field experience or internship has become an important component in the curriculum. The experience gained from the training supports students in their future career development. In addition, more management subjects are being introduced in the courses. Although hospitality programmes provided by major institutions in Hong Kong have internship training within the study (appendix 2), it
9 cannot be taken for granted that developments in the Western world are necessarily appropriate to Hong Kong:
“Given significant cultural and structural differences in hotel industries of various countries, however, neither the European nor the American educational model should directly transfer into Hong Kong. Educators in Hong Kong must develop their own programme to meet the specific needs in the Asian cultural context.” (Li and Kivela, 1998, p.47)
With the change in the economic and social factors, different and more academic qualifications are likely to be preferred nowadays (VTC, 1994). Education has become more important when compared with the past, especially for working in the tourism industry.
Partnership between educational institutions and the hotel industry
Both education and experience are needed to cope with the challenges and complexity of management in the modem hotel industry (Longworth, 1990). To enhance work experience with educational knowledge, the Institution of Vocational Education (Chai Wan) in 1994 began to work in partnership with some hospitality companies. With such in-house training, students can gain operational skill from work, and apply theoretical knowledge in the actual working environment.
By applying a similar approach, in 1999, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University began to look for co-operation with some hotel chains in Hong Kong (appendix 3). It should be possible for forty degree and a hundred higher diploma students to work for the assigned hotels and carry out some special projects in the hotels for one year. Generally, partnership between educational institutions and hotel industry can provide real life working experience for the students and benefit each stakeholder in return (Finegold et al, 2000).
10 Statement of Problems and Purpose of Research
In practice, every member of hotel and catering staff should gain experience in a basic job then go onto more senior positions. It is quite difficult for a hotel to offer a supervisory job to a fresh graduate. On the other hand, hotel managers may expect students to be well trained and not to need training once assigned to the job. Thus there is considerable potential for a mismatch in the expectations of students and hoteliers. The university/college also has a particular approach in the provision of courses that may not match the expectations of students, hoteliers or both.
In light of the relatively low entrance percentage by Hong Kong Polytechnic University students to the industry, the most immediate dilemma for all hotel employers is how to attract qualified and suitable staff in the first place. This paper reports on a study into the expectations of the main stakeholders, in terms of the competencies and skills needed by the hotel industry.
Objectives
Against the background that includes changes in curriculum and its delivery, partnership with industry, high demand for courses and low progression into the industry, the following are the objectives of this study: • To explore the mismatch between the competency and skills expected by hotel employers, students and the university; • To study the career expectations of students; • To study the career expectations of hotel and catering graduates; • To explore why graduates are not joining the hospitality industry; • To study the competencies and skills learned by the students; • To explore the competencies and skills actually provided by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University from the perception of staff; • To explore the competency level of graduate skills expected by hotel managers; • To explore perceptions of students, graduates and employers to see whether the department is providing the relevant curriculum to the students.
As a result of the study, it is intended to make recommendations for Hong Kong hotel and catering management education, students and hotel industry.
Questions to be answered in this study include:
1. What are the expectations of the three main stakeholders in training for the hospitality industry? 2. What are the essential skills and competencies needed for working in the hospitality industry as perceived by students, university and employers? 3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the hospitality management programme offered as perceived by students, university and employers? 4. What is the importance of the internship programme? 5. How is it possible to improve the current hospitality management programme?
Significance of the study
Goodman and Sprague (1991) warned that there is a risk of losing students to general business programmes if educators do not change the Hotel and Catering Management curriculum to meet the updated needs of the industry. In addition, Foote (1999) stated that hotel management educators and employers would benefit if both understood each other’s position as a base to develop the future manager. Since the tourism industry directly affects Hong Kong’s economy, and in order to improve the situation in the Hong Kong hotel industry, it is important to make sure that the hotel and catering management course is providing the skills needed by industry in the preparation of future managers.
12 Structure of the thesis
Chapter one of this thesis outlines the importance of the hotel industry in Hong Kong, the social perception of the industry, the hospitality management education in Hong Kong, the problem statement and objectives of the study. Chapter two presents a thorough literature review on the expectations of the main stakeholders, the influences on the curriculum for hotel management courses in higher education, assessment/outcomes in terms of the competency approach and accreditation system. Chapter three gives an explanation of applying a case study approach to this study. It states the development of research instruments that focus on skills and competencies rather than the evaluation of individual subjects. Chapters four, five and six report on the findings on the expectations of past graduates, students, hospitality educators and hotel employers. They identify the mismatch of expectations between stakeholders by comparing the data obtained from each group. Chapter seven is concerned with interpretation of the findings while chapter eight concludes the study and provides recommendations by suggesting an accreditation system to attempt to remedy the mismatch of expectations.
13 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
International research indicates that many hotel management graduates after graduation either leave the industry within a short time or choose not to enter the hotel, catering and tourism industry at all (Jameson and Hargraves, 1986; Orr et al, 1992; Pavesic and Brymer, 1990; West and Jameson, 1990; Siu, 1995; Chan and Chow, 1998). As a result, educators in hotel management may need to consider re-organising the structure and content of courses to better prepare graduates for the hotel, catering and tourism industry.
On the other hand, in Hong Kong, Li et al. (1998) commented that the quality and quantity of local hotel management talent has failed to meet the needs of the expanding hotel sector and that in response to the needs of the hotel industry, it is necessary to provide hospitality graduates with the skills expected by the employers.
This chapter presents a review of the published and unpublished literature pertinent to this study. It addresses the relationship between the expectations of the three major parties or stakeholders in the hospitality industry: the employers, the educational institutions and the students. The chapter covers issues relating to: curriculum development; the importance of the internship programme; the assessment of skills and competencies; the students’ expectations; the employers’ expectations; the educational institution’s expectations; and, the gap or mismatch between the nature and levels of expectations.
Background
Traditionally, tourism-related services, of which the hotel industry is a large sector, have been classified as convenience services, as opposed to knowledge services (Tettero and Viehoff, 1990). As organisations prepare for the global economy, resources are being shifted out of these low-wage activities into higher value-added activities where
14 knowledge, advanced technology and service provide a competitive edge. The continued prosperity of tourism will depend largely on well-educated human talent, people who are able to think, weigh and judge critical issues in addition to providing quality service and competence on both the strategic and operational level (Gronroos, 1989).
Training in the hotel sector of the tourism industry has changed markedly over the last century. From an international perspective, prior to 1950, the emphasis in education for the hotel industry was on skills training. During the 1950s and 1960s in the USA, the associate degree, for which a student had to take a two-year college course, became the standard educational credential. However, in the 1970s and 1980s, the bachelors’ degree became the standard criteria for advancement within the industry. The 1990s and the years beyond have seen an increased demand by industry for more highly educated managers as well as an increased demand for individuals with graduate degrees (Fletcher, 1990).
In Hong Kong, however, as the hotel industry grew rapidly during the 1980’s, a survey carried out by the Hotel, Catering and Tourism Discipline Steering Team (HKTA, 1998) on employers showed that less emphasis seemed to be put on educational background when hiring staff. A report on the views of employers in the hotel and catering industry and the travel and tourism industry came to a range of conclusion: an employee at operative level would be expected to have no entry qualifications; the majority felt that a relevant certificate was the most appropriate qualification at this level; a supervisor/captain should hold a diploma or higher certificate; only the position of department head should require a higher diploma or better still, a degree (HKTA, 1998).
From the perspective of students’ expectations, in 1989, a survey by Baum of Insii hospitality students found that about 60 per cent of the students considered the formal qualifications were not important and that they should work their way up through the ranks. The only advantage of taking a hospitality course was the likelihood of getting a rapid promotion.
15 However, having experienced the economic downturn in 1998, employees in Hong Kong are now likely to understand that formal training is essential, especially in the retail business. A survey done by the Association of Retailers & Tourism Services in 1998 focusing on training needs found that most of the respondents agreed that training was essential for front line and middle management level staff (AR&TS, 1998).
Economic shifts are not the only pressure on qualifications. Go (1990) commented that the dual forces of technology and globalisation would raise the competency demanded by jobs at all levels in the tourism industry and turn effective learning into a competitive necessity. Jones (1999) points out that the technology has completely changed the nature of employee tasks, from making a reservation to checking out a guestroom. Customers now face a more self-service approach when staying in a hotel. Lensch (1997) stressed the importance of the human competency base and its development. It follows that assessment of competencies is likely to enhance the ability of the organisation to evaluate actual performance in the work role and thus provide evidence of the capabilities of individuals (Siu, 1996).
There are also additional demands in the hospitality industry which are perhaps less of an issue in other industries, such as manufacturing or retailing. Working in the hotel industry is relatively demanding and stressful, and it requires long and often unsociable working hours. Personnel working in the hotel industry have to work shifts and tend to start work at a low level (Pavesic, 1989; Mullins and Davies, 1991; Purcell, 1995; Anon, 2000c).
In addition, Batts (2000) commented that guests are more sophisticated nowadays and are more confident to demand what they have paid for. Shepherd (2000) added that the service delivery would undoubtedly affect hotel profits and values in the 21st century. Indeed, hotel customer demands and expectations should be emphasised by the hotelier.
James Lu, Chairman of Hong Kong Hotel Association, summed up the situation, by saying that “an hotelier’s life is not an easy one” (Sinclair, 1997).
16 It is clear that the hotel industry is a challenging and ever-changing industry and one that requires its employees to acquire a greater level of knowledge and skills in order to provide the necessary level of service.
“The perfect‘hotel staff should combine the technical competence, social and human skills and conceptual ability that can assist the managers in hotel management” (Mullins and Davis 1991, p.22).
Stakeholders in training for the hotel industry
Training is perceived by a lot of employers and employees as an important tool to improve performance in the service industry (AR&TS, 1998). Stakeholders, especially employees and educators need ways to ensure the effort is effective. Employees should have formal training to enable or at least be able to communicate with the customer. In addition, they must be prepared to work irregular hours and need to “dirty their hands” when starting a career in the hotel industry. More importantly, employees should be service-minded, have a positive attitude and be willing to serve the customer without having a feeling of it being a low rank job. To develop a qualified employee requires a lot of time and effort.
In measuring quality in training, Armour et al. (1999) stated that it is necessary to seek the viewpoint of the stakeholders in the educational process. The stakeholders can include students, staff, and employers of graduates, governments, or educational policy funding bodies.
In the Hong Kong education system particularly higher education, the government and the funding bodies take less interest in measuring the quality and tend to look only at the output which is quite similar to the U.K. situation as it was in the 1960s (Lawton, 1983). Therefore in relation to training in the hotel industry, the main stakeholders are employees, hotels, students and the educational institution (fig. 2.1). To begin the cycle, the external hotel customer needs may be set as the priority. Bounds et al. (1994) agree
17 that employers and employees must put the external customer first on the list of stakeholders because they are the source of creating new wealth. Since the survival of the hotel industry is heavily reliant on the revenue that comes from customers, the hotel industry will deliver the best service through their qualified employees to satisfy their needs. The training topics that are delivered to the employee are likely to be related to customer needs.
Figure 2.1 The relationship between the stakeholders in hotel industry [derived from Besterfield et al (1999), customer/supplier chain, p.50] Externalt .customer Hotel industry — Employee (Quality control & external (internal customer of hotel) customer of the university)
Staff ----- University Student (internal (external suppliers (internal customer of the customer of for the hotel) university during study, the university) internal customer of the hotel industry after graduation)
What is the relationship between stakeholders and customers? It can be said that customer is a subset of stakeholders. Duncan (1995) defined stakeholders as people who are not only interested in the financial return but also the day-to-day operations of the company. Stakeholders are amongst those inside and outside the company who show interest in company performance. As a stakeholder, customers are mainly interested in product or service quality and value. In addition, Bounds et al. (1994) stated that there are two groups of stakeholders: internal and external stakeholders. Internal stakeholders are more interested in the financial situation of the firm while the external stakeholders are concerned with the operation of the firm. Customers can be grouped under the external stakeholder category. In other words, those customers of the hotels are the external stakeholders of the hotels. Managers in the firms must balance the interests of all the stakeholders so as to improve the effectiveness of the organisation (Anderson, 1982). Moreover, Besterfield et al. (1999) stated that there are two types of customers - external and internal. According to their customer/supplier chain, there are inputs from external suppliers and internal or external customers use the outputs. Referring to figure 2.1, for stakeholders in the training process, the role of the university is as an external supplier for the hotel industry. The hotel industry is the external customer of the university, existing outside the organization and buying the product (Besterfield et al, 1999). During the study, students can be counted as external customers in education. Conversely when students graduate from the university and join the industry, they then become the internal customers of the hotel industry. As well as the three main stakeholders of training in the hotel industry, some hotel employees may be trained through in-house training (Joseph, 2000). They are also the internal customers of the hotel industry. Nevertheless, Bowring- Carr and West-Bumham (1994) state that the ‘power of the customer’ was an important factor affecting the work of education professionals. They point out that the failure of TQM in British organisations is mainly caused by the neglect of customer satisfaction. It is suggested the school should be more customer-orientated by implying a customer- supplier relationship between school and its students.
“The closer the supplier is to the customer, the greater is the likelihood of meeting customer needs” (Bowring-Carr and West-Bumham 1994, p.44).
Given that the hospitality education institution is the main source providing qualified employees, they are included as one of the stakeholders. Students and the hotel industry are the other main stakeholders. Of these three stakeholders, students and employers are customers of the educators, the external stakeholders (Bounds et al,1994). If the educator cannot provide a quality product, less students (customers) will select the programme, the hotel industry will not support it and this may lead to the closing of the programme. Furthermore, the department offering the programme would not get sufficient funding from the University Grants Committee (UGC) and will need to look for other sources of funding to allow the department to survive. There is a linkage between these three main stakeholders. Starting with the hospitality employers, they all should ideally identify their needs to the hospitality educators. After receiving views, the educator could carefully
19 work out the curriculum to meet the employer expectation. The student is the output produced by the educators. Whether they can benefit the hotel industry will depend on their training and competencies (Kivela and Li, 1998). In addition, there should be some links between secondary education and higher education so that better understanding of the industry could develop in the earlier stage (Okeiyi et dl., 1998).
“ The starting point for any business is to define the stakeholders and their needs.... a business must at least strive to satisfy the minimum expectations of each stakeholder group” (Kotler et al. 1996, p.48).
The survival of the university is heavily reliant on market needs, while the hotel industry needs qualified employees through the help of the university. Besides, students also want to upgrade their academic level and be recognised by future employers. In general, all three major stakeholders - the university, the students and the employers - are all customers of each other in different ways and are interrelated.
The concept of the customer owes a lot to the quality movement including the idea of customer satisfaction (Mattila, 1996; Han and Leong, 1996; Vavra, 1997; Oh and Parks, 1997; Qu and Li, 1997; Langer, 1997; Besterfield et al, 1999; Mills et al, 2000;). The running of the hotel business will directly and indirectly be influenced by the expectations of stakeholders.
Expectations of the hotel industry
In satisfying customer needs, as the hotel employers are the external customer of the university and students are their internal customer after graduation, their expectations should be identified. In general, all employers will tend to have high expectations of their staff as they represent the highest single category of expense within their budget. Hotel managers tend to look for higher output from the employees so as to have a greater return on investment. They also tend to expect that the staff can work on a new job quickly without them necessarily providing on-going training. Hotel managers may have an even
20 greater expectations of graduates from a higher education institution since they have gone through formal institutional training. Hotel employers may also expect graduates to be tailor-made for their hotel’s needs (Ley and Sandler, 1982).
It would appear that there is some antipathy between hotel managers and hospitality graduates. According to Sparks and Bradley (1994), anecdotal evidence suggests that there is a resistance from the industry towards university hospitality graduates. In order to understand if the industrialists had any resistance to hiring graduates, it is necessary to understand the background and attitude that would influence that behavioural outcome.
Ley and Sandler (1982) said that it was the main duty of the students to understand the desires of corporate recruiters. The employers claimed that students should have a better understanding of their expectation on the job. The expectations of a majority of managers appear to be related to factors other than formal education and training.
However, holding a degree may not be considered important in itself. When employing new staff, according to the study of Ineson and Kempa (1997), the employers took little interest in the candidates' prior academic achievement and performances. They were concerned about the applicants’ motivation and commitment to work in the industry, and a range of personal and interpersonal qualities, including communication skills and self presentation. Most hospitality education institutions also seemed unaware of student expectations.
In addition, Sparks and Bradley (1994) found that managers in the industry blamed the students for lack of practical skills that they think are very important. They also revealed that the managers had a belief that graduates are unwilling to start at the bottom and the managers’ reluctance to welcome hospitality graduates is that they regard the graduates as too ‘academic’ and that they might be a threat to their position in future. However, the findings showed managers with higher academic background and/or more specialised education do have a more favourable attitude towards the hospitality graduates. Regarding the low number of graduates joining the industry, Nixon Chung, when working as the General Manager of the new Mayfair Hotel in Shanghai commented that the hotel graduates nowadays have a lack of commitment to the industry, when he gave a talk in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Chak, 1999).
In relation to the attributes needed, Ruddy (1989) studied the career development of hotel general managers in Hong Kong. A significant finding showed seventy-four per cent of them had a qualification lower than a bachelor’s degree. From the managers’ perspective, the key influencing factors on their career development were, ‘taking risk’, ‘learning quickly’ and ‘work experience’. Surprisingly, none of the key influencing factors ranked by the general managers was related to educational background.
However, there are now new pressures on the industry that may shift these perceptions. Hobson and Bushell (1994) stated that the hospitality industry is currently faced with an increasing pressure in terms of the staffing situation. The pressure is three-fold; there are increasing levels of competition among companies for the same pool of guests. Guests’ expectations and sophistication are also on the increase mainly due to better education and travel opportunities; but most disturbing, is the ever-rising costs of labour. This factor does not merely reflect the increases in actual salary but it also includes the cost of attracting and retaining suitably qualified staff.
It is clear that good qualifications do not necessarily guarantee a high position in the hospitality industry and that many hotel managers still believe that job experience is an important criterion in taking on senior level staff. However, pressures on the industry mean that employers must carefully consider the skills required by their staff, and how to attract and retain appropriately skilled staff.
Expectations of students
Despite the expectations of the employer, students, as the internal customers of the hotel, also have their expectations of the programme and their future career. Before students join the hospitality management programme, they may be attracted by the appearance of the hotel and expect one day to be a manager working in a luxury hotel after graduation. At least, they may have a perception that they are different from the rest of the group of hotel employees who are without a proper educational background. Some of the students may even think that they have a higher status when compared with othfers in the hotel and show their unwillingness to communicate with operational staff.
In studying the student’s expectation, Knutson (1989) found out that if perceptions of the experience meet or exceed those expectations, he or she would probably be satisfied, join the hospitality field and stay with the company they joined. However, when the perceptions of work experience fall below expectations, the results may bring a shortage of personnel due to high labour turnover and graduates may refuse to enter the industry. McCleary (1988) also refers to the same concept in his research.
‘For graduates of hospitality programmes, expectations can impact on satisfaction just like expectations regarding customers’ experiences in a hotel or restaurant affects their level of satisfaction with the service.’ (McCleary 1988, p. 163).
Apart from that, there are influences on a student in deciding on their study. According to the research of Cullen and Dick (1989), the first two reasons for choosing a college was ‘reputation of school’ and ‘education’, while ‘students preparing themselves for career advancement’ was the third major reason for choosing a college.
Davidson (1996) did a similar survey in Australia. With a response of 426 first year hospitality students, ‘career prospects’ and ‘desire to work in a people industry’ were the most important factors influencing the choice of course. To continue Davidson’s study, Davidson and Tideswell (1998) did the same survey with eight universities in Australia. The findings still showed that ‘career prospects’ and ‘desire to work in a people industry’ were still the most important issues in selecting the hospitality degree programme. Besides, the study confirmed that the students expected to work in a management- oriented position rather than in a hands-on operational position after their graduation.
23 Due to the different expectations between the student and employer, Casado (1992) stated that some professional recruiters who are unable to reach their recruitment quotas may blame ‘the high expectations’ of students as the cause of their recruiting failure. From the results of Casado’s survey, youthful aspirations and idealism are shown. He has highlighted some high expectations of students such as that they considered themselves as ‘well-qualified’ to undertake the work assignment of assistant manager. Fawcett (1989), as an educationalist, elaborates on the hospitality graduates’ expectations and aspirations on entering the industry and states that graduates expected to be a professional in their job.
Furthermore, a survey conducted by Strohbehn (1994) showed that significant differences were found between students, grouped by characteristics of gender and programme of study with regard to graduate hospitality students’ attitudes and values towards work. Similar results were found in another piece of research conducted by Knutson (1987). There were significant differences that emerged between genders, among classes and among career preference groups about the expectations for post-graduate employment. Females were more likely than males to favour developing their career in the hospitality industry.
In addition, Getz (1994) conducted a survey in Scotland, which showed that a substantial number of younger students were uncertain about their future. The older students were more likely to seek higher education and out-migration as their best option. Only a minority had a favourable attitude towards a tourism job. An interesting finding was the students, especially the girls, were exposed to low paying jobs.
Aside from the programme selection, there are a number of factors that may influence or impinge on student career choice. Demonte and Vaden (1987) point out that work experience in the industry had the largest influence on career decisions. Influence from the hospitality professional, peers and parents ranked in the highest positions that affected an individual in selecting hospitality management as a career. The hospitality professionals played a key role in students’ career decision.
24 Pavesic and Brymer (1990) believed that students who chose to spend four years studying hotel management demonstrated that they were more than casually interested in careers in food service, lodging, or travel related industries. However, many of the graduates were leaving the industry relatively soon after graduation. Pavesic and Brymer (1990) researched 442 graduates of 11 schools of hotel and restaurant management in the United States. The research established that the major reasons for changing jobs were ‘opportunity to advance or a chance for better hospitality job’, ‘financial reasons or low pay’, ‘management related reasons’ and ‘working conditions or quality of life’. While the major reasons for actually leaving the hotel and catering industry were ‘long hours and inconvenient scheduling’, ‘pay related issues’, ‘personal reasons and opportunity’ and ‘quality of life’. They suggested industrialists should improve salaries and show appreciation and give respect to graduates.
“That’s why over half the graduates are attracted to the more ‘technologically sophisticated’ and ‘better paid’ areas of the services” (Orr 1992, p. 17).
Regardless of this, West and Jameson (1990) related graduate employment to the supervised work experience designed in the hotel management courses which aims to prepare students for hotel and catering careers. The research highlighted that supervised work experience was a major force in determining how graduates pursue hospitality careers. The results showed that there was an inverse relationship between graduate career choice and supervised work experience, that is, the more exposure a student has to the industry, and the less important commitment he or she demonstrated.
Sciarini and Woods (1998) conducted a study of hospitality students regarding job selection after graduation in the United States. When compared to a similar study m 1995, the findings showed no great changes in that students preferred to start their first job in luxury hotels, private clubs and fine dining restaurants.
Generally, hospitality students are mainly looking for better career advancement and prospect, good pay and do not wish to work from the bottom up to the management level.
25 They also have a feeling that they are well trained as a professional after a few years’ studies in the institution. So, if the employer cannot fulfil their need, they may shift to another industry after graduating from the hospitality management programme.
Expectations of hospitality educators
As the external supplier for the hotel and training the internal customers of the hotel, the expectations of hospitality educators should also be considered. Nowadays, every institution tends to pay more attention to the size of the intake rather than the suitability of students since the number will directly affect the existence of the programme. The more students that apply for a specific programme the greater the chance of securing the running of such a programme. A more customer-oriented approach will be used to attract more students (customer) to take the programme. Besides, hospitality educators may expect graduates who join the industry to have positive comments from the employer especially related to the programme. Also, hospitality educators expect both students and industry to appreciate that the materials provided by the institution are relevant and up to date.
It would seem appropriate that educators in educational institutions and hotel employers should co-operate to develop a realistic and effective education course as well as the internship programme for hospitality students. Partlow (1990) referred to Umbreit and Pederson’s (1989) opinion that the interest in developing a graduate programme in hospitality management is growing, and believes if research related to career expectation is available it would assist in formulating guidelines and developing curricula for graduate programmes.
As the hospitality employers are apparently not impressed by the qualifications of the employee (Ruddy, 1989; Ineson and Kempa, 1992), what rationale lies behind the fact that the hospitality management programmes still exist in the market? A possible reason is the improvements of living standard and more frequent travel compared with the past. As times change, customers tend to look for better service and have much higher
26 expectations of the service provided (Kivela, 1999). To meet such needs, qualified and well-trained employees are an important asset for the hospitality industry. Running an in- house training programme may be useful to the staff, and the educational institution is another source in providing the required manpower.
“Today, other service organisations as well as the hospitality industry must recognise the need to manage service effectively and deliver high quality products” (Mullins 1998, p.21).
Seeing that the need for productivity and cost-consciousness becomes ever more pressing, hotel and catering businesses need productive and cost-conscious young managers. Such knowledge, skills and attitudes cannot be developed through experience alone. Experience helps an employee to know his job, but a sound education is needed if the employee is to understand his job.
“True professionals need education and experience in equal measure. For the education, the employee must look to the courses and other services of institutions such as the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.’’(Kivela 1999, p.9).
From the educator’s perspective, a combination of education and experience in equal measure is needed to cope with the challenge and complexity of management in the modem hotel industry. Educators are likely to feel that the hotels have failed to provide attractive career paths to graduates. Moreover, graduates were not fully accepted and respected by the majority of managers in the industry (Longworth, 1990).
“If the graduates are kept at the wrong level in the wrong job, it will maxe them unable to demonstrate their skills and abilities, hence, they will leave the industry” (Longworth 1990, p. 15).
In relation to students, educators expect that graduates will be international in outlook with interpersonal skills, communication skills, leadership skills, ability to work with
27 others as a team and multi-skills (Brownell, 1995; Geissier and Martin, 1998). Stanford Graduate Business School places greater emphasis on the internationalisation of the curriculum, interpersonal skills and teamwork. Besides, all representatives ranked communication and leadership skills as among the most critical competencies for future managers (Brownell, 1995).
Even though there is good support from the educator, students are the ones who will utilise the materials. Wasi (2001) commented that most of the students could not experience the large company operations during their study. They only imagined working in a small shop. This would limit students’ thinking and the way of learning in school (Hospitality, 200 lg).
With the rapid growth of information technology, Buhalis (2001) introduced the world’s first MSc in eTourism in the University of Surrey. He foresaw that such specialised skills would benefit the students and also the industry in the future (Hospitality, 200lh).
The objectives of hospitality educators are to train up qualified graduates and improve the service quality for the industry from within the classroom setting. On the other hand, hospitality educators need to review the curriculum after a certain period of time to make it more relevant to the student and industry, particularly as times change. Although the lead-time for making any change in the curriculum may not be short, and it must go through a validation panel before any adjustment can be made, the final outcome will definitely benefit the key stakeholders and can help the courses gain a better reputation in society. Frequent meetings between main stakeholders may be a remedy to narrow the gap-
Relationships between stakeholders
The apparently different expectations of the three parties, means considering the relationship between these stakeholders. A study carried out by Liu et al (1998) shows that there is still a mismatch between stakeholders in higher education in Hong Kong.
28 They point out that the faculty members emphasise the educational process, the employers expect vocationally oriented graduates and students look for higher status from the institutions.
In addition, Orr et al (1992) said that education in school only lays the foundation on which the industry provides training to maximise the experience. They came to an understanding that in order to encourage the employment and retention of graduates, the hospitality employer must attempt to understand the graduates’ expectations and their perception of reality. Also, an understanding of whether the graduates’ expectations are met is an important attribute in education/industry efforts to help students set realistic expectation.
Furthermore, Knutson (1989) suggested that hotels and restaurants are looking for ways to reduce the costs of employee turnover and burnout by minimising the gap, that is matching the potential employee’s needs, wants and expectations with the realities of working for a particular company. To increase the likelihood of successful matches, managers and personnel directors have to first know, then understand, where today’s hospitality graduates are ‘coming from’.
In Hong Kong, past surveys and research highlighted that hospitality graduates tend to work in different industries (Siu, 1995). To solve the problem of attracting and retaining the hotel management graduates in the industry, Cotton (1991) suggested the industrialists pay qualified entrants a more competitive and attractive employment package. Employers should do a little more, such as better payment, and not discourage graduates from joining the industry.
Regardless of the misunderstanding of the student expectation by the employers, another stakeholder - the education institution, should not be excluded from the equation. Lennon (1989) stated that Hotel and Catering Management education is often criticised for not meeting the needs of the hotel industry. The consequences of a mismatch between industry and education may be more serious as Baum (1989) indicated that the lack of
29 professionals for hotel management is one of the factors leading to low profitability of hotels in Ireland, and this may apply elsewhere.
Slattery (1997), Director of Hospitality Research at City analysts Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, argues that UK hospitality educational establishments are not doing enough to ensure that their students reach the very top of the profession.
With regard to the graduates from the university, Burchett (2001) an experienced hotel manager in Thailand commented that they had basic entry-level skills but not the specific skills that are needed by the hospitality industry (Hospitality, 2001 f). He added the hotel should focus on the training need of the graduates.
Furthermore, Robertson (1997) stated that employers questioned the undergraduate learning experience in the U.K. He commented that the British undergraduate specialises too early in their higher education, which develops limited transferable skills that makes them badly equipped for the labour market.
To narrow down the gap, Okeiyi et al. (1998) in their study on the selection of an academic major found that there should be a close relationship between the educators and the employers. Effective career counselling, placement and open communication were important issues provided by the institution. They suggested the best time to influence a future student choosing to be a hospitality major was in high school. At the same time, the industry should collaborate with the hospitality programme on education by providing industrial experience. Also, in hiring hotel staff, employers should select the hospitality graduates first since they were being trained in the hotel.
Sharing the same view, Blackwell et al. (2001) carried out a study in Britain and found out that work experience in the higher education curriculum benefits both the students and the employers. They pointed out that the first thing was changing the teachers’ attitudes to the perception of work experience in higher education. The argument was work experience could develop in the students, qualities and skills that the employers
30 needed and also make the employers more aware of what was teaching in higher education. Furthermore, in their study, they found out that full time catering and institutional management students had lower unemployment rates if longer placements existed in the programme.
♦
Mismatches of expectations do not only exist in Hong Kong. To tackle the mismatch between the skills needed by the hospitality industry and those provided at the college, the North West Skills Forum was formed in the U.K. The committee researches skills needed in the hospitality industry by talking to their human resources managers. Based on those skills needed which are identified by the employers, a website will be developed providing information about suitable courses (Hospitality, 2000e). Jean Llewellyn, formerly a hospitality educator who was appointed as regional co-ordinator to manage this project, said,
“People talk about the mismatch between industry and education. This is the first time someone has actually done something to resolve the issues that people talk about” (Hospitality, 2000e).
As is indicated by a lot of research, there is a need for every party to take up their responsibility and work together to come up with a better way of minimising the conflict without blaming each other. It appears that the end common objective of the stakeholders is to retain qualified employees working in the hospitality industry, providing good service to the customer and returning a better profit for the hotel. In order to do this, extensive consideration must be given to the curriculum that is being offered.
