Michael Riley

In this article the authors begin by discussing the concept of hotel productivity, contrasting it with industrial concepts, particularly those prevalent in manufacturing industry. The authors suggest that the most practical approach to hotel productivity is from the vantage point of management's ability to forecast demand and, against this, assess actual performance. This leads to a model of supply-demand mismatch. The article also reviews all the component concepts of productivity, together with the main findings of the recent NEDO report. The authors argue a case for a holistic model of hotel productivity using evidence from the NEDO study to support the case. Elements of a possible holistic model are described. The authors also consider some new ideas and new perspectives on the subject which may need some innovative forms of research.

This article examines the career paths of hotel managers in relation to the bureaucratic model which dominates career theory. A measurement of how long it takes to become a hotel manager forms a platform which is augmented by data on mobility, skills and knowledge and personal planning strategies. The argument put forward here is that the opportunity structure of the industry encourages a form of career management which involves, as well as jobs and organizations, the labour market as an entity in its own right. This extends the theory of career logics. The special case of food and beverage management emerges clearly from the data.

This paper describes the use of Q-sort technique in the scale development process. An exploratory study is presented to show the application of this methodology. The study takes its dimensions from established models of service quality. The result proposes that Q-sort technique is a useful methodological approach in eliminating the validity and reliability problems particularly in the early scale development stages.

The paper addresses the relationship between a tourism authority and micro-tourism businesses in terms of information access and use. The background is the commonly found dysfunction between the strategic intentions of a locality and small business performance. Information seeking is examined theoretically through its relationship to human capital. Given the evidence of entrance to the industry from outside it, it was thought that lack of tourism training would influence information seeking. The study confirmed the low levels of human capital, a modest interest in the larger picture but no evidence of the impact on decision-making. The study also raises the issue of whether the use of the Internet separates small businesses from the regional tourism strategy.

The subject here is the relationship between hotel workers and trade unionism in Great Britain. The essay uses a historical and sociological perspective to explore three principal themes; these are, that historically hotel workers have been isolated from the mainstream of the labour movement; that the hotel work situation deters unionism by engendering close proximity with guests and management and finally that established unionism itself has a production orientation which is not easily compatible with the hotel worker's ethos or self-identity. The background to these arguments is the development of the British hotel industry with particular emphasis on evolution of hotel work from domestic service during the period 1890–1911. The conclusion drawn is that these themes are an explanation in part for the low union density in the U.K. hotel industry.

The case is argued for the usefulness of a particular type of age distribution to the analysis of career paths and to do so by an example of a small study of the career paths of UK hotel managers. This examination begins with a technical description of age distributions which contrasts the conventional wisdom of the subject with the special application being advocated. Having established the potential of this form of distribution the examination then applies it to a study of hotel management careers. The fundamental thrust of the argument is that age distributions are of particular importance to understanding the developmental aspects of experience.

This article is primarily methodological and is concerned with the psychological dimensions which form the basis of evaluative judgment on hotels. The study takes six dimensions which have empirical and conceptual support in the literature and attempts to validate them using methods which are different from the now common measuring procedures in this area. The methods applied are Q-Methodology and Guttman procedure. The study highlights the special properties of these methods and shows their utility in hotel evaluation. Of the six dimensions tested only three were found to be valid. La validation des dimensions de qualité. Le présent article est surtout méthodologique, se rapportant aux dimensions psychologiques qui forment la base des jugements évaluatifs des hôtels. L'étude prend six dimensions qui sont appuyées empiriquement et conceptuellement dans la littérature et essaie de les valider en utilisant des méthodes qui sont différentes des procédures de mesurage qui sont déjà courantes dans ce domaine. Les méthodes qu'on applique sont la méthodologie Q et la procédure Guttman. L'étude souligne les propriétés spéciales de ces méthodes et montre leur utilité pour l'évaluation des hôtels. Sur les six dimensions qu'on a essayées, on en a trouvé seulement trois qui étaient valides.

