Cooks

Cooks that can manage, or managers that can cook?

Context based approaches to managerial skills Jeroen Oskam Zaragoza Hotel Management School Zaragoza, Spain e-mail: jo@hotelschool.es

Abstract As hotel schools throughout Europe are adopting academic titles and implementing university-style approaches to teaching, the traditional tension between a vocational focus on operational activities, on the one hand, and attention to theory, on the other, becomes ever more visible. This process is due to the homogenization of European higher education and to increasing competition, but it seems also justified by the evolution of the hospitality business itself. Nevertheless, the hotel industry tends to oppose this shift to management and the broadening of curricula. The dilemma for the hotel schools is, where to refocus and which distinct features to preserve.

Keywords: Bologna, internships, situated learning, action learning

The following is a reflection on the project of designing a university level hospitality program “European style” in Spain. The dilemmas and controversies that surrounded the design process probably bear a resemblance to discussions that are familiar to all hotel schools, even though in this case some positions were perhaps more extreme because of the characteristics of the Spanish university system.

The discussions I am referring to are the ones caused by the specifics of hotel school curricula as a result of its integration in university education. Many hotel schools once started as industry initiatives and gradually evolved into tertiary levels; at the same time they are loyal, however, to their operational industry roots. The recent homogeneization of higher education in Europe, and the official sanctioning of this process in the Bologna declaration, has created a paradoxical pressure: on the one hand universities are expected to strengthen their practical relevance, which is something hotel schools have been traditionally good at, but on the other hand hotel schools are required to adopt a more common academic orientation.

This means, in practice, that hotel schools become specialized business schools and have to adapt to business school orientations. Put simply, this leads to two modificactions: in the first place hotel schools unquestionably lag behind in the academic approach to business subjects, while in the second place they offer practical trainings that seem out of place for a business school. In order to be taken seriously, hotel schools should academicize and replace their practical methods by solid theory. 1 The Spanish Context In the Spanish context the contrast between both approaches becomes more extreme due to a dormant crisis in the university system. One of the most evident symptoms of this crisis is a strong emphasis on frontal teaching styles aimed at the memorization of large quantities of facts and theories. Universities advertise a classroom capacity of 50 students as a sign of individualized attention and working with small groups,2 and for some degrees lectures with over 1.000 attendants are no execption. Government control on the degrees that may be offered and “oposiciones” or civil service access exams leading to life-long faculty appointments act as safeguards against innovation. A social consequence of this teaching practice is that theoretical knowledge enjoys higher social esteem than more practical professional skills, and that an abundant display of theory is usually an inevitable justification of academic status which becomes indispensable in teaching and in course materials.

Finally, strong political polarization allows the resistance to change to endlessly delay reforms in the university system. Together with Moldavia and Russia, Spain is one of the last countries to start the conversion of its university system to Bologna. The implementation of the Bologna principles will be especially difficult, not just because of the mere size of the gap, but because bridging it will therefore affect acquired privileges and status.3

El País, May 27, 2007: Implementation of Bologna is partial or limited in Spain, at a level similar to Moldavia and Russia only. The surrounding countries all have an extended implementation, whereas the UK, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries except Sweden, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Latvia and Lituania fully comply with the Bologna standards.

The obsolete curricula and teaching methods constitute a deficient preparation for the labor market, as the universities themselves acknowledge: unemployment for business students ranges from 7,7 to 12,8%, depending on their level of studies, while employment at elementary levels amounts to an astounding 31,7 to 46,5%. Four years after obtaining their degree, a large proportion of young university graduates work as salespeople in retail or do secretary work in an office job (ANECA: 97, 102-104).4 In view of the emphasis on theory and passive learning methods, hospitality education as we know it is hardly compatible with the Spanish university system. An additional complication is the low social status of the hospitality sector, largely composed of small-scale family businesses. As a result, hospitality education is usually associated with cooking and other F&B functions rather than with hotel operations and management. Higher education for the hotel sector is therefore either a foreign initiative aimed at specific target groups, or a local version which combines the traditional F&B approach with additional management courses in a fourth and fifth year of study.5 Besides, Spain has had different projects for hospitality programs in public universities that have proven little successful, especially in terms of industry response. As internal university projects, these programs were organized from within, dependent on other departments, and were therefore curriculum focused (‘supplydriven’) rather than open to outside developments, especially industry input. It is symptomatic that these universities have not been represented at professional meetings; it is even more shocking that the existence of these programs have gone unnoticed for larger chain hotels in Madrid.6 Whereas the majority of hospitality programs has a vocational orientation, “tourism” is seen as a superior discipline with managerial elements. In Spain this perception has a historical background since the Tourism Ministry and its educational system were political creations of the 1960s. The objective was to reep the fruits of the starting flow of European tourists by turning fishermen into hotel workers. It is curious to see that this is reflected in tourism curricula: the idea was to construct hotel accomodations in the path of the tourist trek as if fishermen would cast their nets wherever there were fish movements. The central discipline of these programs is usually the ‘Sociology of Tourism’, which is the equivalent of the study of fish movements. This approach implies a reactive perspective which will not foster any kind of innovation. The managerial elements are normally limited to administrative skills that very optimistically could be categorized as supervisory level.

Despite its official recognition, the tourism degree and tourism schools are considered discredited, and tourism graduates are generally little successful on the labor market.

Theory and practice in university level hospitality education Returning to our subject of creating a university program in hospitality, the obvious solution seems to be to upgrade the theoretical curriculum elements and to reduce the operational focus of practical assignments. It seems clear that for managerial levels the curriculum focus should be shifted from technical to more generic skills (Baum: 353-356), and the desirability of embedding business education in a broader perspective of social sciences and liberal arts (Morrison and O’Mahony: 38-40) is for many of us a logical result of this development.

However, the risk of strengthening theory is the reduction of the practical relevance of our curricula, or at least the visibility to our students of this relevance. If we wish to maintain the connection to professional reality, it would be preferible not to eliminate practical trainings but instead to give them a managerial focus.

It is less obvious what such practical training of managerial skills would look like. A good example may be that of hotel schools who put students in supervisory positions, but this of course requires other people to be put in a supervised position. For more strategic decision making we may then recur to more unreal kinds of practice7: case studies and simulations or business games. Finally, on-the-job trainings or internships are the experiences closest to real-life decision making. These different approaches are present in many hotel school programs.

On the other hand, most hotel schools seem to be particularly attached to their operational activities, especially in F&B. This is a distinctive feature of these schools that draws students’ attention, but schools motivate this approach also by the need to know the mentality and the conditions on the work floor. The intuitive affirmation that one needs to know the operations in order to manage them is sometimes considered as exaggerated, especially by people from other industries. It may be argued that hotel schools have a responsibility in moving focus from operations to management and thus contribute to the development of the industry (Ladkin, 182). However, justified or not, the fact that the labor market is still determined by this operational perspective (Ladkin: 174; Walo: 97-103; Raybould and Wilkins: 212-214) makes questioning it unpractical from a graduate’s perspective.8 Hotel schools as business schools As stated earlier, concentrating on managerial levels means turning hotel schools into specialized business schools. It should then be pointed out that the orientation of business schools is not uncontroversial, but that their academic approach recently has faced harsh criticism. Bennis and O’Toole state that many leading Business Schools have “quietly adopted an inappropriate—and ultimately self-defeating—model of academic excellence” (Bennis and O’Toole: 1). And even more conclusively, for Henry Mintzberg “pretending to create managers out of people who have never managed is a sham” (Mintzberg: 5). These critics coincide in that today’s business schools concentrate exclusively on scientific analyses and numerical accuracy while neglecting the so-called “soft” or interpersonal skills: that they do teach business, but not management.

If this is the case, we should rethink our adaptation to the Business School model. The numerical aspects may be a weakness of many hotel school curricula, but the social skills of hotel school graduates are generally considered to be their main strength. The most recent yearly survey of Dutch professional universities shows that graduates consider themselves to be better prepared than average in this field, and less than average in relating different concepts and separating main issues and secondary matters (ROA: tables 19-20).9 If hotel schools are relatively successful where others fail, it might be worthwhile to further analyze and develop that strength instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Developing managerial expertise A closer look at the mismatch between Business Schools’ output and the requirements for professional life shows that management graduates lack the capacity to transform school or ‘declarative’ knowledge into meaningful interpretations from which solutions can be derived, or ‘dynamical’ knowledge. Acquiring this ability means developing from a ‘competent’ manager into an ‘expert’ (Gijselaers et al.: 64).

Obtaining a level of expertise is not a matter of building up a larger quantity of knowledge or of possessing generic problem solving skills, but instead refers to an efficient organization of knowledge (Reuber: 51; Arts, 2007: 78; Gijselaers et al.: 69): students go from matching problem cases with factual knowledge to integrating their knowledge into networks and subsequently to to shortening lines of reasoning by clustering different concepts. Finally, the expert reaches a stage where he or she formulates scripts which are activated in problem diagnoses (Boshuizen: 73-77). This expertise is then characterized by the production of ‘inferences’, or meaningful interpretations. Experts will also show a greater ability to filter out irrelevant information from case

descriptions, and hence produce shorter reasonings leading to fewer and higher quality alternative solutions (Arts, 2007: 14-16; Gijselaers et al.: 69-75).

Practice is the only way to build up expertise; put simply, narrowing the time gap between school theory and professional practice helps us contribute to the development of dynamical knowledge (Gijselaers et al.: 77-78). This implies that we have to abandon the traditional model which views practical assignments as putting into practice the previously learnt theory, described by Gijselaers as the ‘H-model’:

In this view, we should offer a student a full body of knowledge before he would be able to move a finger in a professional situation. It is not surprising that this is, by law, the only approach allowed in Spanish university education.10 Instead, Gijselaers proposes a Z-model where the student is allowed to draw generalizing conclusions from specific experiences acquired in practice:

The idea is that the experience of professional situations enables students to make sense of theoretical insights. A clear example of the implied inversion can be found in the experience of medical students starting their internship, who in a study on diagnostic reasoning observed that they had studied “the other way around”: they were used to reasoning from an illness description to the symptoms of a patient, but in real life they

suddenly were confronted with ill patients and had to reason “backwards” to the illnesses (Prince and Boshuizen: 131).

Case studies and simulation games are ways of embedding teaching in a professional context. Both remain different from real-life experience though, since they leave out fundamental elements as social interaction and responsibility (Mintzberg: 42-43, 52). This lack of responsibility may lead to a consumption of cases and games that neglects or omits reflection afterwards that should take the students from experience to theory. It is therefore understandable that feedback on performance in case analyzing and resolving becomes crucial for their learning effects (Norman and Schmidt: 6; Arts: 49, 100-101).

Hospitality management programs frequently include both simulated approaches and actual hands-on experience. It may be clear that eliminating either of them would not benefit the development of expertise, and that it seems preferible to enhance them with managerial content. In the case of simulated activities, this should not be confused with exercising business subjects. A bookkeeping “practice”—especially, in a typical H-model approach, following a lecture in the same subject—is by no means a situated training of managerial skills, but merely an exercise in theoretical knowledge. Preparing students for complex professional situations where they will have to selectively process information, means that we will have to offer ill-structured and multidisicplinary cases (Arts et al, 2004: 100-101), rather than cases designed to make a point and structured around a single solution.

As for the practical trainings, making them “managerial” implies that students will have to face the usual dilemmas in the areas of Human Resources, budgeting, positioning or external market developments and cross-cultural management. Similar dilemmas are not unknown to hotel school operations but are normally handled by faculty. If we pretend to train managerial skills in our students, we will have to empower them and involve them in decision making. This will not necessarily be in all disciplines mentioned for all students. It will be clear that in real life, which is what we are dealing with here, the occurrence of managerial problems cannot be programmed.