Influences on the curriculum for hotel management courses in higher education
Meighan (1981) stated that curriculum planners should look at seven components when designing the curriculum. These include a theory of knowledge, learning and the learner’s role, teaching and teacher’s role, resources appropriate for learning, organisation of learning situations, assessment and finally the aims, objectives and outcomes. On the
31 other hand, Scrimshaw (1983) suggested that the curriculum should emphasise the individual learner, knowledge and society (Morrison and Ridley, 1989).
Within curriculum management, Lawton’s model (1983) is taken to provide a basic framework for analysis wifhin this thesis. After consideration of the aspects of this model, the organisation of learning situations and of assessment (Scrimshaw, 1983) will also be considered. The Lawton model identifies five levels of influence and three areas of control. The three areas of control are aims, pedagogy and evaluation (Preedy, 1989). The levels start with national, and work through regional, institutional, departmental and individual. Because of the unusual nature of Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region, for the purposes of this thesis, national and regional can be subsumed into one level. Lawton (1983) stated that this potentially fifteen-cell matrix would tend to change over a period of time within a given society. Having considered the cultural factors in Hong Kong, the existing hospitality education curriculum management model is likely to be as set out in table 2.1, which indicates that the aims of the whole curriculum are decided by the school or department academic board, the subject lecturer is free to decide the teaching materials and methods while the evaluation is made by the individual school or department, leaving little in the control of a national or regional authority.
In the development of hotel management curriculum at the HKPU, the role of the curriculum planner is particularly important. He/she most likely is a senior member of staff in the department and will cover a number of courses. He/she is the only one who decides the whole content of curriculum from planning to design. In the development stage, he/she works out the framework of the curriculum without consulting other staff members. After that, he/she would then ask the subject team leaders to fill out details on the relevant subjects.
32 Table 2.1 The curriculum control in Hong Kong hospitality education (derived from Lawton (1983) model and Lofthouse (1994) Aspect level aim pedagogy evaluation 1 national) 2 regional) 3 institutional 4 departmental 5 individual
In addition, the institutional curriculum should consider the culture of society that is appropriate for all students (Lawton, 1983; Lofthouse, 1994). Knowledge of the curriculum and its management by the institution is very important to all the stakeholders.
To deal with these demands, figure 2.2, shows the process to be managed in education from input to outcome within the institution (Kaufman and English, 1981). Inputs include the teachers, learners, teaching machines and money. While under the processes and products, are included the curriculum, programme instruction which develops the necessary skills and knowledge for the students. Educators will base their work on this and deliver the relevant material to the students. Students will receive knowledge and skills during their study. When it comes to the output, students would receive the diplomas or certificates of completion. Ultimately, the survival and contribution of learners in society would be the outcomes in the whole process. Then again, the industry will evaluate the knowledge that the student has learned in school. This is the first step in making the final product match with customer needs. As mentioned before, customers include the customers who look for quality service and bring revenue to the company, the students and the industry. Educators, especially the curriculum planner should carefully design the curriculum to develop the best and most suitable employees to meet the industry need (Haywood, 1989).
33 Figure 2.2 A utility model for education (Kaufman and English, 1981, p. 125)
Input Processes and Products
School (internal) - related Societal (external) related
Under the hospitality management education curriculum, during the stage of processes and products, there has been additional argument on whether the programme should be more academic or vocational, student-led or teacher-led and a management or technically focused curriculum. These issues are dealt with in the following sections. Specifically, the issue of vocational and technical is considered in the section on aims and purpose. Whether the curriculum is student or teacher led is considered in the pedagogy section and whether the focus is on management or technical issues is dealt with in the section on the content of the curriculum.
Generally, a better understanding of market needs is very important since the survival of the student is heavily reliant on the curriculum development of the school (Kaufman and English, 1981).
Lawton’s model of curriculum management (Preedy 1989) identifies three areas of control: aims or purpose, pedagogy and evaluation, these three areas are now considered in relation to the curriculum offered in hotel management and tourism.
The aims/purpose of the curriculum
Goodlad (1976) commented that there is no single definition of curriculum. Having said that, he added that definitions are important and helpful in carrying on discourse.
34 Recently, Bayliss (1999) stated that curriculum is a powerful driver of education. At its simplest level, curriculum specifies what is to be taught in school. Lumby (2001) added that the curriculum sometimes served as the means of implementation, assessment and the learning outcome (Middlewood and Burton, 2001).
*
When designing and developing hospitality management programmes, according to Lawton’s model, in Hong Kong, the responsibility falls on the institutional level. In other words, individual institutions have control in designing the curriculum. However, what are the influences that may have affected it? Ritchie (1995) stated that there should be a balance of conceptual material and practical experience. However, social perception in Hong Kong and elsewhere is that vocational and technical education is often linked to a low-level occupation and low ability pupils (Tanner and Tanner, 1975). The concept of ‘vocationalism’ has been used since the early 1980s. This term puts emphasis on preparing young people for a specific job. It also serves as a concept of behaviour to make sure students learn the transferable skills and competence associated in the UK with the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (Young, 1998).
Additionally, Finch and Crunkilton (1979) stated that the curriculum for vocational and technical education is somewhat different when compared with the rest of the educational milieu. The main objective of vocational education is to prepare someone to be employed after graduation.
“The ultimate success of a vocational and technical curriculum is not measured merely through student educational achievement but through the results of that achievement - results that take the form of performance in the work world.” (Finch and Crunkilton 1979, p.9).
They add that the world is changing all the time, so the vocational and technical curriculum soon becomes outdated if it remains static. As a result of this, it is generally considered that people should continue their study during their lifetime particularly
35 during their working life so as to keep pace with the introduction of new technology (Ainley 1990).
“Today the new trinity of vocational education and training is supposed to prepare the entire workforce for ‘a flexible future of rapid and unpredictable change Vocational education does not pretend to pursue purely disinterested knowledge. It sets out to construct a school and college system that prepares its entrants for future employment.” (Ainley 1990, pp. 5-6).
He adds that technical and vocational education should not only benefit the student in terms of specific skills, but also increase their self-confidence and abilities in solving practical problems.
In developing the vocational and technical curriculum, a systematic process may be relevant for the planner. To best meet individual needs, the teacher should give assistance to the individual (Finch and Crunkilton, 1979).
“Most curricula are, to some extent, student-oriented and curricula in vocational and technical education are certainly not an exception” (Finch and Crunkilton 1979, p. 15).
However, in higher education, Robertson (1997) states that people tend to distinguish between academic and vocational training. He comments that there should be some link between them both and vocationally focused learning should not be isolated from the curriculum. Furthermore, Berryman (1992) stated that the integration of academic and vocational education could make learning more meaningful to all the students. By doing that, a student could receive both problem solving and employability skill. Lankard (1992) also supported this, saying that the educational system should make a move towards the integration of vocational and academic education.
36 With more and more people receiving education at bachelor’s level, Tuckman (1970) proposed the curriculum must be vocationalized in order to meet future employment needs and help students master the skills and competencies before entering the occupational world (Bums and Brooks, 1970). Furthermore, Rimmington (1999) states that there is a danger if the hospitality programme provides only generic knowledge for the student. There will be little to distinguish between hospitality graduates and others.
Generally, most hospitality employers expect graduates to be able to take up any job once they are employed. Practical training during their study may be the best way to benefit both parties. Cotton (1991) suggested introducing a foundation year of practical training for every candidate studying a hotel and catering degree or even diploma courses. He believed that a whole year of training would give students a broader view of the reality of the industry.
Logie (1997) also commented that the hospitality graduates should learn certain practical skills so as to reach the senior level in the future. He added that graduates should be prepared to work in the restaurant and kitchen to gain such practical skills.
Conversely, students who join the hospitality programme may expect to be a professional hospitality employee when they come out from the school. However those with diplomas and degrees are asking why they spent three or four years at college, and still have to begin at the bottom (Ivory, 1988).
Vedder (1992) raised the issue of efficiency and effectiveness of schools and education. Bereiter (1990), Brown et al (1989) and Resnick (1987) point out that some of the knowledge and skills that are taught and learned in schools are hardly useful for solving problems outside in the work place situation (Vedder, 1992).
To overcome this, Middlehurst (1993) mentioned that the changes in curriculum may not be a response to the external stakeholder i.e. students, parents and employers, but may also strengthen the social status of the university.
37 There are arguments saying that the purpose of curriculum should be academic. In particular, higher education should not only concentrate on vocational training. Gilmore (1977) argued that education should not be sacrificed to the narrow training required by employers (Powers and Swinton, 1977). He added that the employers should look at the long-term benefits of education rather thkn short-term specific skills. Furthermore, McNeil (1996) also pointed out that the ‘cluster-of-skills’ approaches, whereby students are trained in a wider range of occupational areas, are more preferred by most businesses.
From the educator perspective, Rimmington (1999) commented that the reduction of vocational training in hospitality management programmes was mainly caused by a continuing fall in resources. Furthermore, Ingram (1999) stated that the work placement as an integral part of most hospitality management programmes might sour the students forever against the industry.
In Hong Kong, academic school education is preferred by parents and students, only the less able students are likely to go for vocational and technical education. In order to motivate the group of students who are weak in the academic side, Chung (1988) commented that in Hong Kong, the curriculum for vocational and technical education places too much emphasis on practical components either in the workshop or in the industry concerned. He suggested that there should be a balance of both practical and theory aspects.
In a nutshell, among the stakeholders, the hotel employers expect to have more vocational training as needed by industry. Whereas the educators due to the limited resources want to attract more students to join their programme and tend to reduce the vocational training in the curriculum. However, the students or parents tend to prefer to have more academic learning in higher education.
38 Pedagogy in the curriculum
Having considered the purpose of the hospitality curriculum, more attention can now be paid to pedagogy in the curriculum. This in turn impacts on the actual design of the curriculum. In curriculum design, one definition is of a syllabus which is a document that is written by the educators that carefully lists out the concepts, attitudes, and skills to be presented and learnt by the students (Omsten and Hunkins, 1993). It takes a lot of time and effort to prepare such documentation. However, Pratt (1994) argued that even though it is being documented, teachers are the actual designers. According to Lawton’s model, in Hong Kong, a teacher is given a lot of freedom in deciding the teaching method. The success of the classes is really dependent on the quality of the teacher’s planning.
The curriculum design is the initial stage in the production of qualified students. In general, designing the curriculum for a hotel management programme is more complex than for general subjects. The subjects that are taught by the university should align with the needs of the industry so as to develop a skilful and compatible employee for the hospitality industry. In addition, Stenhouse (1975) commented educators should plan the ‘teaching strategy’ rather than ‘teaching method’ so as to develop the skill of students. Furthermore, through the interaction of student and teacher, a learner-oriented curriculum could be developed to fit each individual need (Print, 1993). In such a case, ideally a careful and detailed counselling with the stakeholders is necessary.
Traditionally, public authorities, teachers, examining bodies and universities share curriculum development (Becher and Maclure, 1975). However in the heuristic pattern of curriculum development, the expectation is that the student will discover things themselves and the emphasis is on the discovery approach.
Over the years, there have been a number of different approaches to curriculum design and pedagogy. Print (1993) tried to group different writers’ ideas and came up with four recognised groups of designs. They are subject-centred designs, learner-centred designs, problem-centred designs and core designs. Print (1993) added that when the school is
39 working on curriculum design, some planners may put more emphasis on the instruction or pedagogic issue, that is how the subject matter is delivered, whereas others may put emphasis on what subject matter is delivered in the curriculum.
Pring (1995) pointed out that teachers and those who plan the curriculum rarely clarify where they want to go, what exactly the students need to learn, and then what are the best means for the learner to get there. He said that the curriculum planner should look at the outcomes rather than the content to be taught in the class. He also mentioned that the outcomes should be specified so that the learners understand how to reach that goal.
Another important issue raised by Pring (1995) was that the learner should decide the curriculum. In other words, he suggested that the syllabuses should be learner-led, led by the specific competence that the learner wants to acquire. To summarise different writers’ opinions and ideas on the design of curriculum, there appears to be a trend of either learner-centred or customer-oriented design.
Gilmore (1977) suggested ‘team learning’ for professional education. Such an approach is where a group of eight or ten students are responsible for covering the materials of a course with the help of a teacher (Powers and Swinton, 1977). It is similar to Pring’s (1995) idea.
To make the student-oriented curriculum workable, Tuckman (1970) suggested the teaching materials must be prepared to allow students to learn through their environment. By using the vocationalizing experience gained from work, the individual student will develop a series of sequences so as to achieve the specific goal.
Robertson (1997) supports the idea that higher education should not only follow a pattern of three years full time study, but that with the increase of the ‘Third Age’ population, higher education should move to a modular credit-based system where the students could select subjects that benefit them most rather than the traditional structured programme.
40 Besides, individual students should manage a new learning environment and an outcome- led curriculum is needed.
Although more student-led approaches are recommended, due to the culture and education system in Hong Kong, students much prefer a spoon-feeding method. Although there is a trend towards the learner-centred curriculum, students do not show initiative or participation during counselling with their tutor. It is not easy to ‘break the ice’ within their three years study in the university. Furthermore, with the influence of the English curriculum model, the nature of hotel management education in Hong Kong is more concerned with a technical skill basis, it is necessary to have a detailed consideration of this when designing the curriculum (Kivela, 1995).
Burton et al. (2001) point out that although a student-centred approach is a common trend for higher education, not all the curriculum has a clear context of the pedagogy. This might lead to more focus on the performance of the school rather than the needs of individual student (Middlewood and Burton, 2001). Furthermore, Shackleton (1989) added that the shift from curriculum-led approaches to student-led requires a shift in the thinking and behaviour of the lecturers and the college. She commented that it would take time to adopt such change.
On the whole, there is a global trend that the pedagogy in the curriculum should be student-led particularly in higher education. However, in designing the curriculum, the factor of culture should be considered in relation to the Hong Kong context.
The content of the curriculum
Stenhouse (1975) commented that content and method are inseparable in the practice of education. However, he suggested to distinguish them, as the factor of culture will affect the knowledge, skills, languages, conventions and values of the individual. In addition, there has been an argument on whether the content of the curriculum of hospitality management education should be more industry-oriented (Kivela 1995, Davidson and
41 Tideswell 1998) or be more business-oriented (Powers 1980, Ashley et al. 1995, Geissler and Martin 1998). The latter would broaden the student management theory and knowledge instead of looking at only one sector.
Davidson and Tideswell (1998) argue that many educators have the wrong perception and that hospitality education should seek to broaden its focus away from the narrow functional specialisation. Their study carried out in Australia, indicated that the main functional hospitality areas/subjects should not be excluded from the curriculum.
However, Ashley et al. (1995) mention that the traditional focus of hospitality education was being challenged by the rapidly changing needs of the hospitality industry for more general managerial skills and interpersonal competencies.
Additionally, Powers (1980) suggested that education was to provide the opportunity for the formal development of human and conceptual management skills. Umbreit (1992) argued that an overemphasis on the teaching of technical skills may place hospitality graduates at a disadvantage in the age of service management. On the other hand, Baum (1989) reported that the hotel industry looked to upgrade both the technical and inter personal skills. However, Lennon (1989) suggested that hotel and catering management education should be based on a sound foundation of practical skills and warned “beware of filling young heads with management theories” (Lennon 1989, pg. 112).
In supporting that the curriculum should be more business-oriented, Geissler and Martin (1998) carried out a study of management skill development for graduates of a southeastern university in United States. The findings identified that stress management was the deficiency in the hospitality curriculum for that particular hospitality programme. Students should be trained how to work under extreme stress. In addition, it is recommended that the hospitality curriculum must constantly change so as to keep up with the industry demands and the educators must also follow such changes.
42 It appears that there is a particular difficulty over compromise on the content of the hotel and catering curriculum: whether it should cover purely management or technical issues.
The organisation of learning - the internship programme
4
Within each of the courses considered in this thesis, an important element is the internship programme. After viewing the influences on the curriculum for hotel management courses in higher education, due to the nature of work in the hotel industry, it appears that vocational training is still generally considered essential for graduates. However, Blanch (1999) commented that it is very difficult to make a balance in the curriculum for hospitality management courses. It is suggested that higher education should emphasise management skills training and be student-led, in other words, vocational training should only play a small part in the curriculum. To compensate for this, there is a general agreement between stakeholders that an internship programme is a method to strengthen the students’ practical experience outside the school (McNeil, 1996). Such training can give an opportunity for the student to draw the theory and practice together (Brennan et al, 1993).
It is very hard for a student to experience the real working environment in a school setting. Even though there are ‘training’ restaurants in the school, students are under the guidance and protection of the teacher. Such practical simulations in school lack authenticity. In the real world, anyone who makes a mistake will have a penalty or worse, lose their job. All these things cannot happen in school. Teachers cannot ask a student to sign a misconduct note if he or she always come late to the restaurant operation class. The alternative is sending students to industry and letting them experience what the real working environment is.
To let the student have a better understanding of industry, Warwick (1989) suggested starting a link between industry and school even during primary education. With cross visits of the school and industry communications can strengthen each other and help the development of curriculum in the school. Internship or work experience is a particular
43 way to learn through doing on the part of the students.
According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the definition of the term ‘intern’ is as follows:
4
“Young doctor who is completing his training by residing in a hospital and acting as an assistant physician or surgeon there” (Hornby, p. 606).
This term has been borrowed from medicine and applied to commerce and the service industry where the term ‘intern’ means the practical training in the industry (Vocational Training Council, 1985). Anyhow, it is the period when students gain their industrial experience within study.
After starting in the medical world, internship-training programmes have not only been established in the hospitality industry. There has been significant research showing that internships are also popular in other areas such as public relations (Anon, 1979; Berger, 1991), business accountancy (Schmutte, 1985), internal auditing (Grand, 1991), operations management (Ames, 1986), publishing (Nowesnick, 1987), marketing (Hamilton, 1985) and other general management (Carlberg, 1983).
A lot of research shows that practical skill is essential and can benefit graduates who are first entering the hospitality industry (Lennon, 1989; Baum, 1989; Orr et al., 1992; Cotton, 1991; Kivela, 1995; Geissler and Martin, 1998). Internship training is seen as the best way to train graduates for the real world. Internship training requires a student to complete his or her training by working in a hotel and acting as an employee there.
It may be thought that the increase of popularity of the internship programmes was because of the downturn of the economy. From the point of view of employers, the staffing pressures made internship more attractive as young students could help to fill critical productivity needs (Berger, 1991). On the other hand, it may be that the amount of internship increased since more and more companies discovered the advantages of the
44 programmes offered (Anon, 1994). Indeed, it was felt that not only the employers in industry would benefit, but also students and the institution saw the advantages (McMahon and Quinn, 1995).
The benefits o f the programmes gained by the industry
The training programme does not only benefit the students but also the hotels themselves since the opportunities for industries to present their work environment to students can be beneficial (Heller, 1997). Sinclair (1997) stated that what the industry needed was educated, trained, dedicated young people, so that they could continue to enhance the reputation of the industry that reflected credit on Hong Kong. So the students could retain their knowledge gained from the internship for future returns to the industry (Cunningham, 1990). Besides, LeBruto and Murray (1994) concluded that learning experiences should be responsive to industry demands and implied that if the hotels could provide the opportunities to the students, there would be more skilled employees in the industry.
The advantages of the internship programmes to the institution
There appears to be no doubt that there is a great difference in the hospitality management course if no industrial training is included. Ford and LeBruto (1995) stated that in these academic fields, there was common agreement that some form of experiential or practical hands-on work experience was needed to best educate the students in the most effective application of the theoretical classroom content.
Poon (1996) and Knight and Barton (1985) also supported the idea that the internship programme could help deliver what the community would need in the future, claiming that institutions in hotel management should expand their use of on-the-job training experience to develop tomorrow’s managers.
45 The gains o f students from internship
Students are the beneficiaries from internship because the programme has been mainly designed for them. As hotel workers cannot be recruited from the general unemployed, the ones that are recruited have to have technical and professional skills, according to Sinclair (1997). In addition the internship programme makes the students more competitive in securing a position with a hospitality operation upon graduation (Downey and Deveau, 1987). Tas (1988) supported the case that hospitality internship had the potential to provide most of the competencies necessary to be acquired by a trainee.
Poon (1996) identified that the programme could help produce preferred graduates who had been adequately exposed to actual working conditions and were hence more “ready to work” before graduation. Apart from being professionally trained, the human-relations abilities such as good communication skills, potential for personal development, as well as adaptability for change were gained. Also, students could develop essential managerial traits at the same time (Ford and LeBruto, 1995).
In fact, internship is a chance to have real practice. Chow (1990) and Bagheri (1992) and Ford and LeBruto (1995) realised that the programme would provide a realistic environment for students to gain in-depth knowledge of the hotel trade (Ford and LeBruto, 1995 and Bagheri, 1992).
Ford and LeBruto (1995) also stated that practical work provided students with an environment in which they could learn how to manage both well-defined and unusually difficult situations successfully, whilst according to Bagheri (1992), the goal of the practical programme was to prepare students to become reflective practitioners who were able to make good real-life decisions in light of sound theory.
As the internship program is designed for students to gain actualworking experience during their study, the job acquisition (Carlberg, 1983; Downey and Deveau, 1987; Posey et al, 1988), working time (Carlberg, 1983; Schmutte, 1985; Hite, 1986; Schwartz, 1987;
46 Posey et al, 1988, Brightman, 1989; Berger, 1991; Grand, 1991; McMahon and Quinn, 1995), supervision of the program (Anon, 1979; Carlberg, 1983; Hamilton, 1985; Hite, 1986; Nowesnick and Roorbach, 1987; Schwartz, 1987; Posey et al, 1988; Brightman, 1989; Berger, 1991; Beran et al, 1993;), and the evaluation and feedback of internship (Anon, 1979; Ames, 1986; Hite, 1986; Schwartz, 1987; Nowesnick and Roorbach, 1987; Posey et al, 1988; Downey and Deveau, 1988; Brightman, 1989; Beran et al, 1993) may influence the student’s decision about their future career.
Since internship is very important to the students, educators and industry, it seems clear that the hospitality management curriculum should retain such a component in the programme as an essential part of any course.
Assessment/outcomes in terms of the competency approach
Other than the evaluation of performance during internship training, assessment of student learning in all learning and teaching contexts should be undertaken. Biggs (2001) argued criterion-referenced assessments in evaluating the performance were too quantified and did not reflect what students gained. He added that assessment should be done on a whole process rather than on individual subjects. Therefore, looking at the examination grade alone might not truly reflect the outcome of students learning. Similarly, Preedy (1993) suggested judging the effectiveness of a school should also involve looking at the culture, levels of staff and student satisfaction factors with which the school operates and the competitiveness with other schools.
As internship training can let the students have a better understanding of the industry, at the same time, it is possible to evaluate whether certain skills and competencies nave developed during their study. Furthermore, students may have some adjustments of their expectations after internship, so the curriculum will need to cope with individual needs so as to satisfy different expectations.
47 In evaluating job capabilities, the simplest method is measuring the employee’s performance in terms of skills and competencies. This includes not only technical skills but also competencies in managing the work and in working with other people. Under the utility model (fig. 2.2), students should develop those skills and competencies during their study in school.
The concept of competencies is not new. In fact, a US company, McBer, in order to identify personal characteristics that result in effective and/or superior performance in a job, devised the competency approach in the 1970’s. In the tourism industry, different definitions of competency have been defined due to its multi-disciplinary nature. Tourism overlaps into hospitality and recreation fields and depends upon the information and methods from economics, business, sociology and political science (Fletcher, 1990; Smith and Godbey, 1991).
In the early period of the 1970s, competencies were derived through observing excellent performers’ behaviour characteristics in pre-determined simulation exercises in occupational roles; known as critical incident analysis. Later, their behaviour characteristics were organised into competency clusters and adopted by many organisations to enhance management education and training. According to Fletcher (1990), although competency systems coexisted in both the US and UK, they were somewhat different. The UK system was based on the occupational behaviour standards defined by the industry that were known as criterion-referenced standards of occupational competence. They reflect the expectations of employment, and this focuses on the roles played at work rather than jobs. On the other hand, the US system is a criterion-validated system as the Americans believe that competence is an underlying characteristic of a person that results in effective and/or superior job performance. In undertaking research for this thesis, the term competency is based on the UK understanding rather than that of the US. In the UK, NVQ measures competences but programmes of leadership development, e.g. for head teachers, measure competency and competencies.
48 Definition of Competency
Competence or competency are two interchangeable words with similar meaning, the difference is that the Americans tend to use the former and the British the latter (Woodruffe, 1993). According to the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (p.236), competency refers to “having the ability, being capable, possessing certain skills or knowledge to what one is supposed to do”. Some dictionaries list “competence” and “competency” together and present them as interchangeable (Rowe, 1995). Siu (1998) also argued that competency or competence were also interchangeable and with the same meaning. However, Rowe (1995) distinguished “competence” to mean a skill and the standard performance reached while “competency” referred to the behaviour by which it was achieved. Although competency is identified as being job-related, it can also be applied in daily or non-work situation. Perdue et al (2001) added that “competency” referred to the knowledge, skills and performance abilities required to perform a job effectively. Many academic gurus and business practitioners have developed a range of definitions for competency over the years, their different perspectives related to their various specialisations and interest (Siu, 1995).
One of these sources might be used exclusively but as Hall and Jones (1976) indicated, a multi-source identification process probably yields the best results. Morris (1973), broadly stated that competencies were those activities and skills judged essential to perform the duties of a specific position.
Competencies are defined in many different terms and at different levels. In the context of education, Pearson (1980) indicated that subject knowledge is necessary but nox sufficient in assessing an individual’s competence in his or her job. Klemp (1980) defined a job competency as an underlying characteristic of a person that results in effective or superior performance in a job. Fardig (1982) defined competencies, as they relate to the world of work, as knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes required for a student to succeed at a particular occupation. A competency may also be defined as a meaningful
49 unit of work that is discrete, observable, and performed within a limited period of time. It leads to a product, service, or decision. The terms “skill” and “task” are often used as interchangeable with competency. Competencies are stated in the same form as objectives but are the end behaviour in a sequence of behaviours organised hierarchically (Berry, 1980).
In a pioneering study, Tas (1983) developed job competencies in judging the skills of graduates of the hospitality industry. Those skills are essential to perform the duties of a specific position. He analysed the specific competencies required of college graduates entering management training programmes in the United States hotel industry, as identified and rated by the general managers of large hotels. He then identified a set of managerial competencies to provide the basis for the Hotel and Restaurant Management curriculum of the University of North Texas. He defined competencies as “those activities and skills judged essential to perform the duties of a specific position” and is based on “one’s ability to accomplish specific job-related tasks and assume the role connected to the position” (Tas 1988, p.41). In 1987, he also found that human-relations skills, professional ethical standards, diplomacy, and effective oral and written communication skills were rated as competencies essential for management success.
In measuring the outcome of the hospitality students, Getty et al (1990) carried out a survey with sixty employers who hired hospitality graduates. In that research, they used the same job competencies that were developed previously. The respondents had graduated from the University of North Texas during the 1987, 1988 and 1989 semester. The purpose of this study was to find out the level of competency satisfaction of the graduates as perceived by the hospitality sector managers. As the respondents were graduates from the university, they should know the course structure and teaching materials well. Besides, the findings helped determine whether the programme’s mission was being met. It also helped the university in developing the programme curriculum.
Comparing Getty et al’s (1990) study with the Tas (1983) study shows a similar result. In the United States, the highest ranking for the important competencies of manager trainee
50 are ‘manages guest problems with understanding and sensitivity’, ‘maintains professional and ethical standards in the work environment’ and ‘demonstrates professional appearance and poise’.
To include all these managerial activities in a theoretical niodel, Sandwith (1993) developed the competency-domain model. The model comprises five areas and they are conceptual, leadership, interpersonal, administrative and technical aspects. Furthermore, Kay and Russette (2000) based on Tas’s survey and Sandwith’s model developed a survey instrument in studying the hospitality management competencies. The findings showed that leadership domain and technical needs were the two essential competencies.
Alternatively, Boyatzis (1982) explained competency broadly as the underlying characteristics of a person to perform a job. The characteristics can be a motive, trait, skill, and aspect of one’s self image, social role, or a body of knowledge of a person. Hornby and Thomas (1989) defined competencies as the knowledge, skills and qualities of effective managers while Woodruffe (1993) defined competence as the ability to perform effectively those functions associated with management in a work-related situation (Woodruffe, 1993). Fletcher (1990) also defined competency as the characteristics held by those individuals which are being brought to their organisational role.
Based on the work of Boyatzis and UK Cadbury Schweppes, BP international, Westminster Bank and Manchester Airport’s management development, Woodruffe (1993) split competency into two meanings: the first one was defined by Boyatzis as the overall ability of someone to perform a job. The second one was what gave rise to the overall ability. Woodruffe named the first meaning as the area of competency whicn is the area in which a person is competent and the second as the personal competence which is the dimension that lies behind competent performance.
Woodruffe (1993) mentioned that there is a close relationship between competencies and technical skills. For a professional job, especially, the two components cannot be separated. It is important that professional skills and behavioural competence are acquired, not just experience. He suggested that during an interview, there should be a focus on people’s experience, with a review of a portfolio of their work.
Additionally, Walklin (1994) pointed out that competence Should be more than just a skill. To be competent, a person needs to have suitable knowledge, skills and experience to consistently perform the related work to a required standard. He suggested certification as a way to show the person is capable in taking as a job.
Walsh (1998) presented a number of definitions of competency. The most popular perspective was that competence consists of attributes possessed by individuals, including primarily knowledge, skills and attitudes, all of which are directly measurable and quantifiable according to predetermined categories and criteria (Boyatzis, 1982; Klemp and McClelland, 1986; Gonczi et al., 1990).
Siu (1998) carried out a study of managerial competencies of hotel middle managers in Hong Kong. Her view on competence is that,
“being competent, by definition, means having the ability, being capable, possessing certain skills and the knowledge to do what one is supposed to do.” (Siu 1998, p.254)
Walsh (1998) added that competence is:
“the ability to perform effectively in a given context, the capacity to transfer knowledge and skills to new tasks and situations, and the inclination or motivation to energize these abilities and capacities” (Walsh 1998, p. 15).
It appears that competence should combine the skills that people have learnt (either in school or in workplace) and the personal characteristics of the individual. So, in measuring the skills and competencies of a person, concentration should not only be on
52 the skills but also the personality of the individual and how well it is suited to the industry.
In spite of this, in assessing competency, Robertson (1997) commented that the NCVQ model that is used in the U.K. to measure the competence of a person has ‘a lot of limitations. It provides less opportunity for a person to explore their knowledge. Furthermore, the method of assessment might not truly reflect the competence that a person has learned. The competency statements do not represent how knowledge is gained and the fairness to every student (Lazarus 1981, Robertson 1997). Robotham and Jubb (1996) supported the idea that it was difficult to measure the competence of a manager since it combined behavioural and skills-based elements. It appears that people only measure one part rather than both in setting the assessment. Nevertheless, Robertson (1997) added that there has been little change in the assessment of the use of competence statements over 20 years. Robotham and Jubb (1996) also questioned the usefulness of the competence approach in practice. Vloeberghs et al. (2000) state that the competence assessment should cope with the company’s vision in the future and there should be continual effort for developing the competencies by individual.