Increasingly, evidence suggests that the impact of HRM in organisations is greatest where it involves a set of coherent policies and practices. The implication of this is that, to be effective, individual HR initiatives need to be implemented as part of an integrated package of practices. This paper presents findings from a study designed to examine the implementation of functional flexibility. Evidence is presented from two case studies which demonstrate that, for functional flexibility to succeed in the longer term, it needs to be become embedded in the organisation and to be supported by a web of sympathetic policies. Many of the problems of implementation can be overcome by the co‐existence of supporting practices. For example, the intensification of work brought about by the use of functional flexibility was less of an issue in the cases where it was supported by higher levels of remuneration. The outcomes of functional flexibility for stakeholders are also explored.

The service quality literature has evolved around two schools of thought: the North American and the Nordic European. Although the North American School of thought has received much attention from the practitioners with a five factorial model, it has also generated a great deal of criticism. The Nordic European School of thought, on the conceptualisation of service quality, has remained for the most part at the conceptual level with few attempts at applications. Attempts to test an instrument developed by the North American School. It did not produce the nominated dimensions. In fact the result favours the Nordic European School in that it produced a two factor model.

The article attempts to form a conceptual framework for understanding how pay levels and differentials are determined in tourism employment. This is constructed from the application of economic, structural, and psychological theories to known structural, and behavioral features of the industry. It identifies factors that work in concert to exert deflationary or inflationary pressures on the level of pay. The attractiveness of tourism, mobility, and the tolerance of low pay feature strongly, but at the heart of the notion is that the socioeconomic factors are synthesized into fundamental managerial assumptions which are maintained by industry norms. The outcome is a framework replete with deflationary influences. La détermination de la paie : un cadre socioculturel. L’article est une tentative de former un cadre conceptuel pour comprendre comment on détermine les niveaux et les écarts salariaux dans les emplois du tourisme. Ce cadre se construit à partir d’une application de théories psychologiques, structurelles et économiques aux caractéristiques de structure et de comportement de l’industrie. L’article identifie les facteurs qui fonctionnent ensemble pour exercer des pressions déflationnistes ou inflationnistes sur le niveau de paie. L’attrait du tourisme, la mobilité et la tolérance d’un bas niveau salarial figurent fortement dans la question, mais au cœur de l’idée, on trouve que les facteurs socioéconomiques sont synthétisés dans des suppositions fondamentales de gestion qui sont soutenues par les normes de l’industrie. Le résultat est un cadre fortement constitué d’influences déflationnistes.

Purpose - The research aims to explore the relationship between money attitudes and pay satisfaction for individuals in low paid jobs.Design methodology approach - The methodology developed a questionnaire that contained three key measures, including money attitudes, pay satisfaction and income level. The sample for this study consisted of blue-collar workers from industries and occupations identified as low paid by The National Minimum Wage Commission in the UK. The questionnaire was distributed in East London and South East England through employment exchanges and community organisations.Findings - Individual differences in money attitudes was found to be a significant variable in explaining pay satisfaction of people in low pay. The evidence proposes a case for money attitudes to be incorporated in the traditional models of pay satisfaction as it provides for the idiosyncrasies in individual differences.Research limitations implications - A major limitation of this study was that it only captured certain low paid occupations, and also that it was based in the UK. This must be the most important direction for future research.Practical implications - The findings have managerial important implications in designing pay and reward structures for people in low pay.Originality value - One of the major contributions of this study is that it is an early example of an empirical study, hopefully to be followed by more on money attitudes and the satisfaction of low pay.

Picks up a current theme of manpower planning which extends the interest of the subject into the understanding of labour market process through detailed tracing of the historical patterns of particular occupations. Argues the value of such tracing. Employs the technique of biographical age distribution which is contrasted with the conventional organizational age distribution. An experiment using a target management occupation is used to illustrate this new technique – a method of career and occupational analysis which circumvents difficult problems of labour mobility.

Describes the labour economics of the hotel and catering industry, which produce two characteristics: individual contracts and low unionization. Draws parallels between the free market behaviour of this traditional industry and the general direction of change in the industry as a whole. Suggests that greater insecurity, a heightened sense of immediacy in tasks, and more unsocial hours may lead to a propensity for mobility and a lack of organizational commitment – behaviour which is familiar in the hotel and catering industry.

