Editorial

Citation

Teare, R. (2007), "Editorial", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 19 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijchm.2007.04119baa.001

Editorial

This themed issue deals with aspects of culture and career development in hospitality and tourism management. I am especially grateful to Dr Nick Johns, IJCHM Associate Editor, for the collection of four articles by Francis Devine and colleagues, Zarina Charlesworth, Denise Newnham and his own contribution with Judy Henwood and Claire Seaman. We should both like to thank Olga Shelgunova at Glion Institute of Higher Education for her invaluable administrative support.

Richard Teare

How do hoteliers manage their career development? Christos Akrivos, Adele Ladkin and Panayiotis Reklitis posed this question to a case study sample of 65 hotel general managers working in deluxe hotels in Greece. They found that respondents use a range of different strategies to advance their careers, linked to opportunity, personal skills, mobility and flexibility, interpersonal relations and the ability to deal with diverse situations.

The ability to cope with diversity seems to be a key managerial skill. How then do managers typically cope with cultural differences? Frances Devine, Tom Baum, Niamh Hearns and Adrian Devine present a case study of multicultural management in Northern Ireland, a region that has relatively recently begun to experience extensive economic immigration. These authors describe how local hoteliers are responding to the new multi-ethnic mix, concluding that value can only be unlocked from the cross-cultural environment by having respect for the new-comers and managing them sensitively.

The next three articles focus on educational and training dimensions of career development. Zarina Charlesworth notes that learning style among international hospitality students is initially linked to national original and presumably hence to culture, but over time the link becomes less apparent as acculturation takes place. Nick Johns, Judy Henwood and Claire Seaman report a study in which service attitudes were undeniably related to personal and cultural values, but both attitudes and values changed with time, again presumably as a result of acculturation. In the final analysis, different schools and different service training had more impact upon service attitudes than cultural, or even personal value systems. Denise Newnham reinforces this notion, showing that hospitality students’ behaviour shifts as they become acculturated into a new organization, so that they group themselves more by personality, abilities and values than by gender, nationality or language as time progresses.

Many studies have assumed the importance of cultural values and/or personality in the service orientation of individuals. The findings presented here, however, emphasize the importance of training and development in preparing individuals to give service. This is heartening to our industry, which faces increasing challenges through globalization and immigration. From these studies it seems that not only can the predisposition to service as a whole be fostered by training, but also front-line staff’s orientation towards particular styles and standards of service. This is good news for any organization that wishes to respect and manage its multicultural work force.

In the Research in brief section, Mandy Aggett reflects on the reasons for the growth of the boutique hotel sector in the UK. This sector is characterized by contemporary, design-led hotels of up to 100 bedrooms, offering highly personalized service and high tech facilities. This exploratory survey suggests that location, quality, uniqueness, facilities and personalized service are the most important attributes to guests who prefer to stay in a boutique-style property.

Nick Johns and Richard Teare