Even though the NCYQ model is not necessarily the best approach to assess the student’s skill and competency, it does give students potentially equal status for vocational and academic education and could remove the barriers between these two educational patterns (Short in OECD, 1998). Figure 2.3, shows the three main qualifications post-16 in U.K. which includes general education - GCE, A-level and AS; GNVQs and NVQs. Students can choose various combinations within the three qualification pathways routes. It allows more flexibility for the student to achieve higher qualifications. In fact, there has been an increase in the number of students entering the universities with qualifications other than GCE A-level in the UK (Short, 1998).
53 Figure 2.3 Qualifications pathways post-16 in U.K. (Source: OECD, 1998, p. 133)
NVQ5 Postgraduate degrees (professional jobs)
NVQ4 Degrees (higher technician, management jobs)
Sub-degree qualifications NVQ3 Advanced (advanced craft, technican GNVQs supervisor jobs') vocational A levels! 2 + GCE A levels and AS courses
NVQ2 Intermediate (basic craft jobs) GNVQs 4 or 5 passes A-C grades
GCSEs NVQ1 Foundation 4 passes (foundation training) GNVQs D-G grades
3 Job-specific O eneral ♦mtritn y General vocational education education
Accreditation
Accreditation is the process by which a qualification is guaranteed either by an academic institution or a national body endorsed by the government. Since more and more students are entering university through routes other than the A-level examination as a result of life-long learning in the UK (Shackleton, 1989, Robertson, 1997), this is also occurring in Hong Kong. Therefore, there needs to be some mechanism for measuring the skills and competencies gained from both the academic and vocational schools. Accreditation is a system to make the outcome recognised by both the university and the public.
Different organisations may have different perceptions of skills and competency. To standardise the skills that are performed by individual employees, in the United
54 Kingdom, the professional bodies, training councils and employers are invited to set out standards for the hospitality industry (Hospitality 2000a).
Corresponding to the standardisation of skills, the United Kingdom is already a step ahead of other countries. The Hospitality Training Foundation (HtF) is now working with the Hotel and Catering International Management Association (HCIMA) encouraging the employers to participate in the new Learning and Skills Council (LSC). From April 2001, the LSC has taken over training functions of the Training and Enterprise Councils (TECS) and the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC). The LSC will discuss with employers in shaping the skills and knowledge for the future workforce. Besides, it also ensures the education and training system can improve the basic skills of people who have learning difficulties (Hospitality, 2000c).
HCIMA is a professional body not only recognised in the U.K. but around the world. According to their mission statement of HCIMA, ‘HCIMA promotes the highest professional standards of management and education in the international hospitality industry’. HCIMA has been involved in National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) in U.K. Besides, HCIMA also assess programmes of study around the world and accredits those meeting recognised standards and quality internationally. One of the aims of this association is to set recognised educational standards and assist in the recruitment and mobility of labour. It also keeps members and industry informed, and up to date through its information service, publications, advisory groups and seminars (http: //w w w. hcima. or g. uk).
Equally, the HCIMA introduced the Hospitality Assured standard by providing improvement tools for the small and medium-sized organisations in achieving the standards that were worked out by the HtF. The HtF also conducted research on skills needed by the hospitality industry in the future and then provided relevant courses for the staff. This can ensure staff developing the essential skills and knowledge needed by the industry can improve customer satisfaction. There are a number of countries showing interest in the Hospitality Assured standard (Hospitality, 2000b). McHugh (2000) commented that the hospitality industry has suffered from poor and unqualified labour for a long time. She identified that the National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) could definitely improve the skills and standard of employees working in hotels. Furthermore, a report released by the HtF in January 2000 showing that the NVQs became more important for staff who were working in the industry especially the occupational standard although findings showed that currently only 21 per cent of the employers were using it (Hospitality, 2000d).
To standardise the training programme provided by the hotel, Kenny (2001) said,
“Some of the major hotel chains have their own schools. In my view, they could only benefit by becoming associated with HCIMA, as it would give the schools and their students international accreditation and recognition opportunities” (Hospitality 200 lg, p.29)
Normally, to ensure staff have achieved a certain level of skill, there should be some instrument to measure it. Though Robertson (1997) and Fletcher (2000) claimed that the competence-based assessment and the NCVQ used in the U.K. only measured the competence rather than capability of a person, such a formal qualification is an assurance that the holder of the certificate has gone through the training needs and can perform the relevant skills on the job. Also, accreditation by a ‘recognised’ professional body such as HCIMA is another way of showing the proficiency of the staff being employed. This can cut down complaints by the employers about recruits not having the required knowledge and skills.
Summary
After reviewing different authors and researchers’ ideas and suggestions, it appears that the main stakeholders in hospitality education include indirectly the external customer, and directly the hotel industry, hospitality education institution and the student. The student also appears as the customer to the education institution. In order to bring more
56 revenue to the hotel, customer satisfaction is ‘the bottom line’ that the whole industry must pay attention to.
As the relationships between the main stakeholders are so close, they should have good communication between each other. However, many researchers find that each have their own expectations that are not necessarily shared with other parties identify. The hotel industry expects the students trained by the educational institution to take up a job without providing too much additional training and expects that they should be willing to start from the bottom. Furthermore, they look for someone who is really committed to the industry rather than having a good academic background. On the other hand, the student expects to be trained as a professional in the hospitality industry. They trust the reputation of the school and think that there will be a good career prospect after taking the programme. In addition, the students believe they are professional and anticipate that the employer should understand their expectation first. They also tend to look for a luxury hotel when starting their first job. The hospitality educators expect the industry to provide attractive career paths to the graduates. Hospitality educators also expect the students to develop their technical skills, interpersonal skills, and management skills and have an international outlook during their study. With changes in curriculum, such as adding information technology, the educator expects this will lead to more customer satisfaction and meet industry needs.
Due to different expectations that exist on the part of employers (Ley and Sandler, 1982; Sparks and Bradley, 1994; Ruddy, 1989; Hobson and Bushell, 1994; Ineson and Kempa, 1997; Chak, 1999), education institution (Longworth, 1990; Enz et al, 1993; Middlehurst, 1993; Brownell, 1995; Geissier and Martin, 1998; Wasi, 2001) and students (Ivory, 1988; Cullen and Dick, 1989; Fawcett, 1989; Casado, 1992; Strohbehn, 1994; Getz, 1994; Davidson, 1996; Davidson and Tideswell, 1998; Sciarini and Woods, 1998), a mismatch still occurs (Krutson, 1989; Lennon, 1989; McCleary, 1989; Cotton, 1991; Orr et al, 1992; Siu, 1995; Slattery, 1997; Robertson, 1997; Liu et al, 1998; Okeiyi et al, 1998; Blackwell et al, 2001; Burchett, 2001) . It is suggested that the educational institution could act as a bridge to bring the other two parties together.
57 Within the Lawton (1983) model, curriculum management in hospitality education in Hong Kong is heavily reliant on the individual institution. Therefore the institution may, for example, choose to change to a student centred approach, or to combine management and technical skills in the curriculum. In addition, the influence of the curriculum planners will to a certain degree affect student outcomes. For example, if the curriculum planners are willing to accept changes in curriculum so as to match with industry needs, the students will be better prepared to take up jobs in the hospitality industry and perform what they have learnt in the school. Consequently, students will be likely to be more comfortable in taking up any job in the company. On the other hand, employers will be appreciative if they can reduce the time spent in training up staff.
However, the curriculum planner and others need to consider the possibly negative influences of competency systems on curriculum development. The development of competencies as the main thrust of the curriculum could cause too much specialization in the whole curriculum so as to meet the individual component requirements, with a consequent loss of wider aspects of the curriculum such as the more affective areas. Furthermore, there might be a possible loss of professional autonomy of teachers or professors as a result of having to teach to the relatively tight constraints of competencies. In addition, there is a danger that adherence to a set of competencies might lead to ignoring the rapid changes occurring in the industry as the curriculum might be less flexible to respond.
In particular, well-designed internship training can benefit all three parties. More and more universities running academic courses put greater emphasis on this component. Internship training can serve as a stepping-stone before the students really enter the hospitality industry. Students can make use of what they learnt in school and rest whether it is workable in the real environment. Occasionally, experience and improvement may derive from the mistakes that are made during internship. Such experience probably cannot be learned from books or teachers.
58 Taking into account the possible dangers of adopting a competency approach, it is nevertheless suggested that the skills and competencies should be standardised in the hospitality industry in an attempt to narrow the gap in expectations between the hospitality educator, employer and employee. In the case of the U.K., the accreditation of the hospitality programme seems to provide a better understanding of the skills needed in performing the job. Moreover, standardisation of service provided, means that customers are likely to benefit from the quality service delivery and will be willing to return to spend again.
As a whole, an evaluation of skills and competencies developed by the students and an examination of the needs of the industry and expectations of the educators can allow an exploration of the extent of any mismatch that exists between the main stakeholders. In addition, curriculum control including consideration of the aims, pedagogy and evaluation may also provide a better understanding of what students have achieved in their hotel and catering education and allow identification of whether the graduates are meeting the expectations of the employers.
59 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
Introduction
As pointed out in the previous chapter that there is a mismatch of expectations between the main stakeholders. It is useful to identify the competency level of graduates skills expected by hotel employers, the competency level of skill provided by the university as perceived by the teaching staff and students through applying different research instruments. Furthermore, this study serves as a review of the current curriculum offered by hospitality educators, focusing on the gap between what the hotel and catering management students learn in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and what the hotel industry actually wants from its new recruits. It is hoped that it will give some guidelines to the curriculum planner about the strength and weaknesses of the curriculum that is delivered to the student. It will also help the curriculum planner to improve and develop the future curriculum. Besides, it is hoped to lead to understanding of how to increase the retention of graduates after their study and therefore benefit the hospitality industry in gaining qualified employees.
In obtaining a more detailed understanding of the matter, a case study approach was applied in this study, concentrating on students, staff and a range of employers associated with the hotel and tourism management department of Hong Kong Polytechnic University. To strengthen the findings, both questionnaire and interview have been used. The five questions that appeared in the interview were based on the objectives of this study. Those interview questions, in conjunction with the questionnaire, gathered information from the main stakeholders (Cohen and Manion, 1994).
Research approach
Educational research tends to investigate a problem that exists in a current situation, then identify the problem and try to find ways to deal with it. Basically, most educational researchers when carrying out a study are moving in that direction. However, in deciding
60 the appropriate approach, each researcher has his/her own standpoint and operates within a ‘research paradigm’ (Wu, 1991).
The term paradigm suggests that some accepted examples of actual practice, provide models from which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research (Kuhn, 1962). According to Kuhn’s theory, the achievement of the previous success can act as an example for the future development in the work. Subsequently, Gage (1963) also agreed that the term is interchangeable with “model”. Gage who was a leading scholar in educational research criticised that a paradigm is not a concept but the ways of thinking or pattern of research (Snow, 1973 p.79). Generally, most people could agree a paradigm can be referred to as example, pattern or model.
Between the two distinctive paradigms, the scientific paradigm emphasises the realist, positivist, quantitative, objectivist and nomothetic approach. While the humanistic paradigm emphasises the idealist, interpretative, qualitative, subjectivist and idiographic approach. The arguments between the two paradigms are not only on the approach but also the concept (Husen, 1988; Cohen and Manion, 1989).
Since education is part of social science, the two paradigms have effects on educational research. Under these two paradigms, there is conflict between the qualitative research approach and quantitative research approach. Quantitative research is based on numbers and statistics. Whereas, qualitative research is more reliant on the words and narratives. Under qualitative research, the more common techniques that are applied are field research, ethnographic research and case study. Since the middle 1980s, there is a consensus among educational researchers and a new approach that researchers should use the appropriate method in a specific study instead of using either one. Multi-methoas or triangulation was introduced at that time (Wu, 1991). Triangulation can be described as a technique of research using two or more methods in collecting data that can improve the researcher’s confidence (Cohen and Manion, 1989). In this study, the researcher is working in a basically quantitative paradigm but using some qualitative triangulation.
61 Coleman and Lumby (1999) stated that there may be a ‘new paradigm’ emerging as more and more educators preferred using practitioner research in their own working place (Middlewood et al, 1999). Nevertheless, researchers should consider different approaches so as to obtain the best outcome. Referring to the research approach discussed by different researchers, as this study is related to the phenomenon happening in the current situation, it is suggested that it is a kind of descriptive research. Besides, as it involves collecting data in order to answer research questions, ‘descriptive’ research could be said to apply (Gay, 1996). Since case study approach can provide insights into events and behaviours, it can provide hypotheses for testing. Thus it is suitable for studying the reasons for graduates not joining the industry in-depth. Under the case study approach, there are five mostly sequential steps: 1) choosing and defining the problem to be investigated; 2) planning the investigation; 3) systematically collecting data; 4) interpreting the data and 5) disseminating the findings (MacNealy, 1997).
Case study approach
Although there are nine educational institutions providing hospitality management programmes in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPU) is the only university that trains students as supervisors or managers in the hospitality industry (the first batch of students being trained in an equivalent course at the Chinese University will not graduate until 2002). Most of the other institutions provide vocational training only concentrating on technical skills. Therefore, instead of using a survey approach across all the institutions providing training for the hospitality industry, this study focuses on the HKPU hotel and tourism management department since it is at present the only institution that is offering degree courses in the area. The study seeks to investigate the competencies and skills of the students, the expectations of the industry and the role of the educational institution, so it takes a case study approach, the boundaries of the case study being the HKPU hotel and tourism management department and its stakeholders - the students, the educators and the hotel industry employers.
62 A case study approach is popular in evaluating a specific instance and can be applied by both novices and experienced researchers (Anderson, 1998; Bogdan and Biklen, 1992). In addition, to gain a detailed and in-depth understanding of a single group, individual, or situation, a case study approach is appropriate (Hitchcock and Hughes, 1989; LeCompte and Preissle, 1993; Cohen and Maftion, 1994; Mason and Bramble, 1997; Wiersma 1995; Best and Kahn, 1989). Furthermore, there are a wide variety of methods that can be applied in getting the data through a case study approach. They include observation, interviews, questionnaires and recorded data from different sources (Best and Kahn, 1989).
“Case studies are commonly associated with, but not limited to, qualitative research” (Wiersma 1995, p. 17).
Whatever form of research approach is used, researchers expect the findings to be valid. Validity includes two concepts, that is, internal validity and external validity (Wiersma, 1995; Anderson, 1998). The difference between these two concepts is the accurate interpretability of results (internal) and the generalisability of the results (external). Wiersma (1995) comments that in actual practice, it is very difficult to have a perfect internal and external validity in a study.
Reliability of the research is another related concept. Best and Kahn (1989) defined reliability as where the score from the tests are stable each time whenever they are applied. If the finding of a study is what the researcher expected, then it can claim that the test is valid. Reliability refers to the consistency of the research and the degree of replication (Anderson, 1998). Generally, there is internal reliability and external reliability (Wiersma, 1995). Internal reliability refers to the way of collecting data, the analysis and interpretation being under the same conditions. External reliability refers to the researcher under the same or similar setting being able to repeat using the same instrument. To ensure validity and reliability in this study, the researcher carried out pilot studies, also the researcher sought reliability through triangulation of methods. In fact that the researcher conducted all the interviews and this should also increase the
63 reliability of the findings.
Within the research paradigm, applied to educational case studies, both the positivist and interpretive approaches can be found. Since the purpose of this study is to explore the
4 different expectations of the stakeholders, a relatively large scale study has been undertaken and it may therefore more inclined to a positivist quantitative approach as stated by Bassey (1999), and this applies to the current study.
Anderson (1998) stated that a lot of educational research needs the flexibility offered by the case study method.
“Education is a process that requires a research method which is process-oriented, flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances and a dynamic context. Given these boundaries, case study method is often appropriate” (Anderson 1998, p. 152).
With a similar approach, Bassey’s (1999) view is that in using a case study the researcher must not simply study the input and output but should view things happening in a more in-depth manner.
“An essential feature of case study is that sufficient data are collected for researchers to be able to explore significant features of the case and to put forward interpretations for what is observed. Another essential feature is that the study is conducted mainly in its natural context” (Bassey 1999, p.47).
Qualitative research serves to develop extensive information from a relatively few people (Ritchie and Goeldner, 1987).
“Exclusive reliance on one method, therefore, may bias or distort the researcher’s picture of the particular slice of reality he or she is investigating” (Cohen and Manion 1994, p.269).
64 As different people may have their interpretation and judgement on each item, bias may exist in the research and it will affect the end result of the study. Regarding this problem, the combination of questionnaire and detailed interviews might provide a greater number of data and improve the reliability of the research. Coleman and Lumby (1999) added that the practitioner-researcher, especially in educational research, is likely to make use of qualitative and quantitative techniques from both positivist and interpretive paradigms. For such reasons, both quantitative method and qualitative methods are used here (table 3.1).
Table 3.1 Data collection (Descriptive research)
Case study approach
Questionnaire Interview
Sampling
Teaching Final year Hotel Curriculum Final year Hotel Staff students Personnel planner, staff students Personnel Managers & new staff (focus group) Managers
Questionnaire survey
A questionnaire survey can gather data at a particular point of time in order to determine the relationships that exist between specific groups. Another advantage of using £ questionnaire survey is it does not take too long and require too many researchers to contact the population.
Many studies in education use questionnaire surveys to describe the characteristics of groups of people. Characteristics range from attitudes, opinions and measures of
65 performance to basic descriptive characteristics (Wiersma, 1995). Conversely, in some cases, by the time all the data were collected, the population characteristics may have changed (Cohen and Manion, 1994; Best and Kahn, 1989).
In fact, the questionnaire is less expensive, more flexible and easily analysed. However, Bums (1995) commented that there might be a poor response rate, there can be misinterpretation of the questions even though a pilot test has been carried out before. Furthermore, there is no opportunity for the respondent to express their opinions on the questions. A questionnaire used in this research actually achieved a good response rate because of the ease of reaching the respondents within the university.
In addition, the problem of choosing a suitable sample and the problem of actually collecting data from the people in the sample also need to be considered (Cohen and Manion, 1994).
Interview
The interview is one of the most frequently used methods of eliciting information in educational research (Cohen and Manion, 1994; Hitchcock and Hughes 1989). Cohen and Manion (1994) mentioned that there are four kinds of interview that may be used as a research tools: the structured interview, the unstructured interview, the non-directive interview and the focused interview. Among these different tools, structured interview is commonly used in educational research (Best and Kahn, 1989; Merriam, 1988; Gay, 1996). This study also used structured interview.
Wiersma (1995), Tuckman (1978) and Bums (1995) drew up the advantages of using an interview compared with other research tools such as questionnaire.
The response rate will be higher since more people are willing to talk and react verbally than to write responses to questions. Besides, there are opportunities for probing by using interview technique. The interview provides opportunities for in-depth investigation,
66 elaboration and clarification of items. Furthermore, for some of the topics, where there is lack of interest and motivation to response, interviews can be used with individuals from whom data cannot otherwise be obtained. In addition, there are opportunities for asking in case of misunderstanding about the questions. It can avoid the wrong perception from the respondents. Some answers may come from the facial expression bf the respondents. It can be easily identified that the problem existed.
“The main disadvantage of interviews is that they are more expensive and time- consuming than questionnaires” (Bums 1995, p.362).
Wiersma (1995) also agreed that interviews were time consuming and needed more effort when compared with other tools. In addition, Bums (1995) mentioned that the interviewer is an important issue in getting data that is valid. He or she must be skilled and well trained in order to maximise the clearness of doing so.
Interview and questionnaire
Having considered the two research instruments, Mason and Bramble (1997) commented that using questionnaires has more advantages than interviews in terms of time and money and indicating the difference between interview and questionnaire in survey research.
“A major difference between the two is that interview are conducted face-to-face or in direct communication with the interviewee, while questionnaires are completed by the respondent alone” (Mason and Bramble 1997, p.324).
There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages of using interview and questionnaire especially in educational research. Generally, there is no single research method that can fulfil all needs. LeCompte and Preissle (1993) state that the purpose of using many kinds of techniques was to cross check the accuracy of data collected in different ways. There are considerations from different researchers on personal interview, telephone interview and questionnaire; table 3.2 attempts to group them together. It shows the advantages and disadvantages of using one of the instruments. To strengthen the validity and reliability of the findings, triangulation can be used (Cohen and Manion, 1994).
Table 3.2 Summary of the considerations when applying interviewing and questionnaires.
Consideration Personal interview Telephone interview Questionnaire Personnel needed Interviewers Interviewers Clerk Major expense Interviewers Interviewers Postage and printing Opportunities for asking Extensive Extensive Limited Opportunities for probe Possible Possible Difficult Reach the respondents Slowest Speedy Efficient Response rate High Generally high Poor Sources of error Interviewer, instrument Interviewer, instrument Limited to instrument Time consume Long Long Short Bias Exist Exist Limited Standardisation Maintain Maintain Difficult to maintain Overall reliability Quite limited Quite limited Fair
Sources from: Van Dalen and Meyer (1962), Tuckman (1978), Cohen and Manion (1994), Bums (1995), Wiersma (1995)
Having considered different research instruments, for this study, personal interview is used for the students and educators. Telephone interview is used for the hotel employers for convenience. Questionnaires are distributed to the three main stakeholders either by mail or in person.
Data collection
In collecting the data, there are several techniques that can be used.
68 “Descriptive data are typically collected through a questionnaire survey, an interview, or observation” (Gay 1996, p. 14).
In this study, primary data was collected through surveying the past graduates, current degree and higher diploma students, hotel employers and hospitality educators for views on skills and competency needed for the hospitality industry. In addition, personal interviews were carried out so as to have a deeper understanding of the needs and their views on the curriculum.
Sample population
To maintain the usefulness of this project as well as keeping the research scope intact, the target participants are confined. These include final year students on the BA(Hon.) Hotel and Catering Management and Higher Diploma in Hotel Management in the Department of Hotel and Tourism Management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Also the previous graduates from the Department of Hotel and Tourism Management, the academic staff in the department and the Human Resources Managers in hotels are involved in this study.
In general, the sample population is divided into three main groups. It includes the main stakeholders in the hospitality industry training: the student, industry and the educator.
The student
The Degree and Higher Diploma year three students were selected as the sample population. There were, in the year 1999-2000, forty-eight degree students and ninety-six higher diploma students and all of them have worked in the hospitality industry during their internship. The reason for selecting this group is that they have explored the real hospitality industry during their internship training. It is thus assumed that they may have adjusted their expectations towards the course. In this case, students' responses are more
69 likely to be realistic and objective than the younger students who had more limited working experience.
This study also included past graduates from the department. They are likely to be in a better position to express views on the programme provided by the university. Although there have been a lot of changes within the past twenty years in the hotel department, the major change is from a non-credit based to a credit based system from 1997. Basically, the subject content still remains unchanged. They all experienced what the hotel industry expectations were. As some of the graduates might still be working in the hospitality industry, their comments on the curriculum should be valid to the educator. According to the department alumni association information, there were about one thousand and five hundred students graduated from the department between 1981 and 1999. These alumni were selected as the sample population.
The industry
The Hong Kong Hotel Association is the only recognised association representing the hotel industry in Hong Kong. There are seventy-five hotels registered in the Hong Kong Hotel Association in the year 2000 and all of them were invited to participate in this study. The Human Resources Manager or Personnel Manager of the hotel is the target respondent. The Human Resources Manager is the first person to interview every applicant, they are likely to be the appropriate personnel in hotel industry to know the basic need for the employee. The seventy-five Human Resources Manager were selected as the sample population.
Educators
The teaching staff in the department are involved in this research. There are thirty-seven staff in the year 2000 including the associate professor, assistant professor, lecturer and teaching assistant. To get a better view from the educator, the curriculum planner, teaching staff and new staff are being selected for in-depth interview. The curriculum
70 planner in the department is also the programme leader for the degree and higher diploma courses. He knows a lot about the requirements of the students and industry needs. The teaching staff from different ranks who have worked in the department more than three years are in a better position to comment on the student performance and curriculum provided by the department. The new staff, who have joined the department less than a year ago, are likely to have a better understanding of the industry expectation because they usually just came from the industry.
Sampling
Generally, it is difficult to survey the whole population in normal practice (Cohen and Manion, 1989). A small group of the population is usually selected as a sample to represent the whole. There are a lot of sampling methods which include simple random sampling, systematic sampling, stratified sampling, cluster sampling, stage sampling, convenience sampling, quota sampling, purposive sampling, dimensional sampling and snowball sampling (Bums, 1995; Gay, 1996, Best and Kahn, 1989, Cohen and Manion, 1989).
For the sampling method, it is important that the sample should be as representative and relevant to the research topics as possible (Isaac and Micheal, 1995). In this study, the final year students were selected by using purposive sampling for the questionnaire survey. It was purposive, but all of the group were surveyed. Purposive sampling is used as it can build up a sample that is satisfactory to the researcher’s specific needs. This is one type of non-probability sampling, in which the researcher purposely choses subjects who are thought to be relevant to the research topics (Bailey, 1996). While for group interview, convenience sampling was applied.
For the industry, a cluster sampling technique was applied. Since the hospitality industry includes both hotels and restaurants, it is difficult to test all the population. Bums (1995) suggested that if the population is spread widely across a large geographic area, cluster sampling is preferable. Furthermore, Churchill (1996) added that if the investigator uses
71 all the population elements in the selected subsets for the sample it can be counted as one-stage cluster sampling (Churchill, 1996). So, the hotels under the Hong Kong Hotel Association were being selected as the one-stage cluster sampling for the questionnaire research. Furthermore, probability proportional to size cluster sampling was used for the telephone interview in the two different tariff hotel groups (Johnson and Christensen, 2000). It might give a better understanding of the expectations from different tariff hotel.
For the teaching staff, purposive sampling was used for the questionnaire survey, but stratified sampling was used for the interview. Different ranks of staff are being picked up in this study. The difference between the two types of sampling is in stratified sampling a sample of elements is selected from each subgroup while in cluster sampling, a sample of subgroups is being chosen (Churchill, 1996). Both sampling methods are probability sampling.
Setting questions a. Questionnaire
The questions in the questionnaire were structured and fixed-alternative so as to ensure all the answers was standardised and easy to answer. The content of the questions was based on skill and competency levels and expectations about the programme designs of internship.
For the past graduates
The questionnaire was mainly focused on the content of the curriculum rather man the skill and competency of the students.
Section A of the questionnaire consisted of respondents’ general information including demographic information and the highest qualification that they gained in the department.
72 Section B of the questionnaire concentrated on their employment history. Respondents needed to respond on whether they worked in the hospitality industry after graduation and the nature of their current employment. The purpose was to find out the percentage of graduates entering the industry after finishing their study and the percentage of retention, also the nature of work they are doing.
In section C of the questionnaire, there were eight main subject areas that asked the respondents to rank the importance level in getting their first job. A 5-point Likert scales from not at all important (1) to extremely important (5) in measuring the hotel and tourism management (HTM) qualification when getting the job. Descriptive analysis was used so that the frequencies and mean scores could be generated.
In the last part of the questionnaire, respondents were asked for their impressions of the HTM programmes. There were five open-ended questions to gather their opinion on the overall impression. The last question asked the respondents’ opinion about the quality of the HTM programme. A 7-point Likert scales for awful (1) to excellent (7) was used.
For the student, employer and educator
The questionnaire for the three main stakeholders was based on a past study (Tas 1988). To make it more workable for this research, a focus group of six people including two research assistants, two teaching staff and two students was invited to discuss the skills and competency attributes. After viewing all the attributes in the Tas study and following detailed discussion with the participants, sixteen out of thirty-six attributes were selected for this study.
Following that, the researcher also referred to similar studies in other departments within the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The Department of Building and Real Estate and the Department of Management have carried out similar studies for graduates in 1999. By viewing the questionnaires used in two departments and the ‘revised’ Tas study, the researcher added two more questions and finalised a total of eighteen attributes in this
73 survey. Then the draft of questionnaire was passed to another group of eight people for pilot testing.
For the internship part, the questionnaire was based on the job selection, training period, the duration and evaluation of the training (Chow, 1990; Bagheri, 1992; Downey and Deveau, 1988; Ford and LeBruto, 1995; Tas, 1988; Poon, 1996).
Pilot test
Before the survey was conducted, pre-testing the questionnaire was felt to be essential. A pilot study enabled the researcher to find out any misunderstanding of the questions and also suggestions for improvement (Gay, 1996). Eight questionnaires were piloted on the research assistants (all are graduated from the hotel and catering management course). These people were selected since they have graduated from the department and have a thorough understanding of the curriculum and the hospitality industry’s need. A pilot test was carried out on 12th April, 2000. The draft of the questionnaire for the past graduates was passed to the research committee in the department for pilot test during June 1999. After considering the understanding and reaction of the respondents to the questionnaire, there were amendments and rewording of the questionnaire.
b. Interviews
The objectives of interviews with the hotel industry professionals, educators and the hospitality management programme final year students were to understand the skill and competencies expectations for graduates within the Hong Kong hotel industry. Interviewees could express their feelings on the curriculum, internship training, and the essential skills needed by the industry. The interviews were tape-recorded for later analysis.
As an insider researcher in this study, the researcher attempts to be neutral and non- judgmental on the answers given by the respondents (Merriam, 1988). To attempt to
74 eliminate bias occurring, before every interview was conducted, the researcher carefully explained the objective of this study and the role of the researcher so as to deal with the queries from the respondents. The researcher also explained that all the provided information is to be used solely for academic purposes and that all individual responses will be kept confidential. During the interview, students showed their initiative and talked freely, they were not afraid and that they were at the end of their studies and did not feel constrained.
Interview questions development
The in-depth face-to-face interview is to identify the competency expectation of hospitality management employers and students’ competencies in hospitality management education. It is a semi-structured interview and the main questions that will be asked are:
1. What are the expectations of the three main stakeholders in training for the hospitality industry? 2. What are the essential skills needed for working in the hospitality industry perceived by students, university and employers? 3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the hospitality management programme as perceived by students, university and employers? 4. What is the importance of internship programme? 5. How do the stakeholders consider that the current hospitality management programme can be improved?
Method of analysing data
Questionnaire
The questionnaire data collected were coded and analysed by using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 9.0 for window) computer software to carry out
75 the computation of the statistical results of the questionnaire. The data collected were analysed initially by using descriptive statistics. The mean, standard deviation and frequency were calculated to find out the distribution and ranking of each attribute. A paired means t-test was used to examine whether there was a significant difference between industry, educator and students’ perceptions of the skill and competencies.
To achieve the objectives of the project, the mean scores of the two different groups were compared. By using the t-test, significance at the 0.05 level or greater means there is highly likely to be a difference among the two groups in a particular attribute.
The overall satisfaction levels of the internship and satisfaction levels towards each particular programme element of the internship were analysed by just using one sample t- tests. On the other hand, to find out whether there were any other factors that affected the overall satisfaction levels, independent sample t-tests were conducted by grouping the sample into different categories such as gender, number of trained departments, etc.
On the other hand, to test each hypothesis, the relationship between overall satisfaction of the programme and satisfaction with each programme element were analysed by conducting cross tabs. Consequently, it would be revealed whether each relationship was positive or negative as well as which areas were greatly affecting the overall satisfaction of the programme by getting higher correlation (near 1).
