Moving Towards Online Education – Are Hospitality Hiring Managers Taking Online Degrees Seriously

As instructional techniques change dramatically from physical to remote learning, the stakeholders’ views and experiences concerning online learning are crucial for the investigation. Using a mixed-methods research approach, this study attempts to understand how hospitality hiring managers view graduates from online degree programs and their perception of the educational quality of these institutions. The study also attempted to find out the factors influencing the willingness of employers to hire a candidate with an online degree. For the quantitative study, one-sample t-test and relative important index were used on a sample of 186 recruiters working in the hospitality industry, and for the qualitative study, 13 in-depth interviews were conducted with hospitality hiring managers. The findings indicated that although employers did not perceive online learning entirely positively, they are still willing to hire graduates with an online degree provided they must showcase high employability and relevant work or internship experience from an accredited online program. Later, based on the qualitative study, the conceptual model was developed and implications were discussed.