Reference no: EM132553520

Real World Hotel Challenges

Jae Min was an excellent student at the University in the South Korean city where she grew up. She had majored in business, moved to the United States, and received a graduate degree in hospitality management. As part of her graduate studies, she completed an internship in a hotel in the United States and had worked at another hotel while she was completing her education.

With this experience and educational background, Jae Min returned to South Korea and began work in the hotel industry as a front-desk clerk. After a year, she was transferred to the hotel's dining room, where she spent another year as an assistant food server. After completing several other assignments, she marked her fourth year with the property with a promotion to special events coordinator for the hotel's public dining rooms. This position basically involved coordinating small functions that did not require a larger public function room.

Jae Min was well aware that, historically, women rarely if ever received department-level or higher leadership responsibilities in hotels or other businesses in her native country. Instead, these positions were most often reserved for men as the result of promotional considerations that sometimes emphasized gender over knowledge and ability.

Assume that you are an executive in a U.S. hotel group that has partial financial interest in and a management contract for the South Korean property in which Jae Min works.

Question 1. What would be your perception of the situation that confronts Jae Min and other women employees of the hotel?

Question 2. What, if anything, might you be able to do about the situation?

Question 3. What, if anything, could you do to reduce the impact of the situation on the hotel's recruitment efforts for entry-level and lower-level management positions?