Interview
For the interviews, the researcher presented their conversation and interpreted the overall perception of the hotel management education, internship programme and the skill and competency of the graduates. The interviews were transcribed word for word for data analysis. Since most of the conversation was in Cantonese, translation took place as the contents of the interviews were being transcribed. The findings will be drawn from each individual interview and comparison will be made on different aspects. The findings will be used to identify the competency expectation of the hotel employer and the competencies of students. By comparing the competency expectation of hotel employer and the competencies of students, any gap between them is found out and identified.
Scheduling
4
This study was divided into three phases:
In phase one, the researcher started to develop the questionnaire for the past graduates and sent it out to them so as to get a general picture of their impression of the HTM programme.
In phase two, the main task was developing the questionnaire for the student, employer and the educator.
In phase three, the researcher then developed the question for the in-depth interview based on the information that was provided by the past graduates.
For the past graduate
The questionnaire for the past graduates was sent out in September 1999. From the returned three hundred and fifty three questionnaire, a response rate of 24% (out of one thousand five hundred past graduates), one hundred and sixty seven respondents were graduated in the department within the full time mode from 1981 to 1999 which represent about 47.3% of the returned respondent. The rest 52.7% of the respondents were either graduated with a tourism degree or in a part-time mode that meant they were already working in the industry before joining the programme. Therefore these 167 were used for analysis.
Although the overall response rate was only 24 per cent, the number of usable returns does give an indication of the views of the relevant graduates. The relatively low
77 response rate was not surprising given the likelihood of past graduates having changed their address since leaving the University and starting work.
For the student
Before the questionnaire was distributed to the students in class, the researcher explained the reason for carrying out this study and answering any unclear questions in front of the class. BA students were requested to fill in the questionnaire on 20 April, 2000. Forty- two useful questionnaires were received from the potential of forty-eight students. HD students were asked to fill in the questionnaire on 2nd May and 9th May, 2000. A total of seventy-five useful questionnaires were returned from the potential of eighty-nine students.
For the interview, the participants were on a voluntarily basis. The researcher went to each class and explained the purpose of this interview and later asked the student to sign a paper if they were willing to participate. Two groups of HD and one group of BA students consisting of five students each were arranged from 10:30 - 12:00 on 9th May, 2000. Each group spent around 30 minutes on discussing the related topics.
For the employer
The questionnaire for the hotel industry was sent out to the Chairman of the Hong Kong Hotel Association, Mr. James Lu, on 17th April, 2000 for approval reading. After his acceptance, the questionnaires were sent out to all the hotels (75) on 20th April, 2000. The deadline was on 15th May, 2000. Thirty-four questionnaires were received before the deadline. A follow up letter was sent out on 16th May for those who have not replied. The deadline was on 30th May, 2000. A total of forty-four questionnaires were returned with a response rate of 59 per cent.
Ten hotel human resources managers were invited for telephone interview during December 2000 since it was the low season in the hotel industry. The selection of
78 participants was based on the returned questionnaire. Among the ten human resources managers, five of them were working in high tariff hotels and five of them were in medium tariff hotels. Such arrangements might give a better understanding of different tariff hotel expectations from the graduates.
For the educator
For the teaching staff, a questionnaire was sent to each one on 5 tVi June and the deadline for this was 12 th June, 2000. There were twenty-three questionnaire received from them with a response rate of 61 per cent.
For the in-depth interview, the curriculum planner who is also the programme leader for degree and higher diploma hotel & catering management course, was invited on the 25th May, 2000 from 11:00 - 12:00 in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University campus.
Four teaching staff who had been in post for more than three years and two new teaching staff was also arranged for in-depth interview during July, August 2000 and January
2001.
Summary
A case study approach is being applied in this study. In order to get a better understanding on expectations of the stakeholders in hospitality management training, both questionnaire and interview were used. The questionnaire is mainly based on the skills and competencies learned by the students, the skills and competencies needed by the hotel industry and those skills and competencies that are taught by the educator. It is hoped that the interview can give an in-depth understanding of the expectations between each stakeholder.
Furthermore, the comment on the curriculum from the past graduates should also be taken into consideration. After gathering all the information from the findings, it is
79 possible to identify whether there is a mismatch of expectations and to look for ways to improve the current situation.
It may be that in a case study approach, especially in school evaluation, there might be difficulties associated with the ethics of research and being'an insider researcher of the department. As suggested by Simons (1989), an agreement was made between the researcher and individual respondent that the all information kept confidential. This could facilitate greater openness and exchange of information during the process.
Limitations
Although the sample was carefully monitored, the generalisations of the findings of this study must proceed with caution because cost and time limited the sample size. The small sample size has limited the data on competency expectations of hotel employers and the graduates’ competencies.
The reliability and validity of this study were subjected to the respondents’ background and honesty when answering the questions. For example the past experience, personality traits and their organisation culture may affect the expectations of hotel employers about the graduates. The study focused on hotels, and does not incorporate data from other hospitality employers such as the catering industry.
80 CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS I - on past graduates
Introduction
A three-page questionnaire was mailed to the past graduates on September 1999. The questionnaire is based on a thorough discussion and pilot test which was carried out before the finalisation of the questionnaire. The questionnaire is divided into four major parts. Part A covered the qualifications of the respondent. Part B covered employment history after graduation. Respondents were also requested to fill in their job title and employment duration. In part C, a 5-point Likert scales from not at all important (1) to extremely important (5) was used in measuring the HTM qualification when getting the job. In part D, more open-ended questions were posed. Respondents were asked to comment on the strength, weaknesses and suggestions on the HTM programme. They were also required to rank on the quality of the programme. A 7-point Likert scales for awful (1) to excellent (7).
About 2,000 questionnaires were sent out to the past graduates from 1981 (the first batch of graduates) to 1999. The information on their whereabouts came from records in the department. As some of the graduates have moved house there were 353 returned questionnaire by the end of January 2000. This included full-time and part-time graduates from the department. From these 353 questionnaires, there were 167 respondents who graduated with either the degree or higher diploma in hotel and catering management programme in the full time mode (table 4.1). The rest of respondents were part-time or full time graduated in tourism management.
SI Table 4.1 Year of programme completion
Year Frequency 1981 1 1989 5 1990 4 1991 8 1992 19 1993 19 1994 15 1995 19 1996 21 1997 17 1998 20 1999 17 Withdrawal 2 Total 167
Of those who responded, there were 90 graduates (53.9%) who joined the hotel and catering industry after graduation (table 4.2).
Table 4.2 Types of industry for the first job
Nature o f job Frequency Percent Hotel related 69 41.3 Catering related 21 12.6 Tourism related 14 8.4 Non HTM related 24 32.3 Missing 9 5.4 Total 167 100
82 Among those respondents, there were 58 respondents (34.8%) currently working in the hotel and catering related industry (table 4.3).
Table 4.3 Nature of your recent job
Nature of job Frequency Percent Hotel related 40 24 Catering related 18 10.8 Tourism related 12 7.2 Non HTM related 87 52 Missing 10 6 Total 167 100
Among the respondent, 120 are female and 40 are male (table 4.4). Since there were a high proportion of female students taking the hotel and catering management programme, it was not very surprising that there were more female respondents.
Table 4.4 Gender
Gender Frequency Percent Male 40 24 Female 120 72 Missing 7 4 Total 167 100
From the respondents, around half of them graduated with a degree and the rest of obtained a higher diploma or diploma in hotel and catering management (table 4.5).
83 Table 4.5 Title of qualification for highest degree
Title o f qualification Frequency Percent
BA (Hons.) Hotel and Catering Management 65 38.9
Higher Diploma in Hotel and Catering Management 62 37.1
Higher Diploma in Institutional Management & Catering Studies 8 4.8
BA (Hons.) Hospitality Management 27 16.2
Higher Diploma in Hospitality Management 4 2.4
Diploma in Catering Studies 1 .6
Total 167 100.0
HTM qualification
First job
When asking the respondents’ for comment on their qualification in getting their first job after graduation, 55 respondents (32.9%) indicated that English is extremely important. 37 respondents (22.2%) mentioned the internship is extremely important. Following that, 31 respondents (18.6%) said that business related subjects were extremely important. There were only 11 respondents (6.6%) who indicated that research based subjects were extremely important when getting the first job.
When looking at the subjects rated extremely unimportant, 19 respondents (11.4%) and 17 respondents (10.2%) indicated that the catering related subjects and research based subjects did not help them in getting their first job.
Current job
There were 42 respondents (25.1%) who mentioned that work experience was extremely important for getting the current job. While 37 respondents (22.2%) indicated that English was very important. 10 respondents (6%) placed internship as an extremely
84 important issue. Only 5 respondents (3%) mentioned the hotel related and catering related subjects were extremely important in getting their job.
When viewing the unimportant subjects for their current jobs, 16 respondents (9.6%) showed internship are extremely unimportant, while 15 respondents (9%) indicated the catering related subjects and research-based subjects were extremely unimportant. With only 3 respondents (1.8%) and 2 respondents (1.2%) commented that the English and business related subjects were extremely unimportant for their current job.
When comparing the mean with the first job after graduation and their current job (table 4.6), it was found that the importance of catering related subjects, the importance of hotel related subjects and the importance of internship showed a significant difference (0.000). Respondents indicated that those items were more important when they looked for their first job.
Table 4.6 Paired Samples Statistics for subject materials
Subject materials Mean Std. Deviation Sig. (2-tailed) Importance of business related subjects for your first job 3.6967 .8709 .830 Importance of business related subjects for your current job 3.7131 .9043 Importance of catering related subjects for your first job 3.3789 1.1955 .000* Importance of catering related subjects for your current job 2.8211 1.1202 Importance of English for your first job 4.0960 .7872 .630 Importance of English for current job 4:0640 .8303 Importance of hotel related subjects for your first job 3.6887 .9598 .000* Importance of hotel related subjects for your current job 3.0472 1.0813 Importance of internship/industry placement for your first job 3.8198 .9742 .000* Importance of internship/industry placement for your current job 2.9910 1.1870 Importance of Putonghua for your first job 3.3827 1.0436 .389 Importance of Putonghua for your current job 3.4691 1.0498 Importance of research based subjects for your first job 2.8969 1.0256 .676 Importance of research based subjects for your current job 2.8557 1.1901 *Significant at the 0.05 level or greater based on a two-tailed t-test: subject materials are significantly different from first job and current job.
85 Quality of HTM programme
When looking at the mean score (table 4.7), graduates indicated that they had a good impression of the subject variety (4.66), subject relevancy (4.56) and facilities (4.51). While for teaching (4.21), subject content (4.34) and practical nature (4.20), graduates showed a more neutral opinion on the quality of the programme.
2 respondents (1.2%) gave excellent ranking for subject variety and 1 respondent (0.6%) for subject content and subject relevancy. In contrast, 1 respondent (0.6%) felt that the practical nature and teaching was awful regarding the quality of programme.
Table 4.7 Quality of HTM programme
Quality o f programme Mean Teaching 4.21 Subject content 4.34 Subject variety 4.66 Subject relevancy 4.56 Applied/Practical nature 4.20 Facilities 4.51 A 7-point Likert scales for awful (1) to excellent (7)
When viewing those graduates who are currently working in the hospitality industry (table 4.8), they gave a high ranking on subject content (4.42), subject variety (4.74) and subject relevancy (4.58) and facilities (4.34). For teaching (4.11), facilities (4.32) and practical nature (4.09), graduates showed a lower mean score when compared with the overall perception on the quality of HTM programme.
10 respondents (17.2%) out of 58 gave ‘very good’ to the subject variety and 9 (15.5%) to the subject relevancy. On the other hand, 2 respondents (3.4%) felt that the subject relevancy and facilities were very poor in the programme.
86 Table 4.8 Quality of HTM programme perceived by graduates who are currently working in the hospitality industry
Quality of programme Mean Teaching 4.11 Subject content 4.42 Subject variety 4.74 Subject relevancy 4.58 Applied/Practical nature 4.09 Facilities 4.32 A 7-point Likert scales for awful (1) to excellent (7)
Impression about the strengths and weaknesses of the HTM programme
Respondents were asked to give the comments on the programme. There were some open-ended questions that requested the respondents to fill in and express their ideas on different aspects.
Strongest aspects of the programme
41 respondents (24.6%) mentioned the internship training is the strongest aspect. Following that 29 respondents (17.4%) indicated the knowledge of hotel-related subjects and 22 respondents (13.2%) said the knowledge of general business subjects.
Greatest weaknesses of the programme
There were 69 respondents (41.3%) who said the programme was too theoretical and practical lessons were inadequate. It included comments such as the subject that was delivered by the department was not specific and too superficial, with too much emphasis on catering management.
87 Subject areas that should be added to the HTM programme
52 respondents (31.1%) mentioned the language subject should be added to the programme which including French, Japanese and Putonghua. There were 27 respondents (16.1%) who suggested adding more business related subjects to the programme. There were 19 respondents (11.3%) who commented that there should be more information technology subjects included.
Subject areas that should be deleted from the HTM programme
27 respondents (16.1%) expressed that the business related subjects such as finance, economic, law should be deleted from the programme. There were 9 respondents (5.4%) who agreed that the catering subjects should be cut. With 8 respondents (4.8%) commenting that the research subjects should not appear in the programme.
Three suggestions for improvement
There were 46 respondents (27.5%) who were concerned with the subject-related matters which included the ‘major’ subjects for student to select during their study. 21 respondents (12.6%) mentioned the internship should be more flexible and 15 respondents (8.9%) suggested the adding of language subjects in the programme.
Summary
It was found that more than half of the respondents had joined the hotel and catering industry after graduation. However, only one third of them are still working in the hotel and catering related industry.
The past graduates indicated that English, internship and business related subjects were important when looking for their first job. When asking about the importance of the HTM qualification for the current job, English and internship were still ranked important but
88 added to these was work experience. Past graduates also pointed out that hotel-related, catering related subjects and internship programme were more important when looking for their first job than the current job as significant different showed.
In general, past graduates have a generally good but not excellent impression of the quality of HTM programme that included the subject relevancy and facility in the department. Furthermore, they mentioned that the internship programme, knowledge of hotel-related subjects and general business subjects were the strength of the programme. In contrast, graduates stated that the programme was too theoretical and did not have enough practical classes. The findings also showed that language subject, more business subjects and information technology subjects should be added to the programme. While some graduates pointed out the business related subjects such as finance, catering related subjects and research subjects should be deleted. In addition, past graduates suggested there should be some major subject for them to select, internship should be more flexible and more language subjects appeared in the programme so as to get an improvement in the HTM programme.
89 CHAPTER FIVE: FINDINGS II - on students, educators and employers through the quantitative approach
Introduction
A two-page questionnaire was mailed to the hotel on April 2000. A similar questionnaire was distributed to the final year students in April and May 2000. The educators were required to fill in the questionnaire on June 2000. The questionnaire was based on a similar study to that introduced by Tas (1983) and after a thorough discussion and pilot test before the finalisation of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided into two major parts. Part A covered the professional preparation. A 4-point Likert scales from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (4) was used in measuring the skill and competency need for the job. Part B covered the internship programme. For the student part, an addition part C was added in the questionnaire. In part C, questions were based on their future career intention. Respondents were asked to comment on the course and the choice of their first job.
For the employer, 44 were returned from a potential of 75 hotels. For the student, there were 42 degree and 75 higher diploma students returned from groups of 48 and 89. For the teaching staff, there were 23 out of 38 received on June 2000.
The following will show all the findings from the 3 main stakeholders.
Student
Among the 117 respondents, 42 were degree in hotel and catering management students while 75 were higher diploma in hotel & catering management students (table 5.1). Since the number of intake for higher diploma programme is larger than the degree programme, there were more higher diploma respondents in the findings.
90 Table 5.1 Course you are studying in
Frequency Percent Higher diploma 75 64.1 Degree 42 35.9 Total 117 100.0
Within those respondents, there were 15 male (13%) and 102 female (87%). There was a high proportion of female students enrolled in this programme (Table 5.2). Among those 102 female respondents, 38 were studying the degree programme and 64 were taking the higher diploma programme.
Table 5.2 Gender
Frequency Percent Male 15 12.8 Female 102 87.2 Total 117 100.0
Professional preparation
In the professional preparation part, students were asked whether they have developed particular skills and competency during their studies at PolyU. There were only two out of eighteen skills and competency (rated above three) that students agreed that they have developed during their study. These skills were ‘working co-operatively as a team member’ and ‘able to accept responsibility’ that showed a mean score of 3.21 and 3.15 respectively. Although students felt that they lacked practical experience, they still gave a high rank on developing the practical knowledge in at least one area. Apart from that, in this study, student showed less confidence in leading others and felt that they had not developed much on the writing skill which was ranked seventeen and eighteen with a mean score of 2.57 (table 5.3).
91 Table 5.3 Students have developed the skill and competency during their study
Skill & competency Mean* Sid. deviation Be able to work co-operatively as a team member 3.21 0.51 Be able to accept responsibility 3.15 0.50 Be adaptable and flexible to cope with a changing work environment 2.96 0.58 Have a good personal presentation 2.95 0.59 Be able to work autonomously with minimal supervision 2.94 0.58 Have certain degree of practical knowledge in at least one area 2.93 0.45 Able to use relevant computer software 2.90 0.62 Have genuine desire to help people 2.88 0.60 Be honest 2.87 0.61 Have a professional attitude 2.86 0.63 Be able to define and solve problems 2.80 0.55 Manage guest problems with understanding and sensitivity 2.79 0.52 Able to update my professional knowledge 2.79 0.51 Be able to communicate in foreign language 2.1 A 0.65 Be creative 2.66 0.66 Possess effective reading skills 2.61 0.54 Possess effective writing skills 2.57 0.56 Be able to lead others effectively 2.57 0.56 ♦Means based on a four-point interval scale: l=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=agree, 4=strongly agree.
Internship programme
53 (45%) out of 117 respondents preferred to have the internship programme within their study. In addition, 37 (32%) respondents highly preferred to have this component. It appeared that a large proportion of students preferred to have internship programme. However, only one respondent definitely did not prefer to have this (table 5.4).
Table 5.4 Preferred to have internship programme
Frequency Percent Definitely not prefer 1 0.9 not prefer 10 8.5 Neutral 16 13.7 Prefer 53 45.3 highly prefer 37 31.6 Total 117 100.0
92 When asking the suitable period for internship training, nearly half of the respondents (49.6%) preferred in the summer break (Table 5.5). The rest of the respondents preferred during studying hours (17%), whole year two (19%) and whole year three (15%). As summer time was normally a quiet period for the hotel industry, students thought that the employer could spare more time in explaining the daily operations in detail.
Table 5.5 Suitable period for internship training
Frequency Percent summer break 58 49.6 during studying hours 20 17.1 whole year 2 22 18.8 whole year 3 17 14.5 Total 117 100.0
There was no great difference in the way of finding job for internship training, 54 out of 117 respondents agreed that it was their responsibility while 63 respondents hoped that the university would do it for them (table 5.6).
Table 5.6 Internship job should be sought by
Frequency Percent students themselves 54 46.2 University 63 53.8 Total 117 100.0
A large proportion of the respondents preferred the internship training should be less than 6 months, only 24 respondents (21%) wished to have a training period from 7 months to one year (table 5.7). As every student needed to complete at least 1,200 hours’ internship training before graduation, so six months was approximately equal to that amount of hours.
93 Table 5.7 Best duration of training
Frequency Percent 2 months to 3 months 43 36.8 4 months to 6 months 50 42.7 7 months to 1 year 24 20.5 Total 117 100.0
In evaluating student’s training performance, 92 respondents (79%) said that it should be done by the employer, student and with the tutors’ observation (table 5.8). However, there were 20 out of 117 respondents who indicated that only the employer’s report was sufficient.
Table 5.8 Training performance should be evaluated
Frequency Percent Performance report from employer 20 17.1 Students' written report 3 2.6 Tutors’ observation 2 1.7 All of the above 92 78.6 Total 117 100.0
Over 60% of the respondents commented that the materials provided by the programme are not useful in the work (table 5.9). On the other hand, 43 out of 117 respondents agreed the materials were relevant to the job.
Table 5.9 Materials provided by programme is relevant
Frequency Percent Not at all relevant 26 22.2 Irrelevant 47 40.2 Relevant 43 36.8 Missing 1 0.9 Total 117 100.0
94 Future career intention
The hotel related industry was still perceived by the students (72.6%) to be suitable for working after graduation. Eleven respondents (9.4%) argued that a non-HTM related industry was more suitable for graduates (table 5.10). The majority of the respondents felt that the materials that they learned were more hotels and catering related.
Tables 5.10 Sort of job most suitable for graduates
Frequency Percent Hotel related industry 85 72.6 Catering related industry 13 11.1 Tourism related industry 8 6.8 Non HTM related industry 11 9.4 Total 117 100.0
There were only 16 respondents (14%) who indicated that they were most likely to be working in the hospitality industry for the first job. 41 out of 117 (35%) respondents had not made up their mind whether to join the hospitality industry or not. In contrast, there were 10 respondents (9%) who were most unlikely to work in that field after graduation (table 5.11). It was quite similar to the past findings (table 1.2), where about one third of the respondent (37.6%) preferred to work in the hospitality industry after graduation.
Table 5.11 Work in hospitality industry for first job
Frequency Percent Most unlikely 10 8.5 Unlikely 22 18.8 Neutral 41 35 Likely 28 23.9 Most likely 16 13.7 Total 117 100.0
95 In order to find out the skill and competency that students have developed during their study, a two-tailed t-test was carried out to test the significant differences between the mean scores of degree and higher diploma students on each skill and competency. Significant differences appeared in three out of eighteen attributes. Both parties placed a similar level of agreement on ‘be able to work co-operatively as a team member’ and ‘be able to accept responsibility’. However, significant differences occurred in ‘be able to communicate in a foreign language’, ‘be able to define and solve problems’, and ‘be able to lead others effectively’. Degree students were more agreed on ‘be able to communicate in a foreign language’, while the higher diploma student were more agreed on the other two items (table 5.12).
Table 5.12 Comparisons of mean of degree and higher diploma students
BA HD Skill & competency mean mean level Sig.* Be able to work co-operatively as a team member 3.26 3.14 0.323 No Be able to accept responsibility 3.12 3.26 0.205 No Be adaptable and flexible to cope with a changing work environment 2.98 2.95 0.855 No Be able to communicate in foreign language 2.98 2.64 0.005 Yes Have certain degree o f practical knowledge in at least one area 2.98 2.95 0.785 No Have a good personal presentation 2.95 2.93 0.855 No Be able to work autonomously with minimal supervision 2.88 3.00 0.281 No Able to use relevant computer software 2.88 2.88 1.00 No Be honest 2.83 2.91 0.637 No Have a professional attitude 2.83 2.95 0.43 No Have genuine desire to help people 2.81 2.95 0.309 No Manage guest problems with understanding and sensitivity 2.78 2.90 0.168 No Able to update my professional knowledge 2.74 2.74 1.00 No Be able to define and solve problems 2.67 2.93 0.047 Yes Be creative 2.64 2.81 0.28 No Possess effective reading skills 2.55 2.57 0.85 No Be able to lead others effectively 2.55 2.91 0.012 Yes Possess effective writing skills 2.54 2.63 0.4 No *Significant at the 0.05 level or greater than based on a two-tailed test: degree students are significantly different from higher diploma students on the items indicated a ’Yes’.
96 Hotel employer
Professional preparation
In the professional preparation part, employers were asked, based on their working experience, which skills and competency were most important to for newly graduate employees. Hotel employers agreed that the most important were to have a professional attitude and be honest in the job. The mean score for these skills and competency given by employers was 3.68. The employers also agreed that to be able to communicate in a foreign language was important. In this study, the employers did not give a very high rank for practical knowledge. They only ranked it fourteen out of the eighteen items. However, employers agreed that supervisory skills were unimportant for a fresh graduate when working in the hotel industry. They gave the lowest ranking to being able to lead others effectively with a mean score of 2.91 (table 5.13). In addition, the employers did not expect the students to be able to define and solve problems on their own, as they perceived students were inexperienced in this area of competency. Overall, they were not looking for higher level managerial skills.
Table 5.13 Skills and competency needed for graduates from the employer expectation
Skill & competency Mean* Std. deviation Have a professional attitude 3.68 0.47 Be honest 3.68 0.47 Be able to communicate in foreign language 3.64 0.49 Be able to work co-operatively as a team member 3.61 0.58 Be able to accept responsibility 3.55 0.55 Have genuine desire to help people 3.55 0.50 Be adaptable and flexible to cope with a changing work environment 3.48 0.55 Have a good personal presentation 3.39 0.54 Possess effective writing skills 3.39 0.49 Possess effective reading skills 3.32 0.52 Able to update my professional knowledge 3.30 0.46 Be creative 3.25 0.53 Able to use relevant computer software 3.25 0.49 Have certain degree o f practical knowledge in at least one area 3.19 0.50 Manage guest problems with understanding and sensitivity 3.18 0.58 Be able to work autonomously with minimal supervision 3.12 0.50 Be able to define and solve problems 3.09 0.52 Be able to lead others effectively 2.91 0.56 *Means based on a four-point interval scale: l=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=agree, 4=strongly agree.
97 Overall performance of the students
39 respondents (89%) agreed that the graduates’ performance was at the level expected by them. Four respondents (9%) mentioned that their performance was below expectation and that indicated students were not ready to take up job in the hotel industry (table 5.14).
Table 5.14 Overall performance
Frequency Percent below expectations 4 9.1 at the level expected 39 88.6 Missing 1 2.3 Total 44 100.0
Internship programme
22 respondents (50%) preferred to have the internship programme within their study. In addition, 14 respondents (32%) highly preferred to have this component. 8 respondents (18%) had a neutral preference for internship programme (table 5.15). In general, the hotel employers preferred to have the internship programme.
Table 5.15 Preferred to have internship programme
Frequency Percent Neutral 8 18.2 Prefer 22 50.0 Highly prefer 14 31.8 Total 44 100.0
When asked the suitable period for internship training, 19 respondents (43%) stated that the whole year two was the best time. 11 respondents (25%) preferred the summer break. Only 6 respondents (14%) would like to student to have their training during studying
98 hours (table 5.16). If the internship training appeared in year two, students could learn the basic things in year one and apply their knowledge to work during the training period.
Table 5.16 Suitable period for internship training
Frequency Percent Summer break 11 25.0 During studying hours 6 13.6 Whole year 2 19 43.2 Whole year 3 8 18.2 Total 44 100.0
Nearly two third (61%) of the hotel employer stated that the internship job should be sought by the university. 17 respondents agreed that the job should be sought by the students themselves (table 5.17).
Table 5.17 Internship job should be sought by
Frequency Percent Students themselves 17 38.6 University 27 61.4 Total 44 100.0
A lot of respondents preferred to have a longer training period for the students. Over eighty percent (82%) of the hotel employers would like student to have more than 4 months training in the internship programme. There is only one respondent (2.3%) who preferred to have one month internship training (table 5.18). Since in a longer the training period, students could leam the things in-depth.
99 Table 5.18 best duration of training
Frequency Percent 1 month 1 2.3 2 months to 3 months 7 15.9 4 months to 6 months 17 38.6 7 months to 1 year 19 43.2 Total 44 100.0
In evaluating their training performance, 36 respondents (82%) said that it should be done by the employer, student and with the tutors’ observation (table 5.19). The rest of the respondents preferred only the employer evaluating the student performance.
Table 5.19 Training performance should be evaluated
Frequency Percent Performance report from employer 8 18.2 Students' written report 0 0 Tutors’ observation 0 0 All of the above 36 81.8 Total 44 100.0
Over 80% of the respondents commented that the materials provided by the programme were relevant, based on the graduates’ performance (table 5.20). There were about 15% of the respondents who stated that the materials were irrelevant.
Table 5.20 Materials provided by programme is relevant
Frequency Percent Not at all relevant 4 9.1 Irrelevant 2 4.5 Relevant 36 81.8 Missing 2 4.5 Total 44 100.0
100 The hospitality educator
Professional preparation
In the professional preparation part, all teaching staff that was working under the department of Hotel and Tourism Management were invited and asked whether the students have developed the skills and competency during their study. Eight out of eighteen items on skill and competency were given a mean score above three that the educator agreed the students should have developed in school. Those respondents agreed that students have developed essential knowledge especially practical knowledge, computer knowledge and updated professional knowledge during their study. However, they thought that students have developed less on their supervisory skill and creativity mind. These only obtained a mean score of 2.48 and 2.52 respectively (table 5.21).
Table 5.21 Skill and competency have taught by the hospitality educator
Skill & competency Mean* Std. deviation Have certain degree of practical knowledge in at least one area 3.30 0.56 Able to use relevant computer software 3.30 0.64 Able to update my professional knowledge 3.22 0.60 Be able to accept responsibility 3.09 0.60 Be able to work co-operatively as a team member 3.05 0.38 Be honest 3.04 0.56 Be able to communicate in foreign language 3.00 0.74 Have a good personal presentation 3.00 0.52 Have a professional attitude 2.91 0.73 Be able to work autonomously with minimal supervision 2.91 0.52 Possess effective reading skills 2.86 0.77 Have genuine desire to help people 2.83 0.49 Manage guest problems with understanding and sensitivity 2.78 0.67 Be able to define and solve problems 2.74 0.45 Possess effective writing skills 2.65 0.83 Be adaptable and flexible to cope with a changing work environment 2.57 0.59 Be creative 2.52 0.51 Be able to lead others effectively 2.48 0.51 *Means based on a four-point interval scale: l=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=agree, 4=strongly agree.
101 Internship programme
14 respondents (61%) highly preferred to have the internship training within their programme. 7 respondents (31%) also preferred to have this component. 1 respondent (4%) had a neutral preference and 1 respondent definitely did not prefer an internship programme. The majority of educators preferred to have such programme (table 5.22).
Table 5.22 Preferred to have internship programme
Frequency Percent Definitely not prefer 1 4.3 Neutral 1 4.3 Prefer 7 30.4 Highly prefer 14 60.9 Total 23 100.0
When asking the suitable period for internship training, 11 respondents (48%) stated that summer break was a good period since there was no school day. Another 6 respondents (26%) preferred the students working as part-timer during their study. There were about 25% of the respondents who preferred students to take a whole year internship training during their study (table 5.23).
Table 5.23 Suitable period for internship training
Frequency Percent Summer break 11 47.8 During studying hours 6 26.1 Whole year 2 2 8.7 Whole year 3 4 17.4 Total 23 100.0
102 There were 13 respondents (57%) also agreed that this was the university’s responsibility to find the job for the student. Besides, 8 respondents (35%) thought differently and suggested students themselves (table 5.24) should seek it.
Table 5.24 Internship job should be sought by
Frequency Percent Students themselves 8 34.8 University 13 56.5 Missing 2 8.6 Total 23 100.0
Ten respondents (44%) chose a longer training period from 7 months to 1 year for the students. There was also some staff thinking of 2 to 3 months training. About 31% of the respondents indicated this arrangement could benefit the student. 4 respondents (17%) selected from 4 to 6 months training (table 5.25).
