Prosocial service values, learning preferences and tourism employment

Abstract

Within service industriees such as tourism, the development and expression of prosocial personal values are now regarded as being of major importance among staff members. This study has examined prosocial values as they may be understood within a service industry context, together with a number of learning and teaching variables encountered within the educational system, as they may predict future work context preferences among a sample of secondary college graduands from a major Australian tourism community. Three educational variables were examined: Styles of Learning, Expected Educational Outcomes, and preferred Teaching Styles; two work context preferences were identified: Traditional Industries of the region, and Tourism Industry employment. Prosocial service values were found to be associated with a preference for practicality as a learning style, for originality as an educational outcome, and a teaching style that fully engaged the participants. The construction of a path model in which major logical and temporal relationships were examined, revealed a pathway between higher levels of prosocial service values, a preference for an engaged teaching style, and a motivation toward tourism industry employment. The implications of these results are examined in regard to both future research directions and also industry responses.