Psychological analysis: Identification and analysis of Ego States that form a Hospitality Oriented Personality Profile (HOPP) for the Australian hospitality industry

The purpose of this study is to address the hypothesis that service-oriented ego states exist and inhabit the subjective attitudinal elements of personality. The rationale of this research is to apply this theory to address key challenges affecting the Australian hospitality industry. Furthermore, this thesis sets out the identification and analysis of Service-Oriented Ego States (personality attributes) that are recognisable in the industry as desirable and successful attitudes. The purpose of the analysis is to develop a Hospitality-Oriented Personality Profile (HOPP) applicable to the hospitality industry but also malleable to suit other recruitment purposes. Foremost, it seeks to address the issue of retention of hospitality-oriented staff and the correspondent issue of recruitment of individuals who are able to meet the service orientation needs of employers. Service-oriented ego states are assumed to manifest through attitudinal behaviours. The Australian hospitality industry is growing faster than the sector can supply key workers, a situation mirrored in other countries across the world. Using the core theoretical frameworks of Ego State and Altruism to validate the concept of ‘ego states’, this study has analysed the individual personality characteristics and workplace behaviours of twenty-five volunteers, who work in either hospitality management, or as ‘on-the-floor’ hospitality staff. This process was assisted through an application of current industry personality-profiling techniques, in-depth semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis of their transcripts. In particular this study provides insight into the links between self-perception, other-perception, where other-perception refers to the results of ego-grams, and actual service-oriented responses of the participants. By recognising the attributes of those engaged in outstanding service-provider behaviour, a ‘Hospitality Oriented Personality Profile’ (HOPP) was theorised, and a ‘mini-HOPP’ administered to ten of the original participants to produce a series of ego-grams. The ego-grams enabled positioning of each individual on a matrix reflecting serviceorientation. From this it was possible to determine six major categories of positive (that is, demonstrated) and four of negative (that is, avoided) attributes that determine the extent of a service-oriented personality. The utility of an instrument such as the HOPP, that can predict a recruit’s strengths and weaknesses, would be of great benefit for anyone working in the Australian Tourist Industry. The HOPP’s predictive capabilities marks it as unique amongst current employee recruitment instruments, and offers a greater accuracy and efficiency in recognising desired attributes in hospitality industry applicants. It also identifies areas for support and training that are useful to recruiters for targeted professional development of employees. Moreover, the HOPP is malleable to the needs of a wide variety of industries and can be used to identify individuals who are readily reassigned within an industry, or relocated to or from an unrelated one. The HOPP’s focus on attitudes rather than skills also makes it a useful adjunct to existing skills-and-knowledge-based recruitment tools and thus has the potential to accelerate the recruitment process, as well as ensure key staff with known strengths and attitudes are found to suit the workplace environment. Overall, this study clearly demonstrates that identifiable service-oriented ego states can be profiled and an instrument such as the HOPP, that provides a profile of a service-oriented individual, offers considerable benefit to the hospitality industry.