The study reported here uses the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory as a measure of style of problem solving. The intentions of the research were: firstly, to test the reliability of the inventory by comparing the test performance of one sample of hotel management students in education and in industry; and secondly, to compare the sample with previously tested groups. The test was reliable and the sample performed at the national average.

The article reviews the literature on loyalty in consumer behaviour with particular emphasis on the difficulties of interpreting repeat purchasing in terms of loyalty. Problems of conceptual definition and measurement are examined in the context of tourism. A case is made for seeing the concept of loyalty as a process rather than as a state. In this respect two approaches related to information processing are suggested as possible research approaches. Psychological cost-benefit technique and methods associated with optimum stimulation level are discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This book is an attempt to understand tourism employment in a holistic way.

The article reports a study of labor mobility into tourism that attempts to replicate the findings of previous research conducted in a different setting. Data was collected from an urban and a rural region of the United Kingdom on mobility patterns, orientations to tourism employment, and the impacts of the change. The study supports the findings of the previous work but found no significant differences between the rural and the urban experience of mobility. Tourism employment as a "way of life" received support from the evidence that people were prepared to surrender education-occupation compatibility in return for a more self-controlled work-life relationship.

Two high-spin regularly spaced rotational bands with large dynamical moments of inertia have been identified in Hf-175 with the Gammasphere spectrometer. These new bands are very similar to the previously identified triaxial superdeformed bands in the hafnium nuclei. However, the new bands in Hf-175 have been linked into the known level scheme and thereby provide the first firm spin assignments for these structures in this region. In order to understand the new bands, theoretical calculations have been performed based on the ULTIMATE CRANKER code. The new bands in Hf-175 are deduced to be built upon highly deformed structures. No experimental evidence for triaxiality was established and this work suggests that the structure of the so-called "triaxial" superdeformed bands in the Hf nuclei may be quite different from those identified in the lighter mass Lu nuclei. Since the two highly deformed bands in Hf-175 are associated with different deformations, this work also identifies the role of the intruder orbits in polarizing the nuclear shape.

This article describes the results of a survey of a sample of UK hotels to gather data on various attributes of the internal labour markets, eg promotion criteria, pay differentials and the ‘openness’ of the internal labour market. The results are used to test the hypothesis that hotels exhibit strong and weak internal labour markets with an increasing level of bureaucracy perhaps being indicative of a stronger internal labour market. Overall the findings would appear to show that formal employee organization within the hotel industry is lacking and that the hotel industry is strongly dependent on the external labour market.

Competition for rewards often prevents workers from dis- playing unity, yet lack of unity is often seen in the absence of competition and where it is in their interests to unite. The study examines the idea that workers in different technological modes but of the same operative, social and economic status, who share a common interest in unity, are prevented from associating together in a trade union by their own perceptions of each other's occupation -a case of mutual rejection. The investigation used two small samples of contrasting techno- logical modes: people who 'make things' and people who 'serve people'.

This article describes the development of tourism on the Falkland Islands since the Anglo-Argentinian War of 1982. It is an example of tourism being developed slowly under close control in order to protect the environment and the traditional way of life of residents. The limitation of visitor numbers and concern for the population balance are among its special features. The article illustrates that when constraints on expansion apply, the financial burden is carried by the local infrastructure. Tourism is growing but has not yet reached its appointed ceiling because the Falklands are not a recognized tourist destination. The role of promotion costs in the tourism sector economy is discussed. The social impact is seen as beneficial.

This article describes two studies that tested the basic tenet of congruence theory—that there is a relationship between self-concept and evaluation of product concept. The present paper extends the range of previous empirical work by considering the above relationship in a service context, using restaurants and hotels. In the first study, the degree of congruence is assessed by the gap score formula and in the second uses the direct score formula. In both cases the results are regressed against measures of satisfaction, attitude, service quality and behavioural intention. The study highlights the importance of self-concept and suggests that the actual and ideal self-congruence have a variable influence on the above variables. The results presented here also suggest that an applied scale may be useful for evaluating product concept and self-concept.

