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.