Table 5.25 best duration of training
Frequency Percent 1 month 2 8.7 2 months to 3 months 7 30.4 4 months to 6 months 4 17.4 7 months to 1 year 10 43.5 Total 23 100.0
In evaluating their training performance, 18 respondents (78%) said that it should be done by the three main stakeholders: the employer, student and with the tutors’ observation. 4 respondents (17%) indicated the performance report from the employer is enough. 1 respondent (4%) preferred to evaluate the student performance by reading the student’s written report (table 5.26).
103 Table 5.26 Training performance should be evaluated
Frequency Percent Performance report from employer 4 17.4 Students' written report 1 4.3 Tutors’ observation 0 0 All of the above 18 78.3 Total 23 100.0
A lot of respondents agreed the materials provided by the programme were relevant and suitable for the industry need. In contrast, there were 2 respondents (9%) who expressed that the materials were not at all relevant to the market need (table 5.27).
Table 5.27 Materials provided by programme is relevant
Frequency Percent Not at all relevant 2 8.7 Irrelevant 2 8.7 Relevant 18 78.3 Extremely relevant 1 4.3 Total 23 100.0
Relationship between stakeholders on professional preparation
In order to find out the significance of these items, a two-tailed t-test was carried out to test the significant differences between the mean scores of students and hotel employers, students and hospitality educators, and hospitality educators and hotel employers on each skill and competency. As shown in table 5.28, 5.29 and 5.30, significant differences appeared all in eighteen skills and competencies between same stakeholders.
104 a. Students and hotel employers
The significant differences appeared in sixteen out of eighteen skills and competency. From those sixteen attributes, it appears that hotel employers place a higher level of importance on these attributes than did students. There was no significant difference on the development of practical knowledge and minimal supervision at work. It indicated that hotel employers looked for graduates with certain degree of practical knowledge whereas the students think they have developed such skills and competency during their studies (table 5.28).
Table 5.28 Comparisons of mean of students and hotel employers on skill and competency needed
Student Employer Skill & competency Mean mean level Sig.* Be able to work co-operatively as a team member 3.23 3.61 0.000 Yes Be able to accept responsibility 3.11 3.55 0.000 Yes Be adaptable and flexible to cope with a changing work environment 2.96 3.48 0.000 Yes Be able to communicate in foreign language 2.96 3.64 0.000 Yes Have certain degree o f practical knowledge in at least one area 2.98 3.19 0.060 No Have a good personal presentation 2.96 3.39 0.001 Yes Be able to work autonomously with minimal supervision 2.88 3.12 0.077 No Able to use relevant computer software 2.86 3.25 0.001 Yes Be honest 2.82 3.68 0.000 Yes Have a professional attitude 2.82 3.68 0.000 Yes Have genuine desire to help people 2.77 3.55 0.000 Yes Manage guest problems with understanding and sensitivity 2.80 3.18 0.002 Yes Able to update my professional knowledge 2.73 3.30 0.000 Yes Be able to define and solve problems 2.66 3.09 0.002 Yes Be creative 2.64 3.25 0.000 Yes Possess effective reading skills 2.57 3.32 0.000 Yes Be able to lead others effectively 2.52 2.91 0.002 Yes Possess effective writing skills 2.55 3.39 0.000 Yes *Significant at the 0.05 level or greater than based on a two-tailed test: students are significantly different from hotel employers on the items indicated a ’Y es’.
105 b. Students and hospitality educators
When comparing the mean of students with hospitality educators, there were less significant differences. There were only three out of eighteen attributes that showed differences. From those three attributes, all related to the ability to perform in the job such as practical knowledge, computer skill and updated professional knowledge. Hospitality educators indicated that students have developed such skills, however students showed less agreement on that (table 5.29).
Table 5.29 Comparisons of mean of students and hospitality educators on skill and competency needed
Student Educator Skill & competency Mean mean level Sig,* Be able to work co-operatively as a team member 3.32 3.05 0.083 No Be able to accept responsibility 3.00 3.09 0.648 No Be adaptable and flexible to cope with a changing work environment 2.96 2.57 0.059 No Be able to communicate in foreign language 2.91 3.00 0.665 No Have certain degree of practical knowledge in at least one area 2.91 3.30 0.004 Yes Have a good personal presentation 2.91 3.00 0.575 No Be able to work autonomously with minimal supervision 2.96 2.91 0.770 No Able to use relevant computer software 2.83 3.30 0.038 Yes Be honest 2.74 3.04 0.166 No Have a professional attitude 2.87 2.91 0.833 No Have genuine desire to help people 2.70 2.83 0.479 No Manage guest problems with understanding and sensitivity 2.78 2.78 1.00 No Able to update my professional knowledge 2.70 3.22 0.007 Yes Be able to define and solve problems 2.70 2.74 0.788 No Be creative 2.52 2.48 0.770 No Possess effective reading skills 2.59 2.86 0.248 No Be able to lead others effectively 2.43 2.48 0.789 No Possess effective writing skills 2.44 2.65 0.381 No *Significant at the 0.05 level or greater than based on a two-tailed test: students are significantly different from hospitality educators on the items indicated a ’Yes’.
106 c. Hotel employers and hospitality educators
There were fourteen out of eighteen attributes that showed significant differences. From the findings, the hotel employers were agreed that the practical knowledge, computer skills, updated professional knowledge and leading others were important and the educators think they have already developed such skills and competency for the students during their study (table 5.30).
Table 5.30 Comparisons of mean of hotel employers and hospitality educators
Employer Educator Skill & competency Mean mean level Sig.* Be able to work co-operatively as a team member 3.73 3.05 0.001 Yes Be able to accept responsibility 3.65 3.09 0.006 Yes Be adaptable and flexible to cope with a changing work environment 3.57 2.57 0.000 Yes Be able to communicate in foreign language 3.70 3.00 0.002 Yes Have certain degree of practical knowledge in at least one area 3.26 3.30 0.803 No Have a good personal presentation 3.44 3.00 0.022 Yes Be able to work autonomously with minimal supervision 3.23 2.91 0.050 Yes Able to use relevant computer software 3.35 3.30 0.747 No Be honest 3.74 3.04 0.000 Yes Have a professional attitude 3.70 2.91 0.000 Yes Have genuine desire to help people 3.70 2.83 0.000 Yes Manage guest problems with understanding and sensitivity 3.22 2.78 0.022 Yes Able to update my professional knowledge 3.44 3.22 0.233 No Be able to define and solve problems 3.09 2.74 0.029 Yes Be creative 3.30 2.52 0.000 Yes Possess effective reading skills 3.32 2.86 0.047 Yes Be able to lead others effectively 2.86 2.48 0.072 No Possess effective writing skills 3.44 2.65 0.001 Yes *Significant at the 0.05 level or greater than based on a two-tailed test: hotel employers are significantly different from hospitality educators on the items indicated a ’Yes’.
107 d. Student, hotel employer and hospitality educator
There was a significant difference identified in the importance level of skill and competency perceived by student, hotel and educator for the 18 items (table 5.31). One way ANOVA test showed significant difference on 17 out of 18 items. Only the ‘be able to work autonomously with minimal supervision’ showed no difference between the three parties.
Table 5.31 Summary of results of one way ANOVA of levels of importance in the work compared by student, hotel industry and hospitality educator (n=182)
Skill & competency Student Hotel Educator Sign level at 0.05 Be able to work co-operatively as a team member 3.21 3.61 3.05 0.000* Be able to accept responsibility 3.15 3.55 3.09 0.000* Be adaptable and flexible to cope with a changing work environment 2.96 3.48 2.57 0.000* Be able to communicate in foreign language 2.74 3.64 3.00 0.000* Have certain degree o f practical knowledge in at least one area 2.93 3.19 3.30 0.000* Have a good personal presentation 2.95 3.39 3.00 0.000* Be able to work autonomously with minimal supervision 2.94 3.12 2.91 0.171 Able to use relevant computer software 2.90 3.25 3.30 0.000* Be honest 2.87 3.68 3.04 0.000* Have a professional attitude 2.86 3.68 2.91 0.000* Have genuine desire to help people 2.88 3.55 2.83 0.000* Manage guest problems with understanding and sensitivity 2.79 3.18 2.78 0.000* Able to update my professional knowledge 2.79 3.30 3.22 0.000* Be able to define and solve problems 2.80 3.09 2.74 0.000* Be creative 2.66 3.25 2.52 0.000* Possess effective reading skills 2.61 3.32 2.86 0.000* Be able to lead others effectively 2.57 2.91 2.48 0.001* Possess effective writing skills 2.57 3.39 2.65 0.000* * Significant at the 0.05 level or greater than based on a two-tailed test: hotel employers are significantly different from hospitality educators on the items indicated a ’Yes’.
The last step was to conduct a principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation to determine whether any underlying dimensions would emerge among the skills and competencies. As the student is the end product of the cycle, whether the skill and competency has developed or not would give a indication to the other two stakeholders: the educators and hotel employer whether the mismatch of expectations existed. Besides,
108 due to the small sample size of the educator and hotel employer, it is impossible to conduct a factor analysis for them.
To obtain a more meaningful interpretation of the extracted factors, the varimax-rotated solution is used to minimise the number of variables that have high loading on a factor. The advantage of running factor analysis is it can group similar perceptions among respondents (Churchill, 1996). The results of the factor analysis on the eighteen skill and competency items indicated that three factor groupings were extracted. Only items loading at 0.5 or higher were included. Table 5.32 reports the three skill and competency dimensions. In the first group, five items had factor loading of over 0.5. These items were: ‘have genuine desire to help people’, ‘able to lead others effectively’, and ‘be creative’, ‘manage guest problem with understanding’ and ‘be honest’. This first factor, labelled ‘personal’ was the most important skill and competency that were identified among the students. This dimension explained 15.29 percent of the skill and competency variance with a reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha) of 0.70.
In the second group, three items had factor loading of 0.5 or higher. The second factor was named ‘knowledge’ and was comprised of ‘possess effective reading skills’, ‘possess effective writing skills’ and ‘communicate in foreign language’. This dimension explained 11.99 percent of the variance. The reliability coefficient was 0.61.
As explained by the third dimension, positive attitudes in the working place are essential. This third factor group, named ‘work’, consisted of ‘work co-operatively as a team’, ‘good personal presentation’ and ‘have a professional attitude’. The variance explained by this dimension was 9.97 percent, and the reliability coefficient was 0.68.
109 Table 5.32 Factor analysis of skill and competency of hospitality students
Factor * Variance Reliability Mean Skill and competency Loading explained (%) Coefficient (a) score Factor 1: Personal 15.29 0.70 2.753
• Have genuine desire to help people 0.749
• Able to lead others effectively 0.692
• Be creative 0.689
• Manage guest problem and understanding 0.551
• Be honest 0.492 Factor 2: Knowledge 11.99 0.61 2.641 • Possess effective reading skills 0.797
• Possess effective writing skills 0.762
• Communicate in foreign language 0.505 Factor 3: Work 9.97 0.68 3.009 • Work co-operatively as a team member 0.809
• Good personal presentation 0.697 • Have a professional attitude 0.542 * Only factor loading of 0.5 and higher were included. a = Cronbach’s Alpha
The final test conducted was the test of Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin of Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO). To test the validity of data, Hair (1995) suggested that the value of KMO should be greater than 0.5. As the value of KMO in this study was 0.784, it affirmed that factor analysis is appropriate.
110 Summary
By looking at the findings from the quantitative research, the hotel employers indicated that all the eighteen skills and competency were important when working in the hotel. However, the students pointed out that they have only developed ‘be co-operatively as team member’ and ‘able to accept responsibility’ during their study. In addition, the hospitality educators commented that the students have developed eight but not all eighteen skills and competency during their study. When comparing the mean with each stakeholder, it appeared that between the hotel employer and students, hotel employer and hospitality educators, there was no significant difference on ‘have certain degree of practical knowledge in at least one area’. However, it showed a difference between the student and hospitality educators on this skill. Students indicated that they have not developed well on the practical knowledge. After all, it was found out that only the three main stakeholders agreed ‘be able to work autonomously with minimal supervision’ after applying the one way ANOVA method in testing the relationship between each other. Furthermore, students indicated they have developed their knowledge, personal and skills related to the work when applying the factor analysis.
Ill CHAPTER SIX: FINDINGS III - on students, educators and employers through the qualitative approach
Introduction
To get a better understanding of the mismatch on the views of skills and competency from the three main stakeholders, an interview approach was applied to each party. A personal interview was used for the teaching staff, new staff and curriculum planner. For the hotel employers, a telephone interview was introduced. This method can save the time in making the arrangement with the hotel managers since they are very busy all the time. Group interviews were selected as a tool in getting comments from the students.
The main questions that were asked are:
1. What are the expectations of the three main stakeholders in training for the hospitality industry? 2. What are the essential skills needed for working in the hospitality industry perceived by students, university and employers? 3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the hospitality management programme as perceived by students, university and employers? 4. What is the importance of the internship programme? 5. How do the stakeholders consider that the current hospitality management programme can be improved?
Student
Fifteen students were selected for interview. They all were on a voluntary basis. Five of them were Degree year three students and ten of them were Higher Diploma year three students. Three groups were formed and each group contained five members. The interview place was HJ809 a meeting room reserved for the Department of Hotel and Tourism Management.
112 1. Expectations of the students in training for the hospitality industry
Through the interview, students wanted to develop themselves into professionals in the hospitality industry (table 6.1). The degree students expressed that they did not want a lot of theory learning and hoped that the programme should combine both theory and practical training. The higher diploma students expected to be starting the career as a supervisor or manager after completing the programme. During the study, they expected to learn some practical skill. However, after two years study in the programme, one of the degree students said,
“Some subjects are too theoretical and cannot actually apply to hotel”.
In addition, one member in the same group commented,
“The subjects are too general”.
Furthermore, another degree student also expected to have more language training during study. One student said,
“The programme only provide English and Putonghua, but there is no other language to study such as Japanese and French”.
It seemed that the degree students did not have a high expectation of the job when compared with the higher diploma students. During the interview, one of the higher diploma students expressed,
“I expect to be a supervisor or manager in a hotel after graduation”.
The higher diploma students also felt that they were being trained and well-equipped to take up any post in the hotel. However, there were different answers received from the degree student. One of the degree students said,
113 “We find that we do not have enough working experience in hotel industry”.
Table 6.1 Expectations of the students in training for the hospitality industry
Factors Degree students Higher Diploma students
Learn management theory Yes (3) Learn practical knowledge Yes (3) Yes (3) Good communication skill Yes (2) Better English abilities Yes (4) Well equipped Yes (8) To be a manager Yes (1) To be a professional Yes (5) To be a supervisor Yes (1) Hotel, catering & tourism related Yes (2) Not to be too theoretical Yes (1) More language training e.g. French Yes (1) Have more industry training Yes (5) Remark: ( ) indicated the number of respondents
2. Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality industry perceived by students
With the introduction of new technology, students perceived that this was an essential skill when working in the industry (table 6.2). On the other hand, good personality and communication skills should be required. Since the hospitality industry served different nationalities of visitors, multi-language abilities might be an advantage. The degree students tried to list the important attributes when working in the industry by concluding,
“A good personality is the most important attribute, after that is experience and educational background. The least important is technical competence”.
114 The two groups of higher diploma students indicated that the language ability was an important issue for people who really want to develop their career in this industry. Both degree and higher diploma students agreed that the technical skill was not the most important criteria that the employer looking for.
Table 6.2 Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality industry perceived by students Skills and competency Degree students Higher Diploma students Good operation knowledge Yes (5) Information technology Yes (1) Yes (4) Working experience Yes (5) Language abilities Yes (2) Yes (10) Good personality Yes (1) Leadership Yes (1) Good interpersonal skill Yes (1) Educational background Yes (5) Technical competency Yes (5)
3. Strengths of the hospitality management programme perceived by students
Students could learn the basic knowledge of the hotel operations within the programme (table 6.3). Besides, students stated that the materials could be applied in their practical work too. However, one of the higher diploma students said,
“The programme gives us a general information about the hotel industry, it is only better than someone who does not know it”.
It might not be a good comment to the programme since such general information could easily learned by anyone after joining the industry for a short time. Anyway, the degree students had more clarity by saying,
115 “Our education level is higher than others”.
Table 6.3 Strengths of the hospitality management programme perceived by students
Factors Degree students Higher Diploma students Knowledge in hotel industry Yes (5) Yes (10) Higher education level Yes (3) Things can be applied in work Yes (4)
4. Weaknesses of the hospitality management programme perceived by students
Students expressed that there were a lot of weaknesses when compared with the strengths. Both the degree and higher diploma students felt that they were not well equipped before they graduated from the programme (table 6.4). The most significant item that was pointed out by the students was the programme did not meet the expectation of hotels. Especially in the degree student group, they said,
“We do not have enough experience in hotel industry, especially for managerial level, so we may not meet the hotel expectation”.
On the other hand, they blamed the hotel industry that could not provide a supervisory job for them as they graduated from the programme. Both the higher diploma groups agreed that the programme were too concentrated on the Food and Beverage area which could not apply in the workplace. Although the objective of programme was to train up supervisory level staff, students in one of the higher diploma group said,
“The programme is only good for students working in operational level but not supervisory or managerial level"”
116 Table 6.4 Weaknesses of the hospitality management programme perceived by students
Factors Degree students Higher Diploma students Not enough experience Yes (5) Yes (5) Not meeting the hotel expectation Yes (3) Yes (3) Not familiar with the whole operation Yes (2) Less chance for future career development Yes (4) Yes (2) Too much F&B management theory Yes (8) Cannot apply in workplace Yes (5)
5. The importance of internship programme
Most of the students agreed that the internship programme is very useful and expected to extend the training period (table 6.5). Degree students commented,
“13 weeks of internship is insufficient for us to gain enough working experience in hotel industry”.
They also mentioned that there should be good communication between hotel and university but not like now. Higher diploma students pointed out that this was a good opportunity for them to decide whether to join the industry or not after graduation. However, the other higher diploma group said,
“Sometimes, they treat us as cheap labour”.
In addition, they suggested the school should arrange the placement for them instead of finding the job by them.
117 Table 6.5 The importance of internship programme
Factors Degree students Higher Diploma students Longer training period Yes (5) Yes (2) Experience managerial level Yes (2) Should work in more dept Yes (1) Assign one trainer only Yes (1) Real working experience Yes (4) Decision for future career Yes (2) Better co-operation Yes (4)
6. Students consider that the current hospitality management programme can be improved
To improve the programme, both the degree and higher diploma students suggested adding more language subjects and that the programme should be evaluated frequently so as to match with the industry needs (table 6.6). The degree students said,
“There should be more subjects with emphasis on leadership, communication and interpersonal skill”.
In addition, the higher diploma group said,
“The subjects should be reviewed and avoid too much overlapping between subjects such as Marketing and Financial Management”.
Another higher diploma group suggested,
“Student should have a choice of subjects in year two so that it can fit to the individual needs. The existing programme is too structured”.
118 Furthermore, they said,
“Subjects should be more specialised and in-depth in some aspects such as wine and food knowledge”.
The higher diploma students mentioned that they should teach advanced information technology in class. On the other hand, the degree students expected the hotel could provide better position such as more management trainee for them after graduation.
Table 6.6 Students consider that the current hospitality management programme can be improved
Factors Degree students Higher Diploma students More internship opportunity Yes Train in different dept. Yes More management trainee position for Yes (4) graduates Evaluation on course Yes (3) Yes (5) More language training Yes (1) Yes (4) Subject should not overlap Yes (3) F&B and advertising management Yes (2) should be deleted More choice of subjects Yes (2) Subject should be more specific Yes (2) Advance information technology Yes (3)
119 Hotel employer
For the hotel industry, the ten human resources managers were selected. Five of them from high tariff hotel and five from medium tariff hotel. The selected respondents may reflect different expectation between hotels. In general, there were no great difference between high tariff hotel and medium tariff hotel on the expectations of the programme and student.
Code
Each respondent was given a code to represent the hotel they were working in. This could save the space for putting all the names in the chart. High tariff hotel Excelsior Hotel - A Hyatt Regency Hong Kong Hotel - B JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong - C Kowloon Shangri-La Hotel - D The Peninsula Hong Kong - E Medium tariff hotel Great Eagle Hotel - F Kimberley Hotel - G Metrople Hotel - H Kowloon Hotel - 1 Eaton Hotel Hong Kong - J
120 1. Expectations of the hotel employers in training for the hospitality industry
Hotel employers mostly expected that students have developed both management and practical skills during their study (table 6.7). Besides, students should have a general understanding of the hotel operations before joining the industry. One of the Human Resources Managers in the high tariff hotel said,
“They should understand what we expect before joining our hotel”.
Two out of the five high tariff hotels mentioned that the human relation skills should be developed in the school. In addition, one manager said,
“They should learn the communication skills in the university as it is very important for people working in the hotel industry”.
On the other hand, one of the low tariff hotel managers said,
“They need to know how to write a proper report and such skill should be developed during their study”.
Table 6.7 Expectations of the hotel employers in training for the hospitality industry
Factors High tariff hotels Medium tariff hotels Understanding of hotel operation A, E F Understand hotel expectation A Learn management theory & skills B, D F, G, H, I Learn practical skills B, E H, I, J Learn human relation skills C, E Learn communication skills C Learn report writing J
121 2. Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality industry perceived by hotel employers
Though practical skills were important, a positive attitude was the first priority in terms of what the employer was looking for (table 6.8). In addition, commitment to the work was another important issue. For the high tariff hotels, one manager pointed out,
“Students should be customer service minded and skilled as our industry is a servicing industry. We need people who really want to serve the customer”.
Four out of the five managers who were working in high tariff hotels agreed that practical skills might not be the criteria for entry level job. They would prefer a student to have a better attitude. Those in the medium tariff hotels preferred students to have good presentation, better language ability and a commitment to the hotel. One of the managers added,
“We want staff to be flexible. You know our hotel is small and people must be multi-skilled in taking up another post when necessary”.
Another manager from the medium tariff hotel mentioned the high expectation of students and said,
“Students must face the reality that they will start from the bottom. A lot of graduate expect to be promoted within 1 year and it is impossible”.
Amongst the five managers from the medium tariff hotels, one manager mentioned qualifications as important. However, the rest of managers, both from high and medium tariff hotels, did not mention this issue during the interview.
122 Table 6.8 Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality industry perceived by hotel employers.
Skills and competency High tariff hotels Medium tariff hotels Customer service minded and skill A Practical skill A, C H, I Good personality BH Attitude B, D F, H, J Previous experience C Interpersonal skill D, E J Administrative skill D Hotel knowledge E G, H Commitment F, H, J Good presentation G, J Language G Flexible H, J
3. Strengths of the hospitality management programme perceived by hotel employers
In general, the hotel employers perceived the programme meet with their expectation for the entry level (table 6.9). The student could perform what the employer wanted during the internship training. One of the managers from high tariff hotel said,
‘They have an excellent performance in IT skills which is better than that of other institution”.
Another manager also added,
“The overall performance of the PolyU students are good and when compared with the other institutions, they are the best”.
123 One of the managers from the medium tariff hotel agreed on that. Furthermore, there were good comments from the medium tariff hotel, one said,
“The students competency improved this last few years when compared with those graduates from 1990-96. The curriculum is OK”.
The other manager also expressed,
“Within this two years, some students are willing to take up junior level post after graduation instead of only targeting at the supervisory job”.
Table 6.9 Strengths of the hospitality management programme perceived by hotel employers
Factors High tariff hotels Medium tariff hotels Good performance of student A, B, C, D, E H Good IT skill A Hotel knowledge A, B Meet hotel expectation C, D F, G, J Good attitude C Curriculum is sufficient D G, H, I
4. Weaknesses of the hospitality management programme perceived by hotel employers
Students might have a high expectation on the job and did not want to wait for a certain period before getting promotion (table 6.10). On the other hand, their working experience was not sufficient to start their career at supervisory level. One manager from the medium tariff hotels commented,
124 “Graduates only meet the expectation of the operational level but not supervisory level. They are too green to be employed as a supervisor in the hotel”.
Two out of the five managers from the medium tariff hotels said that there might not be weaknesses of the programme but it depended on the individual performance and expectation. In general, few managers did not have much comment on the curriculum since they did not know what student actually learned in the university.
Table 6.10 Weaknesses of the hospitality management programme perceived by hotel employers
Factors High tariff hotels Medium tariff hotels Not enough practical skill A I Students are impatient B J Students are not well prepared B Weak in human relations skill C Only meet the entry level requirement H Not all meeting hotel expectation I
5. The importance of internship programme
Hotel employers agreed that internship programme was useful and needed in the hospitality management programme. This could create a real working environment for the students outside the university campus (table 6.11). Four out of five medium tariff hotel managers mentioned that internship was useful and needed for both the hotel and students. One of the high tariff managers added,
“For some practical lesson that cannot put into the curriculum due to the tight schedule, internship training is the best way to solve it”.
125 Table 6.11 The importance of internship programme
Factors High tariff hotels Medium tariff hotels Real working environment A, B, E Learn practical skill C J Learn new things D Useful and needed F, G, H, I
6. Hotel employers consider that the current hospitality management programme can be improved
Hotel employers suggested interviewing the new students before they study in the programme (table 6.12). Such a personal interview could select those suitable candidates not only good at academic work but also having a good attitude and appearance. Educators should also understand the hotel expectations and teach the things related to the real working condition rather than only based on the theory. Inviting guest lecturers was one of the suggestions from the managers. Furthermore, one manager from the high tariff hotels said,
“Students should understand themselves first, otherwise they will leave the industry and blame that the hotel cannot provide what they expect”.
Another manager said,
“The university should train up student to be more flexible when working in this industry”.
One of the managers from the medium tariff hotels pointed out that there was a gap between industry and school by saying,
126 “Students are unaware of the importance of IT and the labour ordinances. Besides, lecturers should spend more time in looking at the student personal growth and interpersonal skills. When I visited some universities in the Western countries, there is quite an emphasis on those issues”.
Table 6.12 Hotel employers consider that the current hospitality management programme can be improved
Factors High tariff hotels Medium tariff hotels Understand hotel expectation A H Understand own expectation A Teach real working environment A H, I Some practical skill training B u Interview for new entrants B F, H, J Arrange interview for internship B Develop human relation skills C, E F Develop presentation skills C J Develop individual interest D F Be flexible E IT learning F Labour ordinances F More school days for final year G Longer training period I Invite guest lecturer I Should train in one area only I Train writing abilities J
127 Hospitality educator
A total of ten teaching staffs were being selected for personal interview in their own office. Six of them worked in the department for more than four years and ranked from Teaching Assistant to Assistant Professor. The sample was based on the total number of teaching staff (excluding the head of department, curriculum planner, student placement officer and the new staffs) divided by three to get the interval. Six teaching staffs were selected by using the interval. Two new staffs were also invited for interview. They joined the department not more than two years. The curriculum planner and student placement officer was approached and willing to share their viewpoint on the matters.
Code
Curriculum planner Associate Professor (8 years) - A Experienced teaching staff Lecturer (8 years) - B Senior Lecturer (10 years) - C Assistant Professor (10 years) - D Assistant Professor (6 years) - E Temporarily Teaching Assistant (4 years) - F Temporarily Lecturer (4 years) - G New teaching staff Assistant Professor (2 months) - H Lecturer (1 year) - 1 Student Placement Officer Senior Lecturer (7 years) - J
128 1. Expectations of the hospitality educators in training for the hospitality industry
Hospitality educators expected that student learned the hotel knowledge, and developed their management and practical skills during their study (table 6.13). Besides, among those respondents, they agreed that students should improve their communication skills, and analytic skills after their three years study. For the experienced teaching staff, one of them said,
“They should learn more practical skill, language ability, IT, Account & Finance subjects. On the other hand, it should not put too much emphasis on the management theory”.
However, the curriculum planner and placement officer both expected there should be management theory within the programme. Another member of staff said,
“Student should be able to criticised on different aspects either operational or managerial level in hotel”.
One of the staff also expected that programme should increase the awareness of the student concerning things happening in the hospitality industry.
129 Table 6.13 Expectations of the hospitality educators in training for the hospitality industry
Factors Curriculum planner/ Student Teaching Steffi New staff placement officer Hotel knowledge A, J B, C, E, F, H, I Develop management skill A, J B, C, E H Interpersonal skill B, C Communication skill B, C Analytic skill C, E H Problem solving skill C H Practical skill D, F H, I Language D IT D Account & finance D Increase awareness G
130 2. Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality industry perceived by hospitality educators
A positive attitude was the most important issue when working in the hospitality industry which was perceived by the educators (table 6.14). Student should also prepare to work hard and overtime when joining the industry. The curriculum planner and one of the experienced staff commented that language ability was important in the hospitality industry. Three out of six experienced staff mentioned that student should be prepared to work hard in the industry. One member of staff said,
“Student should be patient, work hard, willing to help others and more important, do not treat it as a job but your own interest, otherwise you cannot perform well in the job”.
One of the new staff said,
“Personality is the most important for people who want to work in the hotel. Besides, they should also have good job knowledge, practical skills and management skills”.
However, one of the experienced staff pointed out that an important issue was that the student should show his enthusiasm in the working place instead of practical or management skills. The student placement officer said,
“Student should prepare to take up any job within a short period of notice and be willing to participate in work and build up good relationship between colleagues”.
131 Table 6.14 Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality industry perceived by hospitality educators
Factors Curriculum planner/ Teaching staff New staff Student placement officer Language A E Education qualification B Positive attitude B, C, E, F H, I Computer knowledge & skill B, E Interpersonal skill C, E Ethical attitude C Analytic skills C Practical skill DH Hotel knowledge EH Prepare to work hard E, F,G I
Good character F H Interest F Willing to learn G Enthusiasm G Management skill H Participate and work close J with the colleagues Flexible J
132 3. Strengths of the hospitality management programme perceived by hospitality educators
Hospitality educators commented that the programme was comprehensive and met the hospitality needs (table 6.15). Both the curriculum planner and student placement officer agreed the curriculum was good enough to match with the industrial needs. One of the experienced staff said,
“Our department has a good resource centre that helps student to search the relevant material. Every teaching staff has a consultation period with each individual student and we have a training restaurant that can train up their skill”.
Another member of staff agreed that the programme provided a lot of chances for student to develop their written and presentation skills. However, one out of the ten respondents commented that the programme was outdated and there was no strength of this management programme.
Table 6.15 Strengths of the hospitality management programme perceived by hospitality educators Factors Curriculum planner/ Teaching New staff Student placement officer staff Meet the needs A, J G Good resource centre B Easy consult with teacher B Good internship programme B I Have a training restaurant B Good writing skill D Good presentation D Comprehensive E, F, G Develop high level thinking E Knowledge in an international context E Have practical class H
133 4. Weaknesses of the hospitality management programme perceived by hospitality educators
One of the weaknesses of the programme was that the syllabus was not updated frequently which was perceived by two experienced teaching staff (table 6.16). In consequence, the students could not match with the hotel expectation. The curriculum planner said,
“The course is too flexible regarding the subjects being taught. This will increase the chance of a student moving to other business sectors. I agree that the programme should be more specialised in a certain area such as catering or hotel. However, we may face the problem of losing the student’s interest and finally affect the number of intake every year”.