A success formula?

Hotel schools are successful in terms of employment after graduation and level of first employment.11 Graduates have even become popular among employers in other service sectors such as banks or temporary employment agencies. A reason might be, as some of these employers indicate, that hotel school graduates possess stronger social skills than graduates in other business disciplines.

Intuitively, this hypothesis does not sound unlikely, but we do not have comparative data on social skills in different academic disciplines, nor does it seem easy to pinpoint the distinctive curriculum elements that turn hotel schools into outstanding social skill educators. Also, these social skills might have been acquired elsewhere: it is thinkable that hotel schools attract a certain type of student, or that interpersonal skills are part of the socialization in professional hospitality environments, e.g. through alumni networks or during internships.

Because of the relevance of these competencies for employers, and of the deficiencies of Business Schools pointed out by Bennis and Mintzberg, it is urgent for hotel schools to identify the origins of these qualities, preferibly by gathering data on the cognitive performance of their students at different stages in their programs.

Practical trainings, as single most distinctive feature of hotel schools, also deserve a closer look in this context. Somehow, most students do not question the usefulness of these activities, even when they may seem strictly operational or tedious. Their appeal possibly consists in the fact that they illustrate a complete business process with immediate results and feedback: from planning and production to sales and customer contact. It might therefore be equally interesting to do research on the learning effects of this experience on aspects as team work, taking responsibility for results and service-orientedness.

In the light of these considerations, it would be premature to dismiss this operational approach as obsolete and pertaining to a different stage in the development of the hotel industry. It could be argued that due to the increasing scale and complexity of hotel companies, schools should concentrate on the strategic issues international chains have to deal with. In other words, as hotels have become big business, hotel schools should develop into big business schools. However, this view would be contradicted by the reality of the labor market: when companies criticize an inadequacy in hotel school programs and graduates, it is a lack of attention towards operational aspects and an excessive focus on formal business competencies (Raybould and Wilkins: 212-214).

It seems that the trend to offer master programs in hospitality management is a more appropriate response to growth of scale in hotel companies than the reduction of practical content.

Entering the labor market Our curriculum design is of course based on managerial competencies, but this creates an ambiguity.

Labor market entrance expectations of recent graduates do not coincide with those of hotel companies, either because graduates are unrealistic in their expectations of managerial responsibilities, or because companies are insufficiently aware of graduates’ competencies (Raybould and Wilkins: 212). It is obviously not customary for graduates to become managers at 22, which does not seem unreasonable in view of the importance of expertise for effective decision making.

This may be a matter of school marketing, since the message that students will become potential managers rather than managers is harder to convey. Nevertheless, hotel education is remarkably effective if we consider that the path to managerial positions is often shorter than the 10-year period that stands for building up expertise (Gijselaers et al.: 73). But even if they become managers in 4 years, they mathematically must have done something different in the meantime to reach that position. There is a period of professional socialization, observing others and executing more elementary tasks which is common also in other professions. The difference is that for hospitality graduates those tasks are more visibly elementary than a young lawyer making photocopies or an instructor getting just the basic level trainings for first year students. The fact is that we will have to teach also those skills that allow students to enter and pass this pre-expertise stage.

Conclusion The selection of competent managers is a responsibility of hospitality companies. A university degree in hospitality management may facilitate a similar career step, but is neither a condition nor a guarantee. The key to managerial success is expertise, which is mainly developed after university. General professional competencies are therefore essential both when entering the labor market and during expertise building.

Interpersonal skills are crucial managerial competencies, in hospitality as in many other sectors.

Personal observation and occasional company feedback seems to indicate that hotel schools obtain above average results in this field. Empirical data would allow us to understand, maintain and maybe further develop this quality.

