Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

 
DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS 
The study identified several factors that influence women’s career advancement. Hard work, attitude 
toward work, communication skills, and problem solving skills were considered by all groups as the most important 
facilitators to women’s career advancement. Conflict with family responsibilities, job characteristics, child care 
responsibilities, and lack of work support were considered as the strongest constraints. 
Females and males had significant differences on Equity (lack of promotion, pay and training), Family 
Issues (conflicts with family responsibilities), and Advancement. Recruiters were less aware of these issues than 
students and educators. Women viewed these factors as more important than did male students, which suggested 
females are more aware of the difficulties they may face in the industry. For example, females may be more likely to 
make personal sacrifices to accommodate their careers (Fagenson & Jackson, 1993). Social norms encourage the 
allocation of greater power within the family to men, and it is expected that women will make sacrifices to benefit 
their husbands’ careers (Melamed, 1995). Melamed also suggested that due to the lack of informal networks, 
women tend to rely on job performance and education to achieve success, which may be a good explanation of the 
significant differences. 
Gender and group significant differences were consistent with the individual item analysis as well as the 
related literature. In addition, there was a pattern to the group differences. Recruiters always had significant 
differences from educators and students for these significant factors and the mean scores of recruiters were always 
lower than educators and students. This suggested that educators and students viewed these facilitators and 
constraints as more important and were more aware of these issues than recruiters. One possible explanation to this 
pattern is that educators and students may be more familiar with research on gender issues than recruiters are.
Female recruiters did view 
Equity 
differently from male recruiters, suggesting female recruiters see more 
equity issues than did males. This finding was consistent with literature. For example, Gregg and Johnson (1990) 
found that women hospitality managers strongly perceived a salary discrepancy favoring men, and Stroh, Brett, & 
Reily (1992) reported that female managers in top American companies lagged behind men on salary raises and 
promotions. Sexual harassment was not perceived as a major constraint by any groups in this study, as it was in the 
literature. However, on the open-ended questions, respondents recommended that this be addressed in class. 
Data reported in the study confirmed that women in the hospitality industry continue facing challenges in 
their career advancement. Findings suggest that hospitality educators should consider designing curriculum to better 
prepare women for career advancement. Industry recruiters should be involved more in the establishment of the 
curriculum. Pavesic (1993) reported that only 15 of 40 hospitality educators believed that their own curriculums 
were “very relevant”, and only 3 of 19 recruiters in the survey rated hospitality curriculums as “very relevant”. The 

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