One of the new staff also supported that saying the programme was not specialised. On the other hand, the student placement officer commented that student have a wrong perception that they were well developed and could take up a supervisory job after graduation. Students might have a high expectation on the job. Both the experienced staff and new staff agreed that the student were too reliant on the teacher and unwilling to look for an answer from themselves or from other sources. A new member of staff commented,
“The programme emphasises too much on the classroom theory. It is too lecture oriented in Hong Kong, and student lack of participation in class. I find that some of the topics are overlapping and repeating the same issue of different subjects. The curriculum planner should monitor it carefully”.
134 Table 6.16 Weaknesses of the hospitality management programme perceived by hospitality educators
Factors Curriculum planner/ Teaching staff New staff Student placement officer Too flexible (not specialised) AE I No model hotel B Outdate syllabus C, G Lack of teaching staff C No practical skill D, G Too emphasis on presentation D Too emphasis on report writing D Spoon feeding for student F H Too based on textbook F H Do not meet hotel expectation C, F Too operational H Overlapping of subjects H Students have too high J expectation
5. The importance of internship programme
Internship programme could provide a real environment for the students. It could also benefit the industry in the same way. Both the experienced and new staffs were agreed on this (table 6.17). The curriculum planner suggested that the training period should be longer and said,
“I think at least one year full time internship is the best duration. I suggest it will be appeared on the year 3 for the degree programme and whole year 2 for the higher diploma programme”.
135 The student placement officer expressed the view that internship was very important for both the student and the employer.
Table 6.17 The importance of internship programme
Factors Curriculum planner/ Teaching staff New staff Student placement officer Longer training period A Learn the real environment B, C, D, E, G H, I For student & industry J F
6. Hospitality educators consider that the current hospitality management programme can be improved
Hospitality educators suggested the school should have more contact with the industry so as to update the syllabus and have better link with industry (table 6.18). Following what was mentioned before, the curriculum planner said,
“To strengthen our programme, in the future, specialism should be introduction in the programme. There will be less business subjects in the course. Besides, we need to increase the internship training duration and add more language subjects so as to create a competitive advantage for our graduates”.
Two out of the six experienced staff suggested changing the existing teaching method by introducing more student oriented learning style. Even more, a member of staff recommended building a hotel within the campus so as to provide more practical training for the student. The student placement officer suggested the department should invite more guest lecturers to give talks to the student. This could provide updated information happening in the hospitality industry and provide opportunities for the student to have better understanding of their future employer expectations.
136 Table 6.18 Hospitality educators consider that the current hospitality management programme can be improved
Factors Curriculum planner/ Teaching New staff Student placement officer staff More specialised A Longer internship hours A
Language subjects A Develop problem solving minded A F Build a hotel B Review curriculum to meet hotel B, G expectation More contact with industry C, E, F, G I Employ more staff C, G More student oriented learning C,F style As independent dept. D More case studies, and guest J F lecturer Use internet F Extend the programme G Communicate between lecturers H Appoint a co-ordinator H Accreditation H Student feedback H Brainstorm student at the J I beginning Introduce management-training I programme in hotel
137 Relationship between stakeholders
1. Expectations of the students, hotel employers and hospitality educators in training for the hospitality industry
Basically, the three stakeholders agreed that management theory; practical knowledge, communication skill development and hotel, catering & tourism related subjects should be developed in training for the hospitality industry (table 6.19). In general, the students expected to be a professional after their few years study in the university and take up at least a supervisory job after graduation. The employers expected the students have developed written skills and human relation skills. In addition, the employs expected students understood their need through the materials they learnt in school. However, the educators expected students to have developed their intellectual skills, knowledge in IT and Finance. Furthermore, students should be aware what was happening in the industry.
138 Table 6.19 Expectations of the students, hotel employers and hospitality educators in training for the hospitality industry
Factors Students Hotel employers Hospitality educators Learn management theory X X X Learn practical knowledge X X X Good communication skill X X X Better English abilities X Well equipped X To be a manager X To be a professional X To be a supervisor X Hotel, catering & tourism related X X X Not to be too theoretical X More language training e.g. X X French Have more industry training X Understand hotel expectation X Learn human relation skills XX Learn report writing X Analytic and problem solving X skills IT X Account & finance X Increase awareness X
139 2. Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality industry perceived by students, hotel employers and hospitality educators
The essential skills needed were good operation knowledge, practical skills, and language ability, administrative skills, good personality and interpersonal skills that were perceived by the three stakeholders (table 6.20). Student and educators agreed that skills on information technology became more important when working in the hospitality industry. They thought that better educational background still essential in the working place. Hotel employers pointed out that good presentation; commitment to the industry and having a customer service minded were essential issues that were not mentioned by students and educators. Both the hotel employers and hospitality educators mentioned that to be flexible at work was important too.
140 Table 6.20 Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality industry perceived by students, hotel employers and hospitality educators
Skill and competency Students Hotel employers Hospitality educators Good operation knowledge X X X Information technology X X Working experience X X Language abilities X X X Good personality X X X Leadership X X X Good interpersonal skill X X X Educational background XX Technical competency X X X Customer service minded X Attitude X X Commitment X Good presentation X Flexible X X Ethical attitude X Analytic skills X Prepare to work hard X Interest X Willing to learn X Enthusiasm X Participate and work close with X the colleagues
141 3. Strengths of the hospitality management programme perceived by students, hotel employers and hospitality educators
In general, the strength of the programme was meeting the hotel expectation especially at the entry level and students could learn the basic knowledge in the hotel operations (table 6.21). The programme also developed IT skills for the graduates as perceived by the hotel employers. On the other side, the hospitality educators thought that there were other supporting instruments that made the programme run so well such as resource centre and the training restaurant. However, the students might only look for better qualification so that they could find a good job in the future.
Table 6.21 Strengths of the hospitality management programme perceived by students, hotel employers and hospitality educators Factors Students Hotel employers Hospitality educators Knowledge of hotel industry XX X Higher education level X Things can be applied in work X XX Good performance of student X X Good IT skill X Good attitude X Curriculum is sufficient X X Good resource centre X Easy consult with teacher X Good internship programme X Have training restaurant and class X Develop high level thinking X Good writing skills X
142 4. Weaknesses of the hospitality management programme perceived by students, hotel employers and hospitality educators
They shared the same feeling that graduates did not meet the hotel expectation especially for supervisory or managerial level (table 6.22). Graduates also showed insufficient working experience when joining the industry. The students commented that they were not familiar with the whole hotel operation since the programme was too focused on the catering side. Some of the students expressed that they could not transfer their knowledge to the workplace. The hotel employers said that the students were impatient at work and looked for promotion within short period of time. They commented that the students were not prepared to take up jobs in hotel and were weak in the human relations skills. The hospitality educators pointed out that the programme was too general and that it could not train up the student into being professional. Furthermore, there were a lot of things to be improved regarding to the subjects and curriculum.
143 Table 6.22 Weaknesses of the hospitality management programme perceived by students, hotel employers and hospitality educators
Factors Students Hotel employers Hospitality educators Not enough experience XX X Not meeting the hotel expectation XXX Not familiar with the whole X operation Less chance for future career X development Too much F&B management X theory Cannot apply in workplace X Students are impatient X X Students are not well prepared X Weak in human relations skills X Only meet the entry level X requirement Not specialised X No model hotel X Outdate syllabus and subject X overlapping Lack of teaching staff X Too emphasis on presentation, X report writing, textbook materials, spoon feeding for student Too operational X
144 5. The importance of internship programme
Internship was the best method to let the student experience the real working environment (table 6.23). Both the students and hospitality educators expected to have a longer training period. Even though the employers did not mentioned the training period, they agreed that it was benefit to the students and themselves. One important issue that pointed out by the students was this was an opportunity for them to decide about whether joining the hospitality industry or not after graduation.
Table 6.23 The importance of internship programme Factors Students Hotel employers Hospitality educators Longer training period X X Experience managerial level X Should work in more dept X Assign one trainer only X Real working experience XX X Decision for future career X Better co-operation X Learn new things X Useful and needed X X
145 6. Suggestion for improving the current hospitality management programme
It was suggested that there should be longer internship period and opportunity (table 6.24). The curriculum should emphasis the new information technology such as Internet using so as to follow the new trend of business. Besides, the students and hospitality educators felt that the subjects should be more specialised so that students could have better understanding in one area. The hotel employers also agreed that the students should train in one area only so as to gain more experience in that section. However, some students expect to be trained in more departments so as to explore their knowledge. Besides, the hotel employers who might draw the attention to the hospitality educators brought up Labour ordinances. The hotel employers suggested the university should scan those new intakes to the programme. By doing that, it could select those suitable applicants joining the programme that might be the potential workers in the hospitality industry. This might cut down the number of students not joining the industry after graduation. Furthermore, the educators suggested accreditation being given to the programme so that the students have the advantages to be employed by the hotel employers. Within the curriculum, educators suggested there should be communication between subject lecturers and assigned a co-ordinator which might not be the curriculum planner looking at the teaching materials provided by the individual lecturer. Student feedback should not be neglected in revising the curriculum.
146 Table 6.24 Suggestion for improving the current hospitality management programme
Factors Students Hotel employers Hospitality educators More internship opportunity XX X Train in different dept. X More management trainee X position for graduates Evaluation on course X X More language training X X Subject should not overlap X F&B and advertising management X should be deleted More choice of subjects X Subject should be more specific X X Advance information technology XX X Understand own & hotel X expectation Teach real working environment X X and invite guest lecturer Some practical skill training X Interview for new entrants X Arrange interview for internship X Develop individual interest X Develop human relation and X presentation skills Be flexible X Labour ordinances X More school days for final years X Should train in one area only X Train writing abilities X
147 Develop problem solving minded X Build a hotel X Employ more staff and as an X independent department More student oriented learning X Extend the length of programme X Communicate between lecturers X Appoint a co-ordinator X Accreditation X Student feedback and brainstorm X student at the beginning Introduce management training X programme
Summary
Following the quantitative research approach, interviews were used to get a better understanding of each stakeholder. The three stakeholders have agreed that management theory, practical knowledge, communication skills and hotel catering and tourism related the student should be learnt subjects during study. When asking about the essential skills needed, they stated that good operational knowledge, language ability, good personality, leadership, good interpersonal skills and technical competency were important.
The general perception from the three stakeholders on the strength of the HTM programme was the things student learnt could be applied in the working place. On the other hand, the weaknesses of the programme were not enough experience for the student and that they sometimes could not meet the hotel expectation. Three stakeholders agreed the internship training could give real work experience to the student and overcome the weaknesses. They also suggested advanced information technology should be added in the programme so as to catch the new trend of business.
148 The use of the quantitative and qualitative method, triangulated the findings that there was a mismatch in the expectations between the three main stakeholders for the training of hotel and catering management education.
When comparing the findings of the past graduates with the current students, it found out that both groups of students agreed that language ability was important when working in the hospitality industry especially the first job. Besides, they pointed out that the programme could provide a general knowledge of the hotel operation that counted as the strength. However, they also thought that too much emphasis was put on the catering subjects, and that was one of the weaknesses in the programme. In general, they agreed that more language subjects, advanced information technology, more internship opportunities and more choice of subjects could improve the current situation.
Since it is different to get agreement among all three stakeholders, the argument will continue and the gap may become larger and larger. The hospitality educator, could act as a bridge to narrow down the gap and try to fulfil the needs of both parties through meetings and consulting. By using relevant teaching materials and appropriate curriculum they may help the student gain better understanding of the industry. The hotel employers should also treat the graduates better and not as cheap labour. They should do a little bit more in developing a career path for each individual; consequently graduates could know their future prospect in the company. Finally, the graduates must have commitment to this industry otherwise it would be a waste to train up someone who did not have any intention to work in the hotel industry.
Last but not the least, the findings indicate that internship training was preferred by all three main stakeholders and suggested to have longer training period so as to get a better understanding of each other. Perhaps, a better design and arrangement of the internship programme could benefit all parties.
149 CHAPTER SEVEN: ANALYSIS
Introduction
This research was designed to identify the expectations of the three main stakeholders: students, the hotel industry and hospitality educators regarding the suitability of hospitality management education in Hong Kong. Based on the findings, it appears that each stakeholder was expecting others to understand their needs first and that no formal channels of communication existed between each of them. Hospitality educators spent much of their effort on the provision of management programmes and disregarded the needs of student and industry. Consequently, the student could not meet the industry needs and tended to be de-motivated after their internship training that put them in touch directly with the industry. Simultaneously, the hospitality industry has a strong feeling that experience is more important than educational qualifications. Such a situation is made even worse when the hotel industry initially does not encourage the graduates who are joining the industry. General perceptions from the graduates were that their knowledge has no chance to be applied in the workplace. So, it may be hard for the industry to retain these qualified graduates. Finally, the mismatch between stakeholders could lead to a decline in service quality. In the long run, such a phenomenon will influence the growth of the hospitality industry and, considering the importance of the hotel and tourism industry in Hong Kong could finally reduce total GDP.
From the research with past graduates, language ability was shown to be the most important factor in getting the first job. Graduates rather looked for more business related subjects instead of purely hotel subjects. It indicated past graduates did not want to be bounded to the hotel sector only, as supported by Powers (1980), Ashley et al (1995) and Geissler and Martin (1998). When compared with their current job, respondents pointed out that hotel and catering related subjects and internship were not so important. The result might only reflect part of the reason since a lot of respondents had already shifted to other industries. There were more than fifty percent of the past graduates currently not working in the hotel and catering related industry.
150 This study attempted to investigate the expectations of the hotel industry, hospitality educators and students. It also considers the curriculum development of hospitality management education and the internship training. Overall, the findings reveal that the competency and skill performance of graduates did not meet the satisfaction of both hoteliers and educators.
Expectations of the hotel industry
The findings did indicate that the hotel employers expected students would understand and put employers needs first. One of the managers from a high tariff hotel indicated that this was important to the student. If the student did not know what the employer expected, it would be difficult for them to achieve the goals that are set by the employer. This concurs with the findings of Ley and Sandler (1982) that students should know the employers’ expectations first.
In previous studies, many researchers have mentioned that the hospitality employers were not too concerned about the applicant’s qualifications. In this study, only one out of ten hotel managers mentioned the importance of educational qualifications. It appears that the hospitality industry still does not put too much emphasis on the qualifications the employee gains. These finding endorse those of Sparks and Bradley (1994), Baum (1989), Ruddy (1989) and the HKTA (1998). Even though it was carried out more than ten years prior to the present research, the findings in both Ruddy’s and this study showed that educational background was not a major criterion for success in the hotel industry, especially in Hong Kong. The hotel managers strongly believe that work experience was a very important component to success for every member of staff. However, they would put qualifications as a supporting component when promoting any member of staff, which seems to contradict findings from Gronroos (1989) and Hobson and Bushell (1994) saying that well-educated people are preferred for the tourism industry.
151 The hotel employers in Hong Kong were not too concerned with the new staffs academic achievement, the same findings as Ineson and Kempa (1997). The rating of skills and competency in the questionnaire also indicated that the employers were not looking in the first place for managerial skills but stressed the importance of a positive attitude. Instead, three out of ten managers indicated the commitment of students to the industry as more important. This issue was raised by Nixon Chung, the General Manager in a hotel (Chak, 1999). Furthermore, managers in both the interviews and the survey mentioned that communication skills and the personality of the individual were also important, which supports the findings from Mullins and Davies (1991), Brownell (1995) and Lensch (1997).
What the managers looked for most, were employee’s capabilities in taking up the job rather than high qualifications gained from an institution or university. Most of the managers believed that the longer the experience, the better the understanding of what the general staff was doing as endorsed by Logie (1997) that such experience is essential, especially for college graduates. Furthermore, when someone gained more experience from work, he or she could better utilise the human resources in planning and budgeting. So, employers insisted graduates should start from the very bottom so as to gain more experience from the beginning. This is in line with findings by Ivory (1988), Pavesic (1989), Mullins and Davies (1991), Purcell (1995) and Anon (2000c). While the hotel and catering industries require graduates to spend time in the early part of their career in operational positions as stated by Sparks and Bradley (1994), one of the hotel managers commented that the graduates were impatient and wanted to be promoted very soon. One consequence is that graduates opt for what appear to be more glamorous and higher paid jobs in other industries as concluded by Orr (1992) and Siu (1995).
The findings also showed that the students lack practical skills, which was indicated by two of the hotel managers. Having similar comments from Ley and Sandler (1982), Baum (1989) and Spark and Bradley (1994), one from a high tariff hotel and one from a medium tariff hotel, both agreed that the practical skills were very important in their view, but were paid little attention to by the students.
152 In addition, the hotel managers added that the graduates from the HKPU were only capable of taking up posts at an operational level. This is similar to Burchett’s (2001) comment that the hospitality graduates had only the basic entry level skills. The hotel managers have no confidence in hiring fresh graduates as a supervisor or manager. Such findings might give a warning to the hospitality educators that the students were perceived as not well developed at supervisory level, even though the university claimed that their objectives are actually training students to become supervisors.
Despite the perceived importance of practical experience, the hotel managers in Hong Kong did not mention a foundation year of practical training for every candidate, which Cotton (1991) suggested. They only pointed out the importance and usefulness of the internship training. It is possible that, they perceived the current arrangement of internship training was good enough in providing real working experience to the students. So, there might be no need to add a whole year of training for every new student even though Blackwell et al (2001) suggested a longer placement could cut down the unemployment rate.
Furthermore, most of the students and their parents might never have thought of starting their career from the bottom of a department and of the need to ‘dirty their hands’ after graduation. Moreover, after their internship training, they received some negative messages from the industry that no difference was made when comparing university students with a job candidate who has not taken any management programme at work, this is as stated by Longworth (1990) and Sparks and Bradley (1994). Although this truly reflects what the hospitality industry was expecting, most of the students could not face the reality. So, if the student expectations were not fulfilled, they might tend to leave the industry soon after graduation, this endorses the findings of Jameson and Hargraves (1986), Orr et al (1992), Pavesic and Brymer (1990), West and Jameson (1990), Siu (1995) and Chan and Chow (1998).
153 Expectations of students
There are a variety of expectations on the part of students. Certainly, students who decided to take the hospitality management programme might have certain expectations of the programme, which aligns with the findings of Pavesic and Brymer (1990) who state that students choosing the hotel management programme must have been interested in careers in the hospitality industry. Generally, students might expect to become one of the professional members in the hospitality industry. However some students who chose this programme might only be looking for better educational qualifications in any field, not necessarily in hospitality.
Students in Hong Kong indicated that one of the reasons for choosing this programme was the reputation of the department and this is similar to the findings of Cullen and Dick (1989) that the reputation of the school is one of the criteria for choosing a college. Since the Department of Hotel and Tourism Management in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University has been established for more than twenty years, and gained a good reputation in the education field, a lot of students have decided to take the hospitality management education due to its reputation. Students also expected to be trained for their career advancement.
However, the majority of degree students expressed the view that a hospitality management programme was not their desired course. Since they could not get into favoured programmes such as Business Management, it was easier to be accepted on this programme which was only their second or third choice. This indicates a difference from the findings of Pavesic and Brymer (1990) who said that students were interested in working in the hospitality industry whereas many of the degree students in Hong Kong actually have no interest in this industry even they chose this programme.
Generally, from the group interviews, students expected the hospitality management programme should have a lot of practical classes and not too much of an academic aspect to study. They have a common perception that the programme should not be too
154 theoretical and might deal with the hotel sector only. More importantly, students perceive that they could obtain the award of the certificate easier than could people taking other programmes such as accounting. However, the degree students did not feel that. Their programme includes a lot of business subjects and a lot of management theory that could not directly be applied to the hospitality industry. Other members in the group also agreed that the programme materials were too general and not related to the industry. This argument has been brought up by Gilmore (1977) who also suggested that the higher education programme should not only look at the narrow training required by the employers. Such a mismatch from their expectation might lead to losing interest in the industry and to a reduced interest in working in this field.
Furthermore, from the findings of the current study, hospitality students in Hong Kong expect to be trained as professionals when they take up the programme, this is similar to the findings of a previous study by Ivory (1988) and Fawcett (1989). It appears that the higher diploma students have a higher expectation of their programme when compared with the degree students. Since the degree programme consists of a lot of business management subjects and theories, the degree students perceive that they are trained as managers, not only in the hotel field. Such findings are similar to those of Getz (1994) who also states that younger students were uncertain about their future. Especially for the degree students, they have a wider range of choice in their job selection. As indicated earlier, many of the degree students prefer to work in other industries and put the work in the hospitality industry as their lowest priority.
This finding also supports those of Casado (1992) and Davidson and Tideswell (1998), which students thought that they were qualified to take up a position as a supervisor or manager. From one of the higher diploma students group, one student indicated that she could at least work as a supervisor for her first job. In contrast, the general comments from the hotel managers were that students only performed well in an operational job especially when they first joined the industry. This finding was also endorsed by Slattery (1997) who commented that the hospitality educational establishment could not ensure students reached the very top of the profession.
155 However, things may be changing, one of the managers stated that the graduates in recent years were more willing to start from the bottom. Due to the economic recession after 1997, society has still not yet recovered and it was not so easy to find a job especially as a supervisor or manager.
As the majority of graduates in this study were female, it was difficult to test whether there was any significant difference regarding gender and attributes towards a job. This is a factor mentioned by Strohbehn (1994) and Knutson (1987), particularly stating that female students were more likely to develop their career in the hospitality industry.
Normally, it seems that hospitality students are mostly looking for better career advancement, better prospects, good pay and do not wish to work from the bottom up to the management level, a finding similar to those of Pavesic and Brymer (1990) and Orr et al (1992) in the United States. They were uncomfortable and reluctant to be offered jobs liked waiter or waitress after graduation. Students tended to look for a better job title as they viewed themselves as professional after a few years’ studies in the institution, a finding endorsed by Fawcett (1989) and Davidson and Tideswell (1998). Furthermore, there were no students who indicated that they expected work in the luxury hotels as mentioned by Sciarini and Woods (1998). So, if the employer cannot fulfil their wishes, they are likely to move to another industry after graduating from the hospitality management programme (Siu 1995). Besides, the dissimilarity in the curriculum between higher diploma and degree might also influence the student’s future career planning since the degree programme covers more business subject rather than only the hotel subjects.
Expectations of hospitality educators
Being the professional trainer in the hospitality industry, the educators were in a critical position in dealing with different customers, as mentioned by Bounds et al. (1994). There are two kinds of customers that the educators need to deal with as mentioned by Besterfield et al (1999). Apart from the ‘real external customer’ the guests in the hotels that bring the revenue to the hospitality industry, the students and the employers were the
156 main customers that influenced the hospitality department survival. On one hand the educators needed to satisfy the industry supporting the programme; on the other hand they needed to attract people to take the programme. Furthermore, another role of the hospitality educators was to link up the industry and students together as stated by Warwick (1989), McNeil (1996) and Okeiyi et al (1998). So, the common practice for hospitality educators was to provide the relevant material so as to satisfy the needs of both parties. However, this may lead to another issue that the materials are too superficial, touching every thing but not in depth.
As time changes, customer expectations are higher when compared with the past (Batts, 2000). The university could not work out the curriculum on their own without consulting other stakeholders. The suggestions from other sources might improve the curriculum and strengthen the programme as stated by Middlehurst (1993) and Geissler and Martin (1998). The findings of this research indicate that the hospitality educators expect to train up the students to be professional in the job. From the programme prospectus, it appears that they tried to satisfy what the student needs and the industry wants.
During the interview, the educators said that they would like to develop the graduates into all-round students as endorsed by Geissier and Martin (1998). They expected students to learn hotel knowledge; a certain level of supervisory skills and have sufficient information technology knowledge to be able to face future changes. These views concurred with those of Brownell (1995) that the graduates should be international in outlook with multi-skills. Although Geissler and Martin (1998) raised the importance of stress management in the hospitality operations, no respondent in this study mentioned this.
To enrich the practical skill of the student, in this study, hospitality educators agreed that the internship training could provide the real working environment to the student and shorten the period that the students needed to adapt to the working place. This finding concurs with suggestions of McNeil (1996) and Maher’s (2001) that a close relationship
157 between industry and educational institution regarding the internship training of the students.
In addition, as mentioned by Kivela and Li (1998), the education system in Hong Kong places too much emphasis on skills training. As practical skill is an important component when working in the hospitality industry, four out of the ten teaching staff expect students will have learned such skills during their study. Educators perceive such practical skills might add value to the students when finding their first job in the hospitality industry.
Apart from that, one of the experienced teaching staff expected students to be more aware of what was happening around them. Especially in the hospitality industry where there are continuing changes. If students do not pay attention to every aspect of change they may lose their competitive advantages in the market.
Since every year there are a large number of graduates not joining the industry, hospitality educators suspect a possible reason might arise from the students themselves. A lot of educators pointed out that the students should have commitment to the industry. Students should have a positive attitude and be willing to participate at work. As the nature of work in the hospitality industry implies the need to work irregular hours and serve people, educators expected the students should prepare themselves and could accept these conditions.
Relationships between stakeholders
It is true that the three stakeholders have their own expectations. There is also a mismatch that exists between the three stakeholders that is similar to that found by Liu et al. (1998). Disregarding those students who chose this programme by default, at least the hotel employers and hospitality educators share a common goal that is to make the industry grow healthy and maintain the high quality service provided by the employees. If nothing is done in the meantime, the gap between each stakeholder will become larger.
158 Consequently, the hospitality industry could lose its competitiveness due to the bad reputation and poor attitude of the staff, as mentioned by Baum (1989) who states that the lack of professionals would lead to low profitability of hotels.
During the interview, each stakeholder expected that the other two stakeholders understood their expectations already. They claimed that if the other stakeholder did not know what they were expecting, it would be difficult to satisfy each other. Such arguments have been brought up in previous studies by Knutson (1989) and Ley and Sandler (1982). In the current study, the hotel employers suggested students should take time to study the expectations of the employers and themselves. On the other hand, the students also expected that the employer could listen to what they need. It might be a good starting point as Orr et al (1992) suggest if the education institution should make efforts to narrow down the gap between all the stakeholders.
Although Knutson (1989) and McCleary (1988) suggested that the employers should try to meet the employee’s needs and expectations, in reality, there were some difficulties for the hotel employers in satisfying everyone’s needs. In this study, the students expected offering a supervisory or managerial job after their graduation as indicated by Davidson and Tideswell (1998). However, the students were not experienced in taking up such a post in the perceptions of most of the employers. In addition, there are after all around a hundred and fifty graduates who finish either a higher diploma or a degree programme every year; it is therefore impractical for the employer to offer positions like that of supervisor to every graduate, particularly as Burchett (2001) commented, if graduates had learnt basic skills only.
The findings also showed that the degree students expected the hotels could offer more management trainee positions to them. In general, degree students were more comfortable to have this title rather than waiter or waitress after graduation. Besides, there would be a better chance to promote them into a managerial position once they gained one or two years experience in that area. This could ensure them getting a higher position in the future. This is quite similar to Davidson and Tideswell’s (1998) study in
159 Australia that showed that students expected to work in management-oriented positions after graduation.
A suggestion was made by Cotton (1991) about higher pay for hospitality graduates to attract them to join the industry. However, in this study, no single party mentioned payment. Hopefully the reason might be that since the hospitality industry was still in a recovery period, employees might put job security as the top priority rather than salary. However, the economic climate creates another problem since there are limited vacancies available for graduates. With a small number of people leaving their jobs, the less chances there are that graduates could join the industry.
Even though there were vacancies in the hotel, the degree students showed less interest in working there. So, it seems unfair to blame the employer for not listening to student expectations as endorsed by Casado (1992). There are students who have no intention to join the industry, no matter how attractive the package is, and who still prefer working in other industries.
In this study, it appears that the educators have used their efforts to train up the students to be more professional, conversely the transfer of knowledge into the working place was highly dependent on each individual as stated by Fletcher (1990). Even though Walsh (1998) commented that the educator should cover the skills and competencies for all the students, some students might perform better than others even in the same working environment. To satisfy every individual student expectation was very difficult especially in a large group. In general, every member of teaching staff has to face more than twenty students in a class; it would be difficult to get a thorough understanding of each individual’s thinking. If there were students who showed no interest in working in the hospitality industry, it could be difficult to force them to join the industry. The root of the problem might go back to the process of selection of students. It was suggested by one of the hotel employers that interviewing the applicant might be a solution for this. They could find out whether applicants were willing to work in a people industry, a finding that may go to the heart of the matter (Davidson 1996, and Davidson and Tideswell 1998).
160 Furthermore, four out of the six experienced teaching staff suggested that there should be a close contact with the industry. By doing that, there would be better understanding of the industry needs and this could narrow down the gap between the industry and education as stated by Lennon (1989) and Okeiyi et al (1998). In addition, Maher’s (2001) suggestion could be adopted, that the college and hotel representatives hold a weekly meeting to get better communications between each other.
Table 7.1 Expectations of the main stakeholders
* * ■—— ______Expectation of Expected " ——______Hotel Educator Student That their expectations be understood first V V High qualification in order to get better employment V V To start the career at the bottom V To start as a supervisor or manager V V To be capable in taking up job V To be trained as professional VV
In table 7.1, the different expectations of the main stakeholders and the mismatch expectations between them are shown.
In the main, the findings showed that the educators were not training the student to take up a post as supervisor or manager in the industry. The comments from the hotel managers were that students only met the operational level job requirement. However, the objectives being set in the curriculum were not like that. So, confusion existed between the stakeholders. Furthermore, the current curriculum needed to be reviewed, as there was evidence of it being outdated. This was particularly mentioned by some of the teaching staff.
161 Curriculum development
Curriculum is an important issue for the stakeholders in hospitality management education as stated by Bayliss (1999) and Lumby (2001). In this study, each stakeholder has made comments on the strength and weaknesses of the programme and they have also indirectly contributed ideas on improvement to the hospitality programme.
Aim/purpose of the curriculum
Regarding the comments that were made by the past graduates, they were quite satisfied with the quality of the programme that was provided by the department. Those who are still working in the hospitality industry indicated that the programme includes useful material. In general, the employers and the educators supported the curriculum and thought that what was offered was good for someone who is taking the programme.
In this study, it appeared that there were different expectations of the programme between the degree and higher diploma students. For the degree students, one of the strengths of this programme was upgrading their educational background. On the other hand, the higher diploma students commented that the things learned in class could apply in the working place. The reason might be the difference in curriculum design within the two programmes that one was more business-oriented and one was industry-oriented.
From the comments received from the past graduates, the programme should be more specialised instead of teaching in so many areas. The hospitality educators also agreed that the programme was not specialised enough. In this it concurred with the studies of Davidson and Tideswell (1998) and Rimmington (1999) which showed that the hospitality programme should specialise in the hospitality industry and hospitality subjects should certainly not be excluded from the curriculum.
In addition, past graduates mentioned that the programme had too much theory and practical lessons were not enough. However, if the programme included a lot of practical
162 lessons, the danger would be, as Umbreit (1992) mentioned, that graduates would lose their competitiveness. It therefore appears very difficult to make a balance between theory teaching and practical training. Industry tends to prefer more vocational training while educators rather prefer more theory teaching perhaps because of the classroom setting. This finding was similar to that of Liu et al (1998) in their study of higher education in Hong Kong.
