Doctoral Dissertations

Mark McGrath

Date of Award

8-1993

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Major Professor

Clifton P. Campbell

Committee Members

Gerald D. Cheek, Robert C. Maddox

Abstract

This study determined that the core curriculum for Hospitality Administration, as outlined in the Accreditation Standards of the Council on Hotel, Restaurant and institutional Education, for four-year, baccalaureate degree granting hospitality programs, provides the knowledge graduates need for entry-level food service management positions, as perceived by food service administrators. Randomly selected members (n=484) of the National Restaurant Association were surveyed by mail following Dillman's methods. Completed questionnaires were returned by 244 of the selected members, for a response rate of 50%. Respondents' perceptions of subject area importance and appropriate learning format for the subjects served as dependent variables. Independent variables were gender, age, industry segment in which employed, years of management experience, level of responsibility, level of education, and for those with at least a four-year degree, type of school from which they graduated. Frequency distributions, anova, and chi square were used to determine level of importance, learning format, and if significant differences existed within independent variables.

Results suggest almost unanimous agreement that the subject areas Operations Management, Human Resource Management, Accounting and Marketing are highly important. Hospitality Law, Financial Management, and Organization Theory were found to be moderately to highly important. Specialization, Administrative Processes, Quantitative Methods, Economics, and Ethical Considerations were found to be moderately important. History was the only subject area found to be of moderate to low importance.

Over 60% of the respondents felt that school was the most appropriate learning format for the subject areas History, Marketing, Accounting, Financial Management, Economics, Hospitality Law, and Quantitative Methods. About 55% of the respondents felt that school was the most appropriate learning format for the subject areas Ethical Considerations, Organization Theory and Administrative Processes. Fifty-two percent of the respondents felt on-the-job was the most appropriate learning format for the subject areas Human Resource Management and Specialization. Respondents were almost evenly split between the formats on-the-job and school for the subject area Operations Management.

The core curriculum in the CHRIE Accreditation Standards appears to have the potential to provide the knowledge graduates need for entry-level food service management positions.

Keywords: Accreditation; Evaluation; CHRIE; Food service managers

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