An empirical study of the work attitudes of Generation Y college students in the USA: the case of hospitality and merchandising undergraduate majors

In the workplace, attitudes towards work and the job at hand are of obvious importance. However, the literature has placed greater emphasis on job satisfaction and related issues, where attitudes are the outcome of work. It could be argued that attitudes to work, before entering a job, are perhaps more important, as they are antecedents and precursors to workplace performance and job satisfaction. This study aims to address this gap by studying the attitudes to work of college students in career oriented fields, particularly Hospitality Management and Merchandising Management. The fields of hospitality and merchandising are different, yet similar. There is an increasing trend to convergence in these two sub-fields of the broader service sector. The main challenge of both hospitality and merchandising industries is to attract and retain qualified and motivated employees. In a decentralized structure, managerial responsibilities have expanded in scope. Both industries are catering to the needs of the consumer, whether it is of service or product orientation. Hence, this study has chosen to use these two student groups as their sample to identify the attitudes to work of career-oriented GEN Y college students in the USA. We are recognizing work attitude as a multi-dimensional construct by segmenting it into the following composite categories of consideration: positive work attitude, negative work attitude, work value, work ethic, job involvement and work motivation. These composite scales have been adopted from previous research in order to gain the benefit of developed and tested measurement techniques. This study found GEN Y students to be largely positive in their attitudes to work and to exhibit relatively low levels of cynicism about work and promotion. Furthermore, the study found that with increasing age and work experience, students positive work attitude was enhanced, while their negative attitudes were ameliorated. As GEN Y enters the workforce, both industries have to better understand their needs in order to effectively address human resource management issues. This study provides some understanding of these important work related issues.