Back on track

Yesterday I had a little bit of a break down and I decided to quit my topic and do something else.  I just felt I could not do quality work before my trip and I was afraid I was not going to get the interviews I needed.  I wrote an email to my supervisor and began looking for another