To differentiate from that offered by the vocational training institution, the programme provided by a university should not be too operational. Otherwise, the public would challenge the university as not training up the management skills of future managers. Being influenced by that, the curriculum planner could not put too much of a practical emphasis on the curriculum. This was supported by one of the teaching staff who had a feeling that the programme was too operational and actually counted this as one of the weaknesses. This is also supported by Chung (1988) who commented that in Hong Kong, the curriculum placed too much emphasis on practical components. However, practical experience is important as viewed by the hotel managers, two out of the ten managers commented that students lacked experience. Even the students and hospitality educators expected such skills should have been developed during the study. McNeil (1996) commented that industry expected a ‘cluster-of-skills’ from the students instead of a single skill upon graduation.
One of the experienced teaching staff stated that one of the weaknesses in this programme was lack of a practice hotel. She commented that with such a practice hotel, students could have more opportunities to practice their knowledge and transfer it to the working place. This might be an ideal way to improve students’ experience. However, due to the limited space existing in Hong Kong, it might not be appropriate to build a hotel only for student practice. Reorganising the curriculum which including the internship program as suggested by McNeil (1996) might improve the situation.
163 Pedagogy in the curriculum
When dealing with the delivery of teaching materials, one of the teaching staff commented that students tended to be too reliant on the teachers. Students expect that all the materials are prepared and ready for them. On the other hand, the teaching staff have got used to this way of teaching as endorsed by Pratt (1994) that teachers are the executor of the curriculum. If change was needed, it might take a long time (Shackleton 1989). However for higher education, the prevalent approach in Hong Kong might be thought to be not good for students, as they could not explore their interest in the industry by searching for the relevant materials from different sources. It appears that the pedagogy for the curriculum for hospitality education in Hong Kong is not following Gilmore (1977) and Pring’s (1995) suggestions on the learner-centred approach.
At least, two experienced teaching staff suggested changing the teaching method into a more student-oriented learning style. They felt that the students were too reactive and did not show initiative when searching for the relevant material. To a certain degree, students should be responsible to develop themselves and discover their own interest instead of relying on the teaching staff. Such a suggestion is similar to that of Pring (1995) who stated that the syllabus should be led by the specific competence that the learner wants to acquire.
Following that, it was important for the teacher to give assistance to students. Finch and Crunkilton (1979) stated that this could best meet the individual needs. Regarding the consultation of students, one of the teaching staff mentioned that it was difficult to handle so many students at one time and suggested employing more staff. This could give the teaching staff more time to consult with each student to and try to fulfil individual needs.
Generally, the hotel employers would prefer that the educator looked into the individual needs of the student. This included understanding a student’s own interest and based on that developing the future career. It supported Scrimshaw’s (1983) study that the
164 programme should emphasise the individual learner, knowledge and society. In addition, one of the hotel managers indicated that it could cut down the turnover rate for graduates.
Some constructive suggestions were brought up by the hotel employers and hospitality educators to improve the current situation. They suggested inviting guest lecturers to the classroom. Guest lecturers might bring along up to date information to the students. In addition, four experienced teaching staff suggested that the university should have more contact with the industry. This supports the work of Warwick (1989) and Maher (2001) who also state that education should work closely with the industry.
The content of the curriculum
It was positive that all the stakeholders agreed that the programme was providing sufficient hotel knowledge to the student. Besides, they also commented that the things that student learned could apply in work especially for the operational level.
On the other hand, the past graduates and current degree students agreed that the business related subjects were essential and counted it as one of the strengths of the programme. They expected the programme should be more business-oriented in the way that Powers (1980), Ashley et al. (1995) and Geissler and Martin (1998) suggested that the programme should look at a wider scope instead of one sector only. It was not altogether surprising that the degree students showed less interest in joining the hospitality industry after graduation, as their horizons were wider.
From the hospitality educator perspective, the programme had provided sufficient knowledge, practical skill training, and development of student’s intellectual skills and good supporting facilities such as resource centre and restaurant. With a lot of assignments and group projects, students have the opportunity to develop communication skills and better writing skills. This concurs with the work of Powers (1980) who stated that the education was to provide opportunity for formal development of human and conceptual management skills. All those skills were essential to work as a supervisor or
165 manager in the industry. The curriculum was not only concentrated on vocational training but also higher levels of thinking were developed. It seems that the current hospitality management programme was hying to shift away from what Kivela (1995) said, that the Hong Kong hospitality management programme was influenced by the English curriculum model that was more concerned with a technical skill basis. It tries to get a balance between practical training and theory learning. Besides, the curriculum did not put too much emphasis on the teaching of technical skills, and Umbreit (1992) stated that an overemphasis on those skills would be a disadvantage to the hospitality graduates.
Nonetheless, one of the teaching staff mentioned that the hospitality management programme in HKPU had a lack of strength when compared with other programmes provided by technical institutions. This was a very serious point for the curriculum planner as he stated that the curriculum was really out-dated and could not meet with the industry need. He commented that the educators only used course materials that had been used for a long time without updating with the current issues. This problem was mentioned by Ainley (1990) who stated that the curriculum would become outdated if it remained static.
On the other hand, the hotel human resources managers did not feel that the curriculum was too outdated and was training students. The employers generally have a good impression of the graduates and added that their information technology skills were good. Six out of the ten managers indicated that the students from the HKPU performed well in the workplace when compared with other technical institutions in Hong Kong. Even though the degree students have a greater intention of not joining the hospitality industry than the diploma students, they still performed satisfactorily during the internship training.
Apart from the positive comment, one of the high tariff hotel managers commented that the students were weak in the human relation skills. As Powers (1980) mentions the importance of these skills in the hospitality industry, hospitality educators should develop the student in applying such skills in the workplace.
166 From a more specific point of view on the content of curriculum, past graduates suggested more language subjects; business-related subjects and information technology subjects should be added in the programme. Conversely, there were respondents who indicated the business-related subjects should be deleted from the programme. It appeared that an argument between more business oriented and industry oriented still continues.
Furthermore, both the students and hospitality educators viewed language ability as important when working in the hotel. In spite of this, the hotel employers thought that it was sufficient now. Instead, they have consensus on improving the information technology subjects so as to meet future trends. The importance of teaching information technology in hospitality industry has been endorsed by Buhalis (2001).
In addition, students and educators suggested that the programme should be made more specific to one stream such as hotel or catering, disagreeing with Robertson’s (1997) conclusion not to specialize the subject in higher education. They perceived that the more subject areas they learned, they could only deal with key issues on every subject but not concentrate on a specific topic. This coincides with the views of Goodman and Sprague (1991), Kivela (1995) and David and Tideswell’s (1998) suggestion that hospitality management education should be more industry-oriented. However, regarding internship training, the students expected to be trained in more departments. Conversely, the hotel employers preferred students to work in one department so as to have a better understanding of the operation.
In general, there was still an argument over the curriculum, whether it should be more academic or vocational training, teacher-led or student-centred and academic or technical in nature, between each stakeholder. Even though one stakeholder suggested some specific subjects should appear on the curriculum their suggestion was not totally agreed with by the other two stakeholders. These disagreements might create more difficulties for the curriculum planner when working out the curriculum. Possibly, internship training is one of the remedies for such mismatch of expectations.
167 The organisation of the learning situation - internship programme
Even though some of the respondents amongst past graduates indicated the internship training should be deleted from the programme, the majority of the past graduates stated that it was the one of the strengths in the hospitality management programme. When asking this question with the current higher diploma and degree students, none mentioned it as the strength during the group interview. However the educators supported internship saying that internship training was good. This concurs with the views of Kivela (1995) who stated that internship training is the best way to train up graduates for the real world.
Although the hotel employers suggested that the university should bring the real work environment to the students, there are perceived limitations due to the university campus setting. Not all hotel management schools have a hotel on campus for the student to practice their skills and make use of what they learned in class. To overcome this, the university might need the help of people in industry in giving some placements for the students. There was no doubt that an internship programme was an effective way to train up the students out of the classroom. The hotel employers and hospitality educators mentioned that the internship training was useful and needed. Seven out of ten teaching staff in the department mentioned this was the best way to let the student leam the real working environment. Besides, three managers from the high tariff hotels also supported the saying that concurred with Poon (1996) and Knight and Barton (1985) that an internship programme could develop future managers. Anyway, in this study, the hotel employers stated that the internship training has a lot of new things for student to leam and could develop their skills, and this point is supported by LeBruto and Murray (1994).
All the stakeholders agreed that there should be more internship opportunities given to the students so as to gain real experiences. This concurs with the findings of Chow (1990) and Bagheri (1992) and Ford and LeBruto (1995) that internship training was essential in the programme.
As the three stakeholders perceive that the students are lacking working experience, both
168 the hotel employers and curriculum planner suggested prolonging the training period. These two stakeholders prefer the duration of internship training should be from seven months to one year. In addition, the hotel managers expect the best period was the whole year two rather than the summer break that was suggested by the students and educators. However, Posey et al. (1988) comment that a longer training period might create greater workload for the students.
The higher diploma students indicate that the internship training could provide a chance for them to make a decision for their future career. Such an experience might benefit the students when returning to the industry as mentioned by Downey and Deveau (1987) and Cunningham (1990) who said that students could retain their knowledge from internship for the future use.
The degree students suggested that they might be trained in different departments instead of only one department. The industry and hospitality educators did not support such a suggestion. On the other hand, the higher diploma students perceived they were being treated as cheap labour. These findings did support the Schmutte (1985), Hite (1986) and Berger (1991) study that the hotel employer might make use of internship to relieve their staffing pressures.
Students commented that there was not enough cooperation between the school and industry. There was a need to review the supervision of the internship which should generally be treated more seriously (Brightman 1989).
Without any doubt, internship training is the best period for the student to gain industrial experience. During the internship training, it is also possible to identify the skills and competencies performed by the students. In relation to that, the main stakeholders could project the essential subjects for future curriculum development
169 Assessment/outcomes in terms of the competency approach
For professional jobs both competency and skills are needed as Woodruffe (1993) stated this also applies to hospitality jobs, where only technical skills could not satisfy the customer need. To have a better understanding of the requirements for performing professional duties, the industry could identify the competency and skills needed for the job. On the other hand, by asking the students and educators whether students have developed such competency and skills during their study it could be discovered whether there was a mismatch between stakeholders in this area.
The competency and skills developed by the students
When looking at the mean scores which were given by the students, surprisingly, only two items ‘be able to work co-operatively as a team member’ and ‘be able to accept responsibility’ were agreed by the students as developed in the school. For the rest of the sixteen items, the students indicated that they feel they have not developed those skills during their study. The experience from the internship training might give them a chance to understand what the industry needs. However, such an experience ‘woke them up from their beautiful dream’, and students might wonder whether they developed those skills or not. This is echoed by Longworth (1990) who states that if the graduates were put at the wrong level in the wrong job, they would be unable to demonstrate their skills. On one hand, they worried about their experience; on the other hand, they expected to start their career as a supervisor. Furthermore, students and industry stating that the skills and competencies being taught did not match with the industry needs might blame the hospitality educators as mentioned by Lennon (1989).
By comparing the mean score among three factor groups, students agreed that the programme covering skills and competency related to work (3.009) more than personal (2.753) and knowledge (2.641) during their study. The findings showed that the curriculum shifted to train up competencies with working co-operatively with other team member, having a professional attitude and good presentation in the perception of the
170 students. For other factors such as leading others, students perceived the university provides less training on these issues. Even though there is the writing and reading skills training, the students commented there was insufficient training during their study.
Although the students felt that they have not developed all the skills and competency during their study, they tended to look for jobs like supervisor or manager after graduation, as endorsed by the findings of Davidson and Tideswell (1998). In reality, no employers were willing to take the risk by offering a supervisory post to someone who is not ready for the job. So, the only job that a student could get was to start from the bottom.
The two items that students perceived that they have developed in school were related to the assessment style of the subjects. Since there were a lot of group projects within each subject, students have a greater opportunity of working with other classmates. To get a better result whilst studying, students realised teamwork was very important. Although it was not always related to the subject content, it did build up the communication skills for the student. From the findings, students felt that they have developed such skill during their study. So, they could easily work co-operatively with other team members when in the workplace. These findings are an improvement on those of Kivela and Li (1998) who commented that the Hong Kong educators emphasise the technical skills.
On the whole, students felt that they were weak in leading other people, the importance of this was mentioned by Brownell (1995). As the working experiences of the students were not enough, they are afraid of leading others who have better experience in the organisation. As such competency and skills might not be taught in class and need time to develop, students’ worries might be well founded. This might support the view of employers who insisted on the student starting their career from the bottom.
When comparing the results of the degree and higher diploma students, there were three out of eighteen items that showed significant difference. From the findings, higher diploma students showed a better level of confidence in taking up jobs in the hospitality
171 industry. As the curriculum of the higher diploma programme was more industry-oriented and there were more business subjects for the degree programme, students who were studying the higher diploma would have more chance to develop their skills and competency. However the degree students were more likely to claim that they have developed language skills during their study.
The competency and skills provided by the hotel and catering management programme at the HKPU
Hospitality educators did not agree that the students have developed all the eighteen skills and competencies during their study. There were only eight out of eighteen items that showed a mean score above three. From the educator’s perspective, students only learned the basic knowledge such as ‘have certain degree of practical knowledge’, ‘ability to use relevant computer software’ and ‘update professional knowledge’. Those skills and competencies were related to the general requirement for of the hospitality job. Whereas skills such as ‘have a professional attitude’, ‘manage guest problems’ and ‘lead others effectively’ were not developed by the students during their study.
Those skills and competencies that the educators thought students have not developed were related to supervising subordinates and that was difficult to teach in school. With similar thinking, Vedder (1992) commented that it was difficult for a student to transfer knowledge and skills for solving the problems in the real working condition. The educators perceived that students were too ‘green’ and still lacking in actual working experience to apply all the materials that they learned in school especially transferring management theory into practice.
For other skills such as creativity, professional attitude and writing skills, educators perceived that students were still not meeting the expectations required of industry. Educators might have a feeling that students were not totally interested in the industry even though they were taking the hospitality management programme. They claimed that students only looked for the educational qualification.
172 From the educator’s point of view, students have developed a certain degree of practical skill in school. The hospitality educators commented that even though there was a lot of a material covering management skill, it was not easy for the student to digest it and then apply it in the workplace. Moreover, when a student started their career as a member of operational staff, these materials might not be useful at that time. So, to a certain degree, the curriculum planner might put more emphasis on the technical skill training as commented on by Kivela and Li (1998). Another thing that appeared in this study was that the hospitality educators put less emphasis on developing skills like communication, interpersonal and leadership skills which are stated by Enz et al. (1993) as very important from the employers’ perspective.
The competency and skills expected by the hotel industry
Out of the eighteen skills and competencies items listed on the questionnaire, the hotel employers agreed seventeen items were essential for graduates when working in the industry. Those skills and competencies items included practical skills and the personality of the students as endorsed by Kay and Russette (2000). Among them, they agreed that to ‘have a professional attitude’ was the most important one. As it is so important when working in the hospitality industry, students should really develop these attitudes before choosing a job in this field. In effect, as argued by Ley and Sandler (1982), students should have a better understanding of hotel employer expectations before starting their career.
Students claimed that a hotel employer would only look at their practical skills during employment. However in this study, the employer did not put practical skills as the top priority. Employers believed that such motor skills could be trained up within a certain period. Instead, they tended to look for people who really want to develop their career in the hospitality industry. As Ineson and Kempa (1997) stated the employers took little interest in the candidates’ academic achievement and performance, they were concerned about the commitment and other personality factors when employing new staff.
173 When comparing with the Tas (1988) study in U.S., it was found that the hotel employers in the United States believed that ‘manages guest problems with understanding and sensitivity’; ‘maintain professional and ethical standards in the work environment’ and ‘demonstrates professional appearance and poise’ were important areas of skills and competencies. Hong Kong hotel employers gave a rather low rank (fifteen out of eighteen) for ‘manages guest problems with understanding and sensitivity’. A similar ranking to their US counterparts’ were only given for ‘has a professional attitude’. Hong Kong hotel employers ranked this highest, followed by ‘is honest’ and ‘is able to communicate in foreign language’. Reasons for ranking language highly may be that Hong Kong is an international city and, as such, language ability is an important competency for people who are working in the hotel industry.
On the whole, hotel employers appreciated the overall performance of the graduates. Nevertheless, from the findings, no hotel manager indicated the performance of the student was above his or her expectations. Normally, students just followed the work that was assigned by the employers but did not do extra or delight their employers. The students did not give extra, Oliver (1981) stated that satisfaction was based on whether expectations were confirmed or exceeded.
One of the methods that was not mentioned by the hotel employers during the interview was applying Cotton’s (1991) suggestion of introducing a foundation year of practical training for every candidate to the programme.
The mismatch between the competency and skills expected by hotel employers, students and the university
Overall, there was a mismatch of expectations between the three main stakeholders. Only one out of the eighteen skills and competencies showed no significant difference between the three parties. This item was to ‘be able to work autonomously with minimal supervision’. It was perceived among the three stakeholders that students should be able to work independently and complete what the employer expected.
174 Among the eighteen items of skills and competencies, the hotel employers indicated most of them were important for students working in the hotel industry. However, both the students and hospitality educators showed disagreement on some of the items. It seemed that the students were not ready enough to take up the jobs offered by the industry especially the degree students. In addition, the hospitality educators agreed that students have not developed all round skills during the study. To improve the current situation, the hotel industry could work closely with the education institution in partnership, where as Orr et al. (1992) stated, the educator could provide education for the students and hotel industry could train up the students in the workplace.
When comparing the mean score between students and hospitality educators, significant difference showed in items like practical skills, computer knowledge and updating professional knowledge. The educators claimed that they have provided training for those skills, however students did not agree with that.
Surprisingly, when comparing the mean score between hotel employers and hospitality educators, four out of eighteen items showed no significant differences. Those four skills and competencies included practical knowledge, computer knowledge, updating professional knowledge and ability to lead others. The findings indicated that educators have developed some skills and competencies that could meet the hotel expectations. Lennon (1989) commented that the educator was often criticised for not meeting the hotel needs, but in this study, it might not be totally accepted. Also, it was unfair to say that educators were not doing enough for graduates reaching the higher level, as mentioned by Slattery (1997). The reason might be that students have no confidence in performing the work. Although they have studied the hospitality management programme for nearly three years, most of the things were still new to them. When it comes to internship training, students experience was that a lot of jobs were simple but could not be handled easily at the very beginning. Besides, they also found that the management theory that they learnt in school could not directly apply to the working place. When all those things happened at one time, student might have a feeling that they learnt nothing in school and wasted their time in taking the programme. Furthermore, the hotel employers only
175 offered a junior post for the fresh graduates. This might not be accepted by most of the students since they thought that they were being trained as professionals and should start their career as a supervisor. It was quite obvious that the mismatch between students, hospitality educator and employers existed.
Frankly speaking, the hotel employers claim that the students have high expectations, as mentioned by Casado (1992), might be true. If the students asked for jobs like supervisor or manager after graduation, probably the hotel employer would not offer such a job to them. The hotel employers might worry about the student’s inexperience in leading other team members. As they lack the basic operational experience, it would not be so easy to make an appropriate decision. Sometimes, experience is learnt by mistakes. Moreover, the subordinates might challenge a graduate’s decision if they are not too familiar with things. Once a wrong decision was made, complaints from customers or staff might occur and influence the image of the hotel. So, the hotel managers did not want to take the risk by hiring the fresh graduates as supervisors.
In spite of this, the hotel employers also needed to take the responsibility if such a mismatch happened. The hotel employers should treat the graduates better once they join the industry. Hotel employers should look at the strength of the individual and develop a career path for each student. As the students were trained in school and could bring new ideas to the hotel, employers should make use of their knowledge to improve the quality service in their organisation.
To get a ‘win-win’ situation, the university should be the middleman in linking the other two stakeholders together. The hotel industry should identify the competencies that fit with their company’s future vision as endorsed by Vloeberghs et al (2000). Furthermore, the managers of industry should take part in the advisory board in the university as stated by Warren (1967). Besides, following McFarland and Vickers (1994) suggestion there should be a closer link between schools and the workplace.
176 Accreditation
To improve the current situation, one of the methods that could be adopted was to adapt a system of accreditation to the hospitality management programme as mentioned by Kenny (2001). It was suggested by one of the new teaching staff that accreditation could give a positive image of the hospitality job as professional. No one could then claim to be professional unless certified by the assigned organisation.
One of the new teaching staff suggested accreditation might upgrade the status of the programme being offered by the university. It has been introduced in the U.K. as mentioned by Hospitality Journal (2000). With the support of the hotel industry, the programme provided by the university could be accredited, and the certificate would be the only recognised tool accessing the industry.
Similar thinking is outlined by McHugh (2000), who stated that the hospitality industry was treated as unprofessional and anyone could take up jobs in this field as long as they were willing to work irregular hours. As time has changed, every industry must have ways to measure their standard so as to protect the workers.
To make it happen, the hospitality educator must be more active in carrying out the process. They should stand up and collaborate with the other stakeholders in working out the standard required. Lankard (1995) stated that the effective implementation of national skill standards needs collaboration among all stakeholders - employers, employees, and educators. The hospitality educator should organise meetings with the stakeholders that includes people from industry so as to make a consensus as suggested by Kenny (2001). It is not easy to see the result within a short period. Without the first step, nothing will occur in the future. If all stakeholders could accept this change and be optimistic about such a move it could be good for the industry (Mullins, 1998).
177 Summary
After reviewing different authors and researchers’ ideas and suggestions, it appears that there is a general perception that the employers, the students and the educational institution should work closely to narrow down the gap in expectations. Due to different expectations that exist particularly on the part of employers and students, a mismatch still occurs. If every stakeholder was open to each other and spoke out their needs, the situation might improve. The best situation was ‘knowing you, knowing me’ for the stakeholders. To act as a medium to link up each stakeholder, the educational institution could act as a bridge to bring the other two parties together.
As the role of the educational institution is potentially so important, the influence of the curriculum planners will to a certain degree affect the outcome of the students. If the curriculum planners are willing to accept changes, the students will be more prepared to take up jobs in the hospitality industry and perform what they have learnt in the school. In addition, the transition from secondary education to university education demands students to master new skills, educators should help students to adapt to such moves. Consequently, students would be more comfortable in taking up any job in the company. On the other hand, employers are more appreciative if they can reduce the time in training up the staff.
Regarding the role of employers, they should not give too much pressure to the graduates. They should have a better career plan and development for the graduates. In doing so, graduates would more easily adapt to the working environment and a better commitment to the company would be encouraged.
In most cases, well-designed internship training can benefit all three parties. More and more universities running vocational courses put greater emphasis on internship training. Though there may be a misperception by students that this is a cheap labour job, the internship training can serve as a contact before they really enter the hospitality industry. Students can make use of what they learnt in school and test whether it is workable in the
178 real environment. Sometimes, experience and improvement may come from the mistakes that are made during internship. Such experience cannot always be learned from books or teachers. To satisfy labour demand in the hotel industry, graduates with sufficient and appropriate skills are needed to support and manage the ever-changing business.
In order to avoid losing students to general business programmes and to meet closely the updated needs of the Hong Kong hotel industry, it is important to make sure the hospitality management programme is providing the skills needed by industry for future managers. However, the general opinion from the hotel employers is that the students can only take up an operational job. This is not aligned with the programme’s aim in training students to be supervisors or managers. Hospitality educators should consider the programme to be more specialized in the related field. In practice, by applying the Sandwith (1993) competency domain model, the curriculum should include the five areas - conceptual, leadership, inter-personal, administrative and technical that must relate to the hotel industry base rather than general business. In doing that, there would be a balance in the vocational and management training within the curriculum. For the pedagogy in the curriculum, a student-led approach is suggested by teaching staff since there are different expectations from each individual student. Apart from the compulsory subjects, students should have a choice in selecting subjects related to his/her interest. In assessing the student performance, it is suggested not only to look at their examination results but also at the skills and competencies developed during their study.
Finally, it is suggested that the skills and competencies in performing certain jobs should be standardised in the hospitality industry so as to narrow down the gap between the hospitality educator, employer and employee in the future. With the accreditation of the hospitality programme, students would have a better understanding of the skills needed in performing the job and have confidence in taking up certain jobs. Standardisation and improvement of service, would mean that the actual hotel customers could benefit from the quality service delivery and be willing to return and spend money in the company again, with all the economic implications that are involved.
179 Overall, the findings in this study show the skills and competency expected of graduates as perceived by the employers. However, it also reflects the somewhat unhealthy growth of the hotel industry in Hong Kong. Even though everyone believes in the importance of education and information technology in running the business, the hotel industry in Hong Kong still moves very slowly in that direction. Whilst there are many pressures put on the industry, the hotel employers do not want ‘outsiders’ interfering in their operation of their business. They would seem to be taking that attitude towards the provision of academic training for new recruits; an issue from this study which could give alarm to the hospitality education institutions. The educational institutions are the places training up qualified employees, however, the employers did not show any interest in hiring the graduates of these institutions. The problem must be addressed. Is it because the curriculum is not sufficiently related to the working place, or is the employer unwilling to face the reality that education is important since they were promoted to their present job simply through their hard work and experience? A culture where qualifications are not regarded as important cannot change in a short period of time. All those concerned with the hotel and catering industry in Hong Kong and the education of new recruits for the industry are affected by the questions raised.
In a nutshell, the findings of this study identified the mismatch of expectations between stakeholders that had previously been identified in earlier research. Curriculum control may be needed if the hotel management education is to be able to match the needs of industry. Partnership between hotels and universities should be encouraged to create synergy in developing training programs that not only meet the immediate needs of the hotels, but also address the long-term goals of the hotels, as well as the desire of hotel managers and employee for life long career development in the hotel industry.
180 CHAPTER EIGHT: CONCLUSIONS
Introduction
After the hand over to mainland China in 1997, Hong Kong SAR maintains its attraction for tourists. The number of arrivals is rising every year especially visitors from mainland China. The launch of Disneyland in year 2005/06 also promises a bright future to the tourism industry and hotel industry.
With the large numbers of visitors coming to Hong Kong every year, a professional workforce is needed to provide high quality in service industries such as the hotel industry (Gronroos 1989). It would seem essential that the full cohort of well-qualified graduates continually feed the workforce from hospitality education courses. It appears from this study that no matter how hard the university works; it is unlikely that a high percentage o f graduates will be retained in the industry. Only one third of the graduates of Hong Kong Polytechnic University who responded really started their career in the hospitality industry. This chapter identifies some of the reasons behind the fact that relatively small proportions of graduates are joining the industry. The researcher identifies the mismatch of expectations between stakeholders and makes recommendations relating to it. At the same time, this chapter looks at the hospitality management programme provided by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University to see whether changes might lead to an improvement in the current situation relating to both retention and the existing mismatch of expectations. Following that, a new model of controlling the service standard is suggested as a way of improving the current situation for all stakeholders.
As stated in the first chapter, this study addressed the following research questions:
1. What are the expectations of the three main stakeholders in training for the hospitality industry?
181 2. What are the essential skills and competencies needed for working in the hospitality industry as perceived by students, university and employers? 3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the hospitality management programme offered as perceived by students, university and employers? 4. What is the importance of the internship programme? 5. How is it possible to improve the current hospitality management programme?
Before considering the answers to these questions, one important issue needs to be addressed first, this is: why are graduates not joining the hospitality industry after gradation as they spend three years studying to prepare for that?
Reasons that graduates are not joining the hospitality industry
Initially, the root of the mismatch problem may be caused by the social perception of the hotel industry in Hong Kong. Generally, those people working in the hospitality industry are still perceived as ‘low achievers’ within Chinese culture (Anon 2000c). Even though the graduates have spent three years in the university and been awarded a degree or higher diploma in hotel management, the general perception of society still ranks them as second class when compared with graduates from a Medical Department or Business Department. When looking back at the findings, it is not difficult to tell that some students choosing this programme just wanted to get a higher qualification but were not specifically interested in hotel management.
Moreover, the nature of work in the hotel industry is not attractive enough to retain the graduates staying there (Mok 1988). Apart from the unsociable working hours, there is no standard control among hotels. Chan and Chow (1998) and Ingram (1999) mentioned that potential students have a negative attitude towards the hotel industry after working there no matter whether in Hong Kong or other countries. In this study, students felt that anyone could take an operational job in the hotel. They also commented that they did not have any competitive advantages when working in the hospitality industry. Unlike starting a career as an accountant or doctor, students perceived that they could not claim
182 to be a professional when working in the hospitality industry. In addition, the job prospects are unclear when working in the hotel. There is no guarantee how many years it will take a graduate to be promoted to a higher level even though Baum (1989) claimed that rapid promotion was an advantage of taking a hospitality course. Since graduates felt that they have received proper training from the university, they were unwilling to join an industry that did not provide a clear career path for them.
Furthermore, during the internship training, students found that the things that they learnt in their course might not match with the hotel expectation (Knutson 1989). So, they felt let down by the university where they felt that the wrong impression of the hotel industry had been projected. When asked about the skills and competencies that they have developed in the university, most of the students commented that they felt that they were not well prepared to start their work in the hospitality industry.
It is not easy to change society’s perception of the hotel industry in a short time, however it would seem appropriate for the three main stakeholders in this industry to do something to turnaround the situation. Before making any suggestion about that, the mismatch of the expectations of the stakeholders is identified.
Expectations of training for the hospitality industry
Ordinarily, the students expect to be trained as professionals in the hospitality industry (Pavesic and Brymer 1990), although there are some students who only want to get a higher academic qualification irrespective of what programme they are taking. The hospitality educators also expect that graduates will develop their skills and competencies during their study and one day become a professional in the field (Kivela 1999). The hotel employer expects that students would have learnt everything in their course including both practical and management skills. They also expect students would accept an offer of working at operational level when starting their first job and have generally a positive attitude towards the industry (Sparks and Bradley 1994, Chak 1999).
183 In this study, one of the main findings is that the mismatch of expectations between stakeholders centres on the jobs being offered to the graduates. Both graduates and the university expect students to be trained as supervisors or managers in the hotels but the hotels did not see things in the same way. On one hand, the students asked for higher- level jobs, on the other hand, they could not satisfy the employer’s expectation. So, the hotels felt that they could only offer operational jobs to graduates from the university at the very beginning of their careers. The industry indicated that graduates should have developed essential skills and competencies if they wanted to be employed as a supervisor in the working place. However, the graduates and university perceived that they have not all developed during their study. The three main stakeholders were all in agreement when applying the one-way ANOVA on the skills and competencies in this study.
During the telephone interviews with the hotel employers, it appeared that they have a good impression of the students from the university saying that they performed well and met the hotels’ expectations. However, the employers indicated that this satisfaction only applied for entry level that is at the operational level. It seemed that the educators expected the students should have developed certain supervisory skills and competencies during their studies but the student could not present evidence of this in the workplace (Vedder 1992). On the contrary, students commented that the material that they learned in school was inadequate when applied in work which Bereiter (1990), Brown and Duguid (1989) and Resnick (1987) had also pointed out in previous studies. Overall, whether the programme materials were sufficient or not is heavily reliant on the individual’s expectations. Another possible reason for graduates not reaching the hotel expectations might be that the syllabus was too flexible and not targeted sufficiently to the hotels’ needs, a view held by the curriculum planner of the University course.