This paper looks at the way skills and knowledge are valued by management in tourism and hospitality firms and at how that valuation is reflected in the configuration of human resources management (HRM) and the structure of labour markets. Based on a resource view of the firm and using the concepts of human resource architecture, it is argued that tourism and hospitality are not just examples of the internal spot-market mode in which acquisition dominates employment strategy, but rather constitute a special case in which the nature of labour productivity intervenes. The authors argue that labour is, in the main, separated from quantitative concepts of productivity and adds value only in qualitative terms. This sets up a dichotomy for human resource strategy between economic imperatives and the desire for quality. The resolution of that dichotomy, it is argued, is aggravated by the way individuals value their human capital, which has the effect of segmenting a general unskilled labour market and creating rigid occupational identities. This is the background against which modern ideas of HRM, such as employment flexibility, have to contend.

This book makes an innovative contribution to understanding the relationships between two of the most significant social and economic phenomena of contemporary ...

The paper examines two propositions in the context of the UK public house (pub) industry. It uses an established empirical model to explain the relationship between job satisfaction, organisational commitment and the intention to stay. The findings are in line with previous research, but display an unusual characteristic in that pay satisfaction is isolated from job satisfaction and commitment. The second proposition concerns the foci of commitment. The study tests the notion that commitment to the industry is an alternative to organisational commitment. The findings are extremely supportive of this notion and are interpreted as evidence of occupational community. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This article reports the progress of a study of the careers of hotel managers and draws comparisons with a previous study. In methodological terms, the use of age distribution is retested and the notion of career logics is introduced for the first time as a method of interpretation of a career sequence. As in the previous study, the prominence of food and beverage experience remains as does the role of assistant managers as the basic platform for a hotel management career.

The aim is to develop an evolutionary theory which will explain changes in the character and shape of a hotel industry over time. The basis of the theory proposed is that hotels are related to the identity of social groups and therefore to processes of group differentiation. Following discussion of the theoretical framework the theory is illustrated through examples of the UK hotel and public house industries and their relationship with a particular form of group differentiation, namely social class.

Customer-service training aims to produce staff who are better at dealing with customers. This article examines the social-psychological framework of the customer-server interaction and identifies important factors responsible either for “bad” or “good” relations. Anxiety arising out of negative factors, eg social distance between the participants to the interaction, or an inability to make sense of or to control the hospitality environment, can result in a retreat into “roles” and “stereotyping” which increases the probability of inappropriate responses. Management must find ways to control and simplify the environment while still allowing the staff scope for initiative.

The research takes as its starting point the possibility of prejudice between workers which would, even in the absence of competition, prevent them associating as their interests would dictate.

The study reported here focuses on the world of professional conference managers and hotel managers and tests for a degree consensus between them as to what attributes are salient to the selection of a hotel as a conference venue. Both a strong consensus and an operational rather than a facilities focus emerges. The suspicion is raised that re-occurring operational problems lie behind the consensus.

The structure of decision making in hotels is examined. Using three levels of authority and 13 categories of decision a problem of consultation and communication is measured. The degree of structure in the problem is measured using information theory. In the light of the findings which show a modest degree of structure, the article discusses how far hotels approximate to the classic bureaucratic model.

Reports on a study testing five attitudes on a sample of hotel workers and a control group. As the literature of service work suggests, most hotel workers place great value on scope and autonomy in a job; it was expected they would show more positive attitudes to these attributes than the control. The results were negative. Draws the conclusion that such attributes are problematic in that the attitude may represent a valued need or an unfulfilled need.

Argues that eating out in Britain has no basis in social culture and therefore exists without any consensual value as to what is recognized as good. As a consequence it is open to the influence of innovation and novelty. The concept of “lifestyle” is evoked as a focus of consumption patterns and it is argued that as eating out has no cultural support it is open to greater competition from other attributes of lifestyle. The debate between holistic versus attribute evaluation is resolved firmly in favour of the former. The implications of this, and the absence of a cultural anchor with its attendant effect on lifestyle, are explored in relation to marketing strategies. The distinction is made between unit marketing, market segmentation and the task of attracting more people into the activity of eating out. Home orientation is seen as the barrier to development.

This article reports the progress of a study of the careers of hotel managers. It is the second research update from the continuing research project. In this report the researchers concentrate on the nature of job moves in terms of whether they are internal or external and whether the individual or the company initiated the moves.

