Confucianism and Generation Y: how do two contrary value sets influence the hotel industry and East Asian young employees

ABSTRACT

The generational diversity has attracted attention from academics, whose work has been largely conducted within Western social contexts, but which implies the importance for business managers to have a thorough understanding of this issue. In Australia, the number of East Asian staff is continuously increasing in the service industries, and most of them belong to Generation Y. Thus, organizations need to gain clear insights into this group, because they may be influenced by two different values in the workplace, Confucianism and Gen Y values. Consequently, the clarification of the possible co-influence of the two values in this group of staff on their attitudes and reactions to employee empowerment is essential if Australia’s service organizations are to be able to effectively apply empowerment and ensure a high standard of service quality. For the purpose of clarifying this critical issue, semi-structured interviews were conducted. The data obtained demonstrate that Gen Y values have considerable influence on Confucianism-based Gen Y employees because a higher individualistic sense was presented by those interviewees compared to general Confucianism-based employees. The co-existence of the two values in this cohort is still evolving, and further research on this is recommended.

KEYWORDS:

• East Asian employees
• Confucianism
• Generation Y
• hotel industry
• Australia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Kisang Ryu is a full professor at the College of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Sejong University, Seoul in South Korea. He has published around 90 papers in 27 journals and have received numerous honors and awards (e.g., Marquis Who’s Who in the World; 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century by International Biographical Centre).

Mr Zhongyi Zheng is interested in restaurant management, Generation Y employees, hotel operations, and East Asian cultural standard in the service industry. He has also worked in the global hotel chains as a restaurant manager.

Dr Seunghoon Han, is Associate Professor in Department of Tourism Management at Honam University in Republic of Korea. His research interests include Special Interest Tourism, sustainable tourism development, cultural tourism, tourist behavior, and social responsibility in tourism. He has published many papers on these subjects. He has also worked at global chain hotels, accounting firm, and local government in Republic of Korea.