The impact of internship job characteristics on students’ hospitality career: students’ and employers’ perspectives

Hospitality student interns are an important source of quality human resources (HR) to cope with serious labour shortage and sustain the future development of the hospitality industry. This study drew on job characteristics theory to examine the impact of job characteristics (JC) in hospitality internship on job satisfaction (JS) and job involvement (JI), and to assess how both work attitudes affect students’ future career intention (FCI) and their job performance (JP) as perceived by their managers. JC was found to positively influence JS and JI. The relationships of JS and JI with FCI were significant but those with JP were insignificant. The full mediating effect of interns’ JI was shown in this study. Moreover, this research specifically engaged HR professionals to discuss the survey results. The main findings and professional HR opinions were incorporated in the recommendations on internship enhancement to motivate and sustain interns’ aspirations towards their hospitality career.