Women's employment in Italian and UK hotels

A review of the literature on culture in hotel management research: What is the future?

“…Typically, these themes involve communication types (Welsh and Swerdlow, 1992), transposition of operational approach (Hope, 2004), business approach (Jones and McCleary, 2004;Fisher et al, 2010;Magnini and Ford, 2004), leadership style (Jayawardena and Haywood, 2003), employment pattern (Doherty and Manfredi, 2001), and attitudes and perceptions (Heo et al, 2004;Johns et al, 2007;Lee and Zhao, 2003;Sage, 1985). The problems arising from national culture are relatively easy to identify due to the applicability of national culture to other disciplines.…”

Patterns of occupational segregation by gender in the hospitality industry

“…Following the job classification of Purcell (1996), Doherty and Manfredi (2001) draw interesting conclusions from a series of interviews with employees and employers from a sample of hotels in Italy and the United Kingdom. The jobs in bars and restaurants were contingently gendered, since employers were seeking inexpensive labour regardless of sex.…”

“…Some of the more relevant causes include the following: the low educational level of women (Burrell et al, 1997); deficiencies in the recruitment processes, especially in small establishments (Doherty and Manfredi, 2001;Whyte, 1949;Wood, 1992); the difficulties faced by women in reconciling work and family life, due to rather inflexible contracts (Doherty and Manfredi, 2001;Hicks, 1990;Knutson and Schmidgall, 1999;Ng and Pine, 2003); and work regulations that cause differences in contract opportunities between genders (Doherty and Manfredi, 2001). Burrell et al (1997) pointed out that women are poorly qualified compared to their male counterparts, which hinders their access to occupations of greater responsibility.…”

“…Therefore, the effect of education on occupational segregation will depend on how much importance is assigned to the educational level of the workers in the firms' personnel selection and in-house promotion policies. Based on interviews with employees and businessmen from 17 hotels in Italy and 13 in the United Kingdom, Doherty and Manfredi (2001) reported that recruitment practices depended on the size of the establishment. Thus, in hotels belonging to large chains, vacancies are well-advertised both internally and externally, the managers have thorough knowledge of employment and discrimination regulations and they are trained in interview and selection techniques.…”

“…Doherty and Manfredi (2001) and Knutson and Schmidgall (1999) point out that women perceive greater difficulties in balancing their personal and professional life regarding promotion within a company, due to the demands of commuting and long working days in such posts. Hicks (1990) reports that hotel managers expected women to leave the industry as soon as they had children or were married; in other words, they perceived their relationship with the company as short-term.…”