In situations where a volatile product market meets an unstable labour market, as is often found in customer contact service operations such as the hospitality industry, there is a need for the constant manipulation of labour supply to match labour demand. Functional workforce flexibility, where multiskilled staff are able to move from jobs in one department to jobs in another, presents an opportunity for solving part of the problem. Presents an approach to calculating the need for functional flexibility dependent on the identified discrepancies in labour demand and supply. Having identified the size of the need, a strategy needs to be developed for fulfilling that need. In implementing this strategy, two approaches are identified: planned whole job substitution and boundary loosening. While the planned approach offers the rational course for maintaining quality and productivity levels, there is evidence that an evolving approach may help to stabilize a highly volatile situation by breaking down barriers from within.

The article critically reviews the conceptual issues which surrounds the measurement of service quality. Methodological issues are not addressed. The critique centres upon the gap model and its associated instrument SERVQUAL and argues that, despite progress, all the original problems remain in place. A conclusion which leads firstly, to the suggestion that the dimensions of the model might be re-tested using different scaling techniques and secondly, to the advocacy of the adoption of a wider psychological perspective and one which goes back to the fundamentals of evaluative processes.

The paper describes a study of how three multi-unit service organizations cope with contingent problems in the context of contrasting strategy and structure configurations. The study examines the role of the multi-unit manager through the medium of communication. Six communication variables are measured through a diary method. Both organizational and individual variables were measured. Although the organizations could be differentiated by two communication variables most of the variance was accounted for by the human capital of the multi-unit managers. The portrait than emerges is of a rather messy role which has the task of containing uncertainty and preventing it from rising up the hierarchy.

This paper tries to place the notion of employee role interpretation within concerns for service quality. More specifically, it argues a case that dyadic analysis reveals that role reinterpretation is a process that can adversely affect service encounters when it takes place within the encounter. The paper addresses the issue of how relationships in personal service encounters deteriorate and explores this issue in the context of tourism and hospitality. The rationale for such an approach is acceptance of the limits of emotional labour and the lack of explanation in the literature for the variable results of normative managerial approaches to service quality. Role interpretation is seen as being distinctive form of coping outside the acting solutions of emotional labour and the purview of organisational culture as it is currently conceived. One consequence of arguing for the salience of role interpretation is a view of job satisfaction that places the concept of ‘job’ as being as important as that of satisfaction with it.

The paper describes in conceptual and theoretical terms one approach to the difficult problem of eliciting from managers what knowledge they apply to situations and activities they are involved in. A small qualitative study is described which uses a technique that works backwards from behaviour towards knowledge. The aim of the study is to describe how accumulated knowledge is transmitted from education or experience to the moment it is actually used in the context of the hospitality industry. The analysis was interpretative and found that knowledge structures mirrored vocational educational structures and that subjects recall prior knowledge through a categorisation process. A key finding was a set of modes of transmission, which include prototypical examples, pivotal and role model examples and scenarios, which have been built from accumulated experience. The research demonstrated both the usefulness and the difficulty of designing and implementing a reliable knowledge elicitation procedure but suggests that the backwards-facing approach can be fruitful.

This paper analyzes the political involvement and relationships that influenced the progress of a tourist heritage site in Korea. It explores the dynamics of collaboration and shows how initial advantages can become conflict and inertia over time. It outlines the continuing discord among interested groups, investigates the relationships that surround the developmental process, and demonstrates how perceptual differences became embedded. The paper illustrates that a structure dominated by power relations leads to conflict and inertia caused by alienation, and emphasizes the need for collaborative structures in cultural heritage tourism development. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

This article puts forward two broad theories, based on skill requirements, of why and how standards in British hotels may be falling. The structure of the labour market is the focus of one theory, and hotel culture and the ‘European tradition’, of the other: A main conclusion is that any prolonged decline in hotel standards will be difficult to reverse, so some actions to prevent its prolongation are suggested.

This article presents the evidence from a small study of the strategies used by hotel managers to retain their employees. The focus of attention is on exactly what managers do when confronted with an employee who is voluntarily leaving their employment. Two aspects are of particular interest; the role of increasing pay and the effect of increasing merit on strategies. The background to the study is the well-documented high level of labour turnover [Johnson, 1980 and 1985] and the evidence that managers appear to have chosen a dependence on the external labour market as a means of regulating labour [Simms et al., 1988].