The past graduates tended to share the same opinion as the current students that the programme was too theoretical and that practical lessons were inadequate. In addition, they felt that the subjects should be more specific and not superficially dealing with a range of subjects.
184 The findings of the study showed that, from the employers’ perspective, the hospitality management programme should include both management theory and practical skills. The programme should cover topics like writing skills, communication skills and human relation skills. Hotel employers do think that managing people is very important when working in this industry and they expect students to have learned it in training. Moreover, the hotel employers expect that the graduates could take up any post after employment. However, they did consider that graduates from HKPU were weak in management skills and in practice tended to put them in operational roles in the first place.
Sharing the same thinking as the employers, hospitality educators also expect that students could develop both management skills and practical skills during their study. Furthermore, educators put more emphasis on developing student’s intellectual skills rather than motor skills so as to prepare them to take up a post as a supervisor. In general, they also agreed that giving an understanding of hotel operations and the practical skills was essential for students.
Conversely, when students came to work, they found that the things that they learnt in school could not totally apply in the working place as they were only being offered places as operational staff. They could not put all the management skills that they leamt into practice, (Vedder, 1992) also confirmed this. Graduates might therefore feel frustrated and unwilling to accept the reality. In addition, the hotel employers did not provide sufficient guidelines to the graduates saying that they should have leamt all this in university. In the end, a large number of graduates decided to shift to other unrelated industries thus disregarding all the time and efforts spend in taking the hotel management programme. This situation constitutes a tragedy for the hospitality industry and represents a waste of resources for all stakeholders.
On the other hand, it could still be argued that the students were still young and had not yet made up their mind regarding their future career. As graduates in the hospitality department were mostly aged about twenty, they were uncertain about their future, as
185 were those researched by Getz (1994). The more the choice in selecting a job the more the chances increase that the student would not join the industry.
From the findings, students agreed that the most suitable job after graduation was actually in the hotel and catering related industry. However, such findings did not imply that students would prefer working there. In other words, suitability did not equal a ‘must’.
Over eighty per cent of the respondents indicated that the materials they learned in training were related to the hotel and catering industry. However, there were a small number of students who disagreed with that. This group of respondents pointed out that the learning materials did not totally reflect the needs of the hotel industry. Furthermore, some degree students indicated that they would only work in the hotel industry if they could not find another better job. As Ivory (1988) commented a lot of graduates were unwilling to begin the career at the bottom. Spark and Bradley (1994) also stated that the graduates had a lack of practical skill and were unwilling to start at bottom and that led to a lot of disappointment for employers. Besides, students might think that they were well trained and that it is easy to get a job in the industry, Casado (1992) also stated that students considered that they were well qualified to be employed by every employer. Nevertheless, the hotel employers do not generally agree this.
It could be argued that the industry should understand what the students expect in the work place. Cotton (1991) suggests the hotels should provide more attractive pay and associate package so as to retain graduates. In addition, hotel employers should choose hospitality graduates first when employing new staff (Okeiyi et al., 1998). It would encourage graduates to start their career in an industry that relates to their study and help the industry to provide a better service in the future. Internship training is generally seen as providing a golden opportunity for the industry and educators to build up a close relationship for the graduates when choosing their future job in the hospitality industry.
186 Essential skills needed for working in the hospitality industry
On the whole, it is not easy to get a consensus among the three main stakeholders on skills and competency. Even though the skills and competency can be trained in the course, there is a need to consider the existence of personal competence (Woodruffe, 1993; Siu, 1995 and Walsh, 1998). In reality, individuals will have different performances in the same job.
In this study, the hotel employers pointed out the importance of the skills and competencies needed when working in the hotel industry. The hospitality educators did not claim that all of the eighteen attributes were developed during the study, but at least felt that the students should be generally ready for taking up a job in the hospitality industry. However, the students did not have great confidence or felt unready to start their career in the hotel industry since they felt they were still not too familiar with the real working environment.
Additional skills required
From the past graduates’ findings, there was an emphasis on language abilities as important especially for their first job. From the students’ point of view, practical skills were felt to be important. In addition, computer knowledge and language abilities are becoming more essential and that also accords with the finding of Go (1990) and Ainley (1990) that new technology became demanding in the future tourism industry.
In spite of everything, nowadays in the hotel industry, there is considerable debate at present as to whether the service industry should follow the trend of shifting towards more automation, or should remain with an emphasis on personal service provided by human resources (Hobson and Bushell 1994, Go and Kivela 1995). From the investor’s point of view, less human resources could be cost-effective, since labour costs are the largest items of expenditure within an organisation. On the other hand, technology will make staff worry about losing their jobs especially those who are relatively unskilled.
187 Such unskilled employees may therefore be against changes. However, from the customer point of view, the tendency is to look for efficient and better service no matter whether they are served by people or by computer. Customers also expect to have more personal service since this is what they see as value for money. Whether served by people or computer, customers will evaluate the service provided by the company and make a decision on whether to return or not (Han and Leong, 1996).
In the Hong Kong business sector, the replacement of work done by human resources by computer is not new and this is without doubt the global trend for the future. Nevertheless, hoteliers still have some reservations about it. They tend to use computers only in back of house jobs such as room bookings. For guest contact jobs such as those of waiter, managers rely primarily on human resources. Most hoteliers have a lack of confidence in using the computers. They are not sure about the views of the customers and their acceptance of computers. If such a change affects the service, the customer will depart and they will lose revenue.
Although it is a little bit too late to introduce advanced technology in the hotel industry; the new cyber hotel, ‘Rosedale on the Park’ was launched on February 2001, is the new milestone for the hotel industry in Hong Kong. The Local Area Network (LAN) system and electronic inventory system were installed during construction. It can provide better control within the hotel and speed up the procedures in purchasing. The Executive Assistant Manager, Mr. Wong, who has worked in the hotel industry for more than twenty years, stated that even though the hotel has the most high level of technology installed, they still employ a lot of staff to serve the customers, and have not reduced their head count. When he delivered a talk to hotel final year students in PolyU on May 2001, he emphasised that technology could speed up the process but would not totally replace manpower in the foreseeable future. From his perspective, there were a large number of tasks that still needed people to perform them. He believed that customers spend most of their time with the computer, for leisure time, they really wanted to see and talk with other people. It also supported Dunckel and Taylor’s (1990) comment that the customers
188 look for more personal attention. However, this differs from the findings of Jones (1999) that computer would totally replace human resources in hotel industry.
To face the new challenge, the use of technology must not be neglected in the training programme. Training for the employees and students must include knowledge of new technology so as to develop high performance staff for the industry.
In this study, hotel employers thought that a positive attitude at work was important and the hospitality educators also supported this. As the introduction of new technology in Hong Kong hotels was still under development, not too many people working in hotels relied heavily on it. In addition, there are not too many hotel guestrooms that provided the Internet service. This is the reason why hotel employers did not put the information technology knowledge in the priority. Instead, they primarily looked for someone who was really willing to work in the industry, where the main emphasis is still on service provision by people.
Curriculum development
Who should take up the responsibility for narrowing the gap? It is recommended the hospitality educator should make a start first since they are the ones who link the other stakeholders together (Hospitality 2000). The help of a professional body could speed up the process (fig. 8.1). Starting with the input stage, a careful and detailed plan can avoid confusion and best fit the students' and industry's needs. There could be processes like discussion with industry professional body, members of teaching staff and even the feedback from past graduates (outcomes). As the teaching staff are the ones who deliver the material to the student, they should participate in the meeting so as to think about how the pedagogy in the curriculum could best be applied. A more student-led approach might be more generally preferred since different students are likely to have different expectations of the course. When it comes to the output stage, a further way in which the gaps between stakeholders could be reduced is if a professional body could act as a control mechanism in ensuring graduates match with the industry standard.
189 Figure 8.1 Revised curriculum management (derived from Kaufman and English 1981, utility model for education)
Professional bodv
Input Processes Output Outcomes and Products
When designing the curriculum content, it is impossible to get away from the component of technical skills. Generally, technical skill is considered essential when the three major stakeholders mention working in the hospitality industry. Even though it is being argued that technical skill training should appear in a vocational school but not in university, such skill training could add competitive advantage for the students when looking for future employment (Tuckman, 1970). Besides, because of the nature of work in the hospitality industry, work experience through practical training can help the students develop their own interest and might fit into what Pring (1995) suggests as a learner- centred designed curriculum.
With regard to additions to the existing content, since language subjects are so important when working in the hospitality industry, as mentioned by the students and teaching staff, there was an apparent need to add such study to the curriculum. Buhalis (2001) stated that the tourism industry is facing the revolution of information technology in the world especially during the last decade (Hospitality, 2001). With the increased usage of new technology, the programme should also add some advanced technology such as e- commerce in hospitality management.
190 Apart from the subjects to be added in the programme, there was a general feeling from the hospitality educators that the programme was too flexible. It was suggested that the programme should be more specific in one area and that subjects should not be too business-dominated. In other words, there should be more hotel-related subjects as mentioned by Kivela (1995) and Davidson and Tideswell (1998). If hospitality programmes are not too business-oriented in Hong Kong it will help to differentiate the hospitality curriculum from the general business management programme. This could also ensure a competitive advantage for the hospitality graduates.
Internship programme
There is no doubt that internship training can help to bridge the gap between the university expectations and hotel industry expectations as stated by McMahon and Quinn (1995). It is a golden chance for the students to experience what the real world expects so as to prepare them better before joining the industry (Lennon, 1989; Baum, 1989; Orr et al., 1992; Cotton, 1991; Kivela, 1995 and Geissler and Martin, 1998). On the other hand, it gives students an opportunity to make up their mind about what direction they should go in the future as stated by Cunningham (1990). In addition, students can decide what subjects should be taken in the rest of their education and helps in some ways with Pring’s (1995) suggestions that the curriculum should be student-led.
Although there is a suggestion as made by Blackwell et al (2001) that a longer training period would be better, the three main stakeholders in this study prefer four months to a maximum of a year. It has also been recommended by Posey et al (1988) that the training period should not be too short or too long.
Accreditation
Since human resources are still playing an important role in the hotel operation, high quality staff are needed. The training of qualified employees must be continued.
191 Regarding the training of qualified employees, the responsibilities fall on either the hotel itself or the educational institution. Where employees do not receive formal training from the training institution they might have different performance levels for the same task since every hotel has its own standard. The Hong Kong Hotel Association has seldom interfered with the individual hotel’s operation. However, the employers claim that students trained by the educational institution were not capable of performing a simple job. Introducing some control mechanism on the service standard that is similar to total quality management or BS5750 may solve such a mismatch in expectations. Alternatively, if curriculum control is to be concentrated at national level it may give help to the current situation too (table 8.1). The government could set up a system and assign an appropriate body to take up the responsibility similar to the role of HCIMA in UK. Following that, the appropriate body could project clear guidelines for the educators and hotels to follow. In order not to loose the professional autonomy of educators, the pedagogy in the curriculum could be left to individual staff as it is now. Having said that, the method of evaluating the output (standards of the student) could still be set by the government but not the individual so as to maintain the required standard. Furthermore, such standards might be expected to cut down the number of complaints from the hotel customers and build up a good image for the industry and the city.
Table 8.1 Suggested curriculum control in Hong Kong hospitality education (derived from Lawton’s model)
aspect level pedagogyaims evaluation 1 national) 2 regional) 3 institutional
5 individual
192 It is not easy to control service standards in the hospitality industry especially in Chinese society. With the great influence of Confucius, Chinese are self-disciplined and very obedient to the leader and rules (Hofstede 1980). They will follow instructions from the top without querying the reason behind it, even though it may not be totally supported by all the people. Understanding such Chinese behaviour, the standardisation of service in the hospitality industry must be documented and a clear message passed down from the top. This could provide a guideline for the hotelier to follow and speed up the procedure in application. The Chairman of the Hong Kong Hotel Association might be a desirable person to act as the leader of the industry. More importantly, the Government of the SAR must encourage and support it if such a standard is to have credence. Furthermore, it is suggested that a professional body could accredit people who are working in the hospitality industry.
The Hong Kong Hotel Association is a suitable accreditation organisation. The rationale is that this association is the only recognised organisation in Hong Kong relating to the hotel industry. Hoteliers and hotel owners in Hong Kong already support the association. There are clear guidelines and instruction for the members to follow and also for those who want to join as a member. However, in the meantime, there is no ‘real’ authority given to the hotel association. The main duties of the hotel association are only providing hotel guestroom information for the visitors and operating some training programmes for the hotel employees.
Generally, such an accreditation system could raise the social perception of the hotel industry. It could also standardize the service provided by a qualified employee and provide additional clarity for employers, educators and students.
193 The relevance of the findings to the health of the industry
In this study, the findings show that there is a mismatch between the expectations of the main stakeholders. As the hotel industry cannot attract all the qualified graduates to join the industry, there is an impact on the tourism industry and the resulting service provided by the hotel staff. Furthermore, educational institutions need to think of different ways to maintain and improve the programme in the university to fit the needs of stakeholders since the tourism industry affects the economic growth of Hong Kong and the health of the society.
Recommendations for the Hong Kong hotel and catering management education, students and hotel industry.
To overcome the problem of mismatch, first of all, the hotel industry should project a positive image to the public. Accreditation of the hospitality management programme can upgrade the status of both the institution and the student as mentioned in staff interviews. On the other hand, the university should aim to interview all the new intakes so as to select suitable candidates for joining the programme as was suggested by hotel employers. Consideration should be given to more consultation between educators and industry. Also, the programme itself could be more specialised and include language and technology training so as to strengthen its competitiveness. Without any exception, it was agreed that the internship training or co-operative training should be continued. For the hotel side, only certified workers could be employed in the hotel industry as suggested by McHugh (2000). In addition, it is suggested more authority should be given to the Hotel Association, as it is the only representative for the whole industry.
194 Figure 8.2 Revised relationships between the main stakeholders in the hotel industry
Qualified employee (certified)
Hong Kong Hotel Association (accreditation organisation appointed) by government
> Hotel <■
Educational institution
Student 4 - t t__ ^ Employee
Because of the importance of quality employees in the hotel industry, a new model (figure 8.2) is introduced to strengthen the skill of the staff and help to recognise the graduate as a ‘professional’ in the society. The cycle starts from the top - ‘Government’, then down to the Hong Kong Hotels Association. The Hotels Association could be appointed as the accreditation organisation for the hotel industry. Then, follows the three main stakeholders - hotel, graduates and educational institution. In standardising the level of service among hotels, the current employees are also involved in the cycle. There could be a closer relationship between the hotel, educational institution, student and employee. With this new relationship, a hotel employer can ask the help of the educational institution in providing relevant programs for the current employees so as to bring up their service standards. On the other hand, the students can more easily pick up work in a hotel as they might have a better understanding and relationship with the industry before graduation.
195 Government
To guarantee the quality of service provided, qualified employees are needed. There could be some legal guidelines set by the government that every member of staff can follow (Lawton, 1983). Without such guidelines, people are unlikely to take any change seriously especially within the Chinese culture. By providing standards, every member of staff could pass an assessment set by the Hotels Association that accredits them as a professional worker. This could ensure that the staff being employed by the hotel would meet the required standards in a similar way to the way that tour guides in Hong Kong are accredited.
Hong Kong Hotel Association
As the only recognised association for the hotel industry, all the members should follow the requirement set by the association. It is suggested that the role of the association be as an authority that could give accreditation to the hotel and also to the employees in this industry. This association could set up the standard for its members to follow. In doing that, looking at the standards set out by the HCIMA could be a starting point. As the standards are being recognised internationally, it could help the Hong Kong Hotels Association in speeding up the process. Before finalising the standard for the hotel operations, there are several steps needed.
Customarily, in Chinese culture, there is a dislike of sharing viewpoints with others especially if those are their competitors (Yang 1981). People are in a sense selfish. Initially, the Hotel Association would need to get a consensus from all members about the introduction of such a practice. It would be better if it was supported by all the members of this Association. To make it more workable, the involvement of government would be required in order that it is binding on all.
196 Hotel industry
A hotel consists of different departments such as front office, housekeeping department and others. To set the standard, it is better to start with each department first since different departments may have different working procedures.
In Hong Kong hotels, there are formal committees for the department heads who work for the specific departments. They include the Front Office Manager Committee, the Executive Housekeeper Committee, the Human Resources and Personnel Manager Committee, the Food and Beverage Manager Committee, the Hotel Accountant Committee and others.
For example, the Executive Housekeeper Committee, has a monthly meeting with other hotel Executive Housekeepers sharing their viewpoint on different aspects. It may be a good opportunity for the department heads to discuss the standardisation of service within their department. However, it is impractical to involve all the Executive Housekeepers in the planning stage. It could start from a voluntary basis. A group of those who wish to participate in the exercise could form a working group for each department, using the U.K. experience as a reference point.
As the process of setting the standard takes time every participant must be warned before it starts. It will not be very easy to get a final conclusion on every step during the operation. The function of the work group is to set up the standard in their own area so it can apply in all the hotels under the supervision of the Hotels Association. During the process, it will need to consult with some operational level and supervisory level staff also the curriculum planner and the teaching staff from the educational institution since they are the group of people who execute the process, this would be similar to the work of North West Skills Forum in the U.K.
The role of the hotel department head is to identify each task in the daily operation. After that, the working group could follow each topic and set up the guidelines so as to achieve
197 the task. It would be necessary for industry and education to work together. The hospitality educator could gather all the suggestions from the hotel side and document them. Another role of the educator is to test whether suggestions can be put into practice especially for the students. As different tariff hotels may have different standards, it is better to have a common way of measuring the basic performance in each position.
Educational institution
The role of the higher education institution is to train people as professional employees. They need to work closely with the hotel association. The educator needs to match whatever changes in the industry standard. Furthermore, the partnership between educational institutions and the hotel industry can build up good relationship with each other. On the other hand, the hotels could benefit and could update changes in the hotels through drawing lessons from the research done by the teaching staff. Such information may draw their attention towards training needs.
Besides training up the new students, they also need to train up the current employees who do not have a formal qualification. Those who have worked in a department for a long time will have gained sufficient working experience and will not need to go through all the processes in formal education. Workplace assessment may be given to them to test their knowledge. Once they have passed in the assessment, a certificate could be given to the employee by the institution that is accredited by the hotel association. Holding the certificate indicates they are a professional in that area, as in the U.K.
Students
As they are the potential workers in the hotel industry, the industry and education institution should try their best to retain qualified employees. First of all, the industry should improve its image from the people perspective. The hotel industry can project a positive image to parents and students through media such as career talks and exhibitions.
198 The hotel industry could go to schools, may be even starting from primary schools, sharing what happens in the industry.
Those who apply to the hotel management programme in the university should go through an interview process. The purpose of the interview is to make sure applicants have some knowledge about the hotel industry and have an interest to develop their career in this field. Besides, it would give students an opportunity to ask about anything related to the programme that they are not clear about. Additional credits could be given to those applicants who have worked in the field before. It is believed that the experience that is gained by the applicants might give them a better understanding of what the needs are in the industry. They also have a clear picture of what the real working environment is without any illusion.
As different students may have different expectations, educators should counsel every individual and advise them about their future career development. If students are unclear about the job in the field, they should approach the teacher and seek advice. Students can also ask questions during their internship training to strengthen their competitiveness. All three major stakeholders mention that internship training is important; more communication is needed between the hotel and the educational institution to make use of this golden opportunity to provide a positive impression to the students.
Current employees
Some of the employees who are working in the hotel department may not have formal education from the institution. The hotel offers training especially to those who have worked in the industry for a long time. After the standardisation of the service, the education institution might be one of the sources from which the employee can leam knowledge. In other words, after taking the course in the institution that is endorsed by the Hotels Association, the employee can go to any hotel and perform the same duty with only minimum training from the new hotel. By doing that, it can cut down the time for the hotel in training up new staff and the new employees can easily adjust themselves in
199 the new working place. This can provide a ‘win-win’ situation to the hotel, staff and the education institution.
Those employees, who have worked for a long time within the same context, could go back to the education institution to update their knowledge and skills. Those topics should be discussed with the hotel association first. Such a retraining exercise could motivate the staff in work and also prepare employees for future advancement. Once they obtain the supervisory certificate from the association, they could be treated as a qualified supervisor in that area.
The current employee can also ask the Hotels Association about the level of standards in their working area. Employees can check on this to see whether they have achieved it or not during their work.
Co-operation between the hotels, via the Hotels Association and the educators, would mean that the status of the students can be confirmed by the industry. If they are being awarded certified hospitality employee status, they are treated as a professional in that area, and would have more confidence in taking up hotel work after graduation.
Summary
Hong Kong is moving towards being a high technology city. To a large extent, the service industry must follow. At the same time, hoteliers must not overlook the ever- increasing demands from their customers. Customer needs directly affect the survival of the hotel industry. To satisfy customer needs is one of the key issues in a company’s survival. A constant and high standard of service is a necessity for the service industries. It is suggested to control the standard of service in the hospitality industry through an accreditation system that brings together education and industry via a professional association.
200 To attract more graduates to join the industry, qualifications could be accredited by the industry first. This would mean that levels of service would be standardised to give credit to the graduates and by offering training to existing employees. By doing that, it will give an impression that the hotel industry is also one of the professions rather than offering only low ranking jobs. This would mean that those who can provide a certificate will be employed by the industry thus raising the status of this industry.
Last but not least, the main stakeholders in the hotel industry must work closely together and frequent meetings are necessary. Since work experience is essential in this industry (Blackwell et al., 2001), there are ready-made opportunities for educators to work closely with the industry. Educators should include internship training for students, and hotel employers should encourage students to work in this industry as a future career. Considering the success of the accreditation system in the U.K. and with the help of the Hong Kong Hotels Association, accreditation could be given to qualified employees. This could guarantee that the services provided by the employees are meeting the hotel association’s requirements. In the long run, more visitors can enjoy their stay in Hong Kong, more revenue will be generated and the industry will grow healthier than before.
Significance of research findings
On the whole, there is still a mismatch in the expectations between the main stakeholders in the education of hotel industry staff. It is unrealistic to change all the things at one time. As suggested, it could start from the government. Gradually, the social perception of the hotel industry could be changed. Identifying the job as ‘professional’ is important for all the stakeholders including the customers and it could build up an image to the public and make the work more attractive to graduates.
Following that, the Hong Kong Hotels Association should begin to think about the required standards needed for individual departments in a hotel. After setting up the standards, accreditation could be given by institutions or universities providing training courses to the students.
201 Even though there is an argument that the development of a common set of competencies might lead to inflexibility for hospitality educators, the standardisation of service could be seen as a commitment between the three stakeholders. It could narrow down the different expectations among them. The establishment of common recognised standards could lead to enhanced esteem and professional status for the industry.
When designing the curriculum based on the standards required, it should remain to some extent vocationalised. In other words, having considered the nature of jobs in this industry, practical training should not be deleted from the programme. As it is considered that a university should not provide too much practical training in class, internship or co operative training is the best solution. In addition, the subjects appearing in the programme should be more specialised in the hospitality area and include language and technology.
Another important finding in this study was concerning the new intakes for the programme. Only suitable candidates should be selected to join the programme. Although interviewing every applicant might take a lot of time, in the long run, it could cut down the number of students who do not really want to develop their career in the hospitality industry but only look for a higher qualification.
From time to time, the three main stakeholders should work closely together and contribute ideas in a recognised forum. Everyone should have a clear goal, that is, to provide the best service through the best performance of every employee in the hotel industry.
202 REFERENCES:
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229 Appendices
Appendix 1. The major universities/institutions providing hospitality management education
Area Name o f university/institution Course provided Duration Internship training Australia Australia International Hotel Bachelor of Business in hotel 4 years 900 hours School management The University of Queensland Two associate degrees and Bachelor 3 years 24 weeks degree in Hospitality, Tourism and Travel Management La Trobe University Bachelor of Business in hospitality 3 years 1,000 hours management Greece Alpine Centre for Hotel & Diploma in Hotel Management 3 years 46 weeks Tourism Management Studies Switzerland Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne Degree in hospitality management 3 years 1 year Glion Hotel School Bachelor of Business 3 years 1 year Administration in hospitality management 1HTTI School of Hotel Bachelor of Arts in International 3 years 46 weeks Management Hospitality and Tourism Management, Higher Diploma in Hotel Management United Manchester Metropolitan BA (Hons) and HND Hospitality & 4 years 48 weeks Kingdom + University Licensed Retail Management Eire Oxford Brookes University BSc (Hon) in hotel & restaurant 4 years 40 weeks management Shannon College of Hotel Degree and diploma in hotel 4 years Summer break in Management management year 4 University of Strathclyde BA degree in hotel and hospitality 4 years Summer break management Thames Valley University BA (Hon) in hospitality 3 years 1 year management University of Surrey BSc (Hon) in hotel & catering 4 years 1 year management The University of Ulster BA (Hon) in hospitality 4 years 48 weeks management United States Boston University Bachelor degree in hospitality 4 years 800 hours and 10 administration weeks (working in foreign country) Champlain College Degree in hotel-restaurant 4 years 260 hours management University of Houston Bachelor of Science in hotel and 3 years 600 hours restaurant management Cornell University Bachelor of Science in hotel 4 years 1 year administration University of New Hampshire Bachelor in hospitality management 4 years 640 hours University of Massachusetts Bachelor degree in hotel, restaurant 4 years 800 hours and travel administration Johnson State College BA in hospitality, travel and tourism 3 years 1 year management Pennsylvania College of Degree in food and hospitality 4 years Summer break Technology management Grand Valley State University Degree in hospitality & tourism 4 years 7 credits management
230 Appendix 2. Institutions providing hospitality programmes in Hong Kong
Name o f University/Institution Programmes provided Internship training The Chinese University of Hong Bachelor Degree in Hotel Management Not decided Kong The Hong Kong Polytechnic Master of Science in Hotel & Tourism Management Not required University Bachelor Degree in Hotel & Catering Management 12 weeks Bachelor Degree in Tourism Management 12 weeks Higher Diploma in Hotel & Catering Management 1,200 hours Institution of Vocational Higher Diploma/Diploma in Hotel & Catering Co-operative training Education (Chai Wan) Higher Diploma/Diploma in Travel & Tourism 20 weeks Institution of Vocational Higher Diploma/Diploma in Hotel & Catering Co-operative training Education (Haking Wong) Higher Diploma/Diploma in Leisure Studies 20 weeks Higher Diploma/Diploma in Travel & Tourism 20 weeks Diploma in Hotel Chinese Catering Operations 20 weeks Variety of Vocational Certificate courses in hotel & 1 month catering and tourism Hotel Industry Training Centre Variety of Certificate courses in hotel & catering Not required Caritas Bianchi College of Certificate in Hotel Business 1 month Careers Certificate in Tourism Business 1 month Caritas Institution for Further and Certificate in Hotel Business 1 month Adult Education Hong Kong Baptist University Variety of short-term certificate courses in hotel & Not required catering operations HKCS Kwun Tong Vocational Certificate in Basic Cookery for Catering industry 3 months Training Centre Certificate in Food & Beverage & Front Office Service 2 months Certificate in Hotel & Catering Service 1 month
231 Appendix 3. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University co-operative Education Agreements with firms
Company Name Date Kentucky Fried Chicken of Birdland (HK) Ltd. 4 February 1999 The Hong Kong Jockey Club 16 March 1999 McDonald’s Restaurant (HK) Ltd. 23 March 1999 Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre 29 March 1999 Disney World-wide Services, Inc 26 April 1999 LSC Lufthansa Service Asia Ltd. March 2000 Marriott Corporation April 2000 Harbour Plaza Hotel & Resorts To be confirmed Horizon Duty Free Shoppers To be confirmed Century International Hotels 24 November 2000
232 Appendix 4. Questionnaire for the HTM past graduates
Survey of PolyU Department of Hotel and Tourism Management Graduates
Thank you for participating in the HTM graduate tracking survey. Please complete all questions that are relevant to you.
All responses will be kept strictly confidential.
Part A - Personal Data
1. What year did you complete your studies at PolyU HTM?______
2. At the time of graduation, I was a Full time student...... 1 Part time student .2
3. Title of qualification:______
4. Level of qualification: Higher Diploma...... 1 Bachelor of Arts...... 2 Postgraduate Diploma...... 3 MSc ...... 4 M Phil...... 5
5. Gender: M ale...... 1 Female ...... 2
Part B - Employment history after graduation
1. You are currently employed in: Hotel related industry ...... 1 Catering related industry ...... 2 Tourism related industry ...... 3 Non HTM related industry ...... 4
2. Can you provide a brief description of your employment history since leaving HTM Please list jobs in reverse order from your current job to the first job after graduation. You should include all jobs with the same employer (i.e. if you were promoted internally, list all jobs).
Date Job title Types of industry employed To: mm/yy From:
233 mm/yy Tourism related Hotel related Catering related Other Tourism related Hotel related Catering related Other Tourism related Hotel related Catering related Other
Tourism related Hotel related Catering related Other Tourism related Hotel related Catering related Other Tourism related Hotel related Catering related Other
Part C - HTM qualification
1. How important was your HTM qualification specifically and how relevant was your diploma or degree generally in getting your first job after graduation? (Please select only these subjects relevant to your studies)
c c (0 ■c Q o Q. E E >. 15 234 2. How important was your HTM qualification specifically and how relevant was your diploma or degree generally in getting your current job? (Please select only these subjects relevant to your studies) c c I oQ. 1Q. E c E t? c ra o ra ra Q. (0 •e E ra E 3 o ra o c 0) cCL -R Z 3 Z c ID Hotel related subjects 1 2 3 4 5 Catering related subjects 1 2 3 4 5 In te rn s h ip/in d u s try placement 1 2 3 4 5 E n g Ms h 1 2 3 4 5 Putonghua 1 2 3 4 5 General business subjects 1 2 3 4 5 Research based subjects 1 2 3 4 5 G eneral education 1 2 3 4 5 Part D - Your impressions of the HTM programmes In order to help assist the future development of our programmes of study, we are seeking your impressions about the strengths and weaknesses of the Hotel and Catering Management programme. 1. What do you feel are the strongest aspects of the programme you took? 2. What do you feel are the greatest weaknesses of the programme you took? 3. Can you make suggestions for improvement? a. b. c. 4. List up subject areas you feel should be added to the HTM programme you took. a. b. c. 5. List up subject areas you feel should be deleted from the HTM programme you took. a. b. c. 235 6. What is your opinion about the quality of HTM programme in the following aspects? Awful Very poor Poor Neutral Good Very good Excellent Teaching 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Subject content 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Subject variety 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Subject relevancy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Applied/Practical nature 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Facilities 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Thank you for helping us improve our programmes. 236 Appendix 5. Questionnaire for the hotel employer Survey of PolyU Department of Hotel & Tourism Management Graduates Thank you for participating in the HTM graduate survey. Please complete all questions that are relevant to you. All information will be kept strictly confidential. ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR GRADUATES Please indicate your opinion by circling the appropriate answer in accordance with the following scale: 1 - Strongly disagree 2 - Disagree 3 - Agree 4 - Strongly agree Based upon my working experience, it is important for graduates to: