Do Personality Traits Predict Students’ Interest and Intentions Toward Working in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry? Evidence from a Developing Country

ABSTRACT

Drawing upon the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), this study aimed at predicting students’ interests and intentions to pursue a career in the tourism and hospitality (T&H) industry. Specifically, the study hypothesized that personality traits would have significant impacts on students’ self-efficacy and outcome expectations, which would further influence their interests and intentions toward working in the T&H industry. The results of the structural model showed that Openness to Experience and Conscientiousness significantly influence students’ self-efficacy and outcome expectations. However, Neuroticism and Agreeableness do only influence outcome expectations. Self-efficacy and outcome expectations were both significantly associated with students’ intentions to work in the industry. Implications for T&H educationalists and careers researchers, and directions for future research are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Personality traits
• social cognitive career theory
• career intention
• Jordan
• tourism and hospitality

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.