Styles of Learning, Workplace Problem Solving Strategies and Tourism Industry Employment Context Preferences

Abstract

The criteria upon which prospective tourism/hospitality industry employees depend when making career context choices is relatively little researched or understood. Styles of learning and problem solving strategies are two factors that have been regarded as important in the lives of many employees at times of career choice and change. This study has sought to examine favourability judgements in respect of major tourism/hospitality work context types, together with possible associated factors from areas such as learning preferences and problem-solving strategies among a sample of prospective tourism/hospitality industry employees. The more prominent tourism/hospitality industry work contexts were revealed to be Self Employment and Large Organisations. Large Organisation employment preferences were predicted by a learning preference involving the desire to acquire new approaches in the comprehension of material and skills in written communication; Self Employment preferences were predicted by a desire to learn creatively, but definitely not as part of a team. In regard to Large Organisational context preferences, significant differences were revealed as between those who did and those who did-not esteem the process of independent learning. Finally, an examination of an innovative problem-solving strategy as it related to choice of employment context preferences revealed significant associations for both Self Employment and Large Enterprise employment, with the latter context evidencing a dichotomous response pattern. The implications of these findings, for industry and for future tourism career pathway research, are considered.

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