Illustrates a method of auditing skills which have been accumulated through work experience. Argues that progress and change can unwittingly cut off learning patterns which still have value. Often the call for training is not for something new but to replace an old channel of experience closed by job changes. The basis of the method is to trace patterns of skill accumulation from work biographies, then, using a skill template devised by experts, compare what has been accumulated with what should be the standard.

The article argues that there is a need for a greater emphasis on information relating to the quality of labour supply, particularly the nature of managerial experience. The rationale is based on the organizational and industry changes which alter patterns of experience and create new forms of human capital. At the heart of the argument is the valuation of stable labour market dynamics, that is, patterns which remain constant. This is contrasted with the ethos of change which, it is suggested, contains a dangerous element of exaggeration. An attempt is made to integrate qualitative career analysis with new forms of labour market analysis. Two models of learning by experience are introduced and examples of relevant techniques of measurement are described.

This study examines labor mobility into tourism employment during economic transition. Working from the proposition that the industry serves as a refuge, it discusses the inward mobility patterns from other economic sectors, assesses the impact of the change, and measures the motivations for taking up such occupations. The study found that workers came from an unusually wide range of industries, which supports the idea of upheaval in the labor market. While there is little indication it is causing widespread personal suffering, evidence for the “refuge” role of tourism was found. Employment in this industry emerges as being attractive and accessible for people with various stock of human capital. Les emplois de tourisme pendant une transition économique. Cette étude examine le mouvement des travailleurs vers des emplois de tourisme pendant une transition économique. En partant de la proposition que l'industrie sert de refuge, on discute des tendances de mouvement vers l'intérieur des autres secteurs économiques, évalue l'impact du changement et mesure les motivations pour choisir ces emplois. On a trouvé que les travailleurs venaient d'une grande variété d'industries, ce qui soutient l'idée d'un bouleversement du marché du travail. Bien qu'il y ait peu d'indication que cela cause des souffrances personnelles répandues, on a trouvé des évidences pour le rôle de “refuge” du tourisme. Les emplois du tourisme apparaissent comme attractifs et accessibles aux personnes ayant différentes ressources de capital humain.

The paper argues a case for the economic determinism of human resource management practice. The arguments put aside human agency and suggest that human resource management practice can best be understood through the influence of industrial and labour economics. The question has been asked in the HRM literature as to whether economic determinism has led to the collapse of the HRM metaphor. This paper suggests that the hospitality and tourism industry is a case of where economic determinism has prevented modern HRM paradigms from starting up. The friction between concerns for modern management practice and unchanging economic imperatives forms the basis of the paper. The conditions that might produce change are discussed.

The paper paints a portrait of service industry workers who are outside the institutional parameters of industrial relations. It considers the effects of hard work on the personal horizons of the working poor. By asking workers to describe target earnings and what a 'better job' means against a background of long hours, the study shows what distress selling of labour actually looks like. The results indicate that subjects correctly perceive their lack of opportunity and have horizons circumscribed by industrial norms.

Functional flexibility - where there is a degree of substitution between workers - is theoretically fashionable again as a possible management tool for hotels. But will it work in practice? This article aims to show how a hotel would work if functional flexibility were in place. It looks at the barriers to its establishment (possible loss of occupational identity, value and skill differentials, and resistance to technical change), as well as the opportunities it presents and discusses how it might best be implemented.

Discusses a case where an assessment centre programme played a key role in a process of management change in a county council social services department, responding to the Government’s “Care in the Community” initiatives. “New think” management required a paradigm shift – not just acquiring new “bits” of skill or knowledge – particularly with respect to decision making. Argues from this experience that developmental assessment centres provide an arena in which new roles can be rehearsed and allows for reflection on a person’s competence to manage that role.