The maturity, complexity and scale of the hospitality industry are undoubtedly changing, and it is obvious that hotel schools have to follow these developments. This implies strengthening certain curriculum elements—particularly strategic management and international business—, but this does not necessarily impose the elimination of other learning activities. The integration into universities and the perception that schools need to adapt their status correspondingly, may make it tempting to “academicize” programs by replacing practice with more theory. Nevertheless, that would lead us to the risky path of business schools that is currently under heavy criticism for their distance from managerial reality. The alternative is to maintain our practical focus and therefore to extend our programs—which is precisely what many hotel schools have been doing with the creation of master programs.

1

Warren Bennis and James O’Toole refer to this status phenomenon as “physics envy”: the fact that in an academic environment prestige is measured by research merits rather than by experience and knowledge acquired in other ways, as according to these authors would be more appropriate for business schools (Bennis and O’Toole: 2). Jafari and Ritchie (quoted by Amoah and Baum: 9) denounce this academic rigidity in the specific situation of tourism programs.

2

Universidad San Jorge (Zaragoza): “La facultad está alojada en la Escuela de Negocios CAI, un edificio que se adapta perfectamente a nuestro sistema de enseñanza personalizada, ya que las aulas tienen el tamaño adecuado para grupos de menos de 50 alumnos.” http://www.usj.es/sitio/campus.php.

3

The ANECA report was meant to prepare for the implementation of the Bologna principles but the aversion and incomprehension are so manifest that the proposals and findings of the Spanish universities become on occasion hilarious. Different countries among which Portugal are proposed as the model to follow, but not the UK since “this country has not adopted relevant measures to implement the corresponding adaptations correctly” (39, my translation). Besides, the conclusion was reached that all programs should contain a common core

curriculum of essential discipline knowledge. The content of this curriculum part was established through a peculiar procedure: based upon the average appreciations of academics and professionals the report calculates that, for instance, all business programs should dedicate 0,94% of its curriculum to Economic History to ensure an adequate entrance of students into the labor market (173-175).

4

Traditionally, there is a distinction between 3-year and 4-year degrees: Diplomatura and Licenciatura, respectively. Unemployment for business graduates is 12,3%, for the first category, and 7,7 % for the latter; low level employment 46,5% y 31,7%, respectively. An office job is the most likely future perspective for a business student in both categories: 40,1% and 29,8%. Finally, 29,1% and 16,8% get a job outside their field of study.

5

Respectively, Les Roches Marbella School of Hotel Management and Centro Superior de Hostelería de Galicia.

6

Estudios Universitarios de Hostelería - Universidad de Alcalá, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

7

Mintzberg distinguishes four dimensions of learning, “from shallow to deep: absorption (internalizing knowledge), application (using it in some limited way—for example, to solve a problem), execution (gaining experience with the knowledge, as in role playing), and reflection (finding the meaning in experience).”

(Mintzberg: 265).

8

Even for graduates of hospitality master programs and with a solid professional background in a different industry (e.g. Finance) it has proven recommendable to do an internship prior to building up a career in hospitality.

9

In others words, they are aware that they are not experts. There is a discrepancy also in required industry competencies and actual competencies also in the field of social skills, but this may indicate higher requirements in this area in the hotel industry.

10

REAL DECRETO 1845/1994, September 9, 1994, “Los programas de Cooperación Educativa se podrán establecer con las empresas para la formación de los alumnos que hayan superado el 50 por 100 de los créditos necesarios para obtener el título universitario cuyas enseñanzas estuviese cursando.”

11

In an internal study of labor market entrance for students, the Escuela Superior de Hostelería de Sevilla, Spain, found an also surprising unemployment rate of 0,3%, and an average of 4 years before reaching managerial positions (internal document). Last year, unemployment for Dutch Hotel School students was 5%, which is above average for graduates of business studies. However, the percentages of graduates working fulltime and in managerial positions were higher than average, but then again salaries were lower (ROA: tables 6, 8, 14 and 15).

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