This article is a contribution to the study of public service organizations converting to a market orientation. The case examined here is that of a social services department which opted for the strategy of restructuring on the lines of budget autonomy but accompanied it by an unusual focus upon managerial skills. The effect was to personalize the change. The conflict between old ways and new thinking was congealed into personal debate by the focus on skills so that changes had to be resolved internally. The rationale for this strategy is located in the antipathy between professional social work values and the practice of management.

This aim of this paper is to introduce Guttman Scaling procedure for the assessment of consumer behaviour. It is suggested as a useful methodology particularly when the unidimensionality of the scale is of concern. An empirical case study, designed from the service quality literature, was presented in order to demonstrate a possible application. Further implications and the efficiency of this scaling method is also discussed.

Hotels require flexibility in their labour supply to match fluctuations in consumer demand. In non‐union circumstances managers take a neo‐classical approach, applying numerical and financial flexibility. What happens when collective bargaining is involved? An analysis of collective agreements from six countries shows that the economic impressions are institutionalized by agreement. In this way unionized hotels operate in the same way as non‐unionized hotels but with formalized rules. Assesses the prospects for functional flexibility.

This article contributes to the literature on the relationship between the tourism industry and vocational tourism education. It reports on an exploratory study of the work of a sample of tourism professionals and their education. The study attempts to classify tourism occupations by modifying an established scheme used in general administration. The study sought to find commonality within the diverse occupations and to go on to relate that to tourism education. The study found that the majority of the sample of 153 contained a common set of 24 activities. In educational terms, marketing, recreation and leisure and finance dominated as relevant subjects to study for tourism occupations. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Describes a research study into the use of practical food and beverage facilities – the teaching restaurant and production kitchen – in undergraduate degree courses in hospitality management. Discusses the priority placed on the possession and use of these facilities and their relevance.

The paper shows an empirical approach to the problem of measuring an entity whose dimensions are unknown. The subject is the willingness/unwillingness of UK engineers (N=1050) to exchange knowledge. It assumes willingness to be a unidimensional entity and puts forward a methodology that uses indicators to measure its direction. We illustrate the direction of willingness on a reluctance- willing dimension. The conceptual basis is an exploration of the ‘stickiness’ that pervades knowledge disclosure process. This phenomenon could stem from the individual feeling a sense of ownership of their knowledge which then engenders reluctance behaviour. We pursue this idea theoretically through notions of possessiveness and psychological ownership; and empirically by exploring the concept of willingness to disclose.

This paper reports on a study of consumer loyalty in the holiday destination selection process. The study does not define loyalty, but attempts to contribute to an understanding of the concept by applying a psychological measure of variety seeking directly to patterns of holiday destination choice. The measure used is based on the optimum stimulation level (OSL) concept. The guiding proposition in this study was that tourists with a high need for variety would display a varied pattern in their vacation destination selection and this assumption is modestly supported by the empirical findings. The results suggest that further experimentation with the OSL would be fruitful when combined with attitudinal measures and with precisely defined sets of tourist behaviours. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper reviews the literature in a number of areas that converge upon the theme of the role of knowledge within professional identity. Within knowledge transfer literature the individual perspective is underdeveloped, and this paper seeks to contribute by exploring the function of knowledge within an individual's professional identity, thus unfolding a theoretical connection between the literatures of knowledge and identity. Its central argument concurs with Szulanski's notion of ‘internal stickiness’ as a barrier to knowledge transfer but extends this hypothesis into the psychological ownership of knowledge and to the idea of ‘possessiveness’. The paper argues that the value of self-categorized knowledge places the latter within the individual's cognitive structure of their identity. It offers up the idea of valued knowledge to the knowledge transfer domain and suggests that feelings of possessiveness towards knowledge may intervene in the willingness of an individual to disclose knowledge in a knowledge transfer process.

The authors argue that the theory of the downward-sloping supply curve for labour is relevant to explanations of labour market behaviour in tourism. The paper is founded on the work of Sharif (1986, 1991, 2000), who questioned the definition of subsistence and argued that, in certain conditions, the initial slope of the curve would be downwards. The authors ask whether tourism development could provide these particular conditions. An important distinction is made between the perception of management of the market being in surplus or abundance. If the downward-sloping supply curve is the case, then the distress selling of labour that it implies would have implications for the quality of tourism products and for the capacity of tourism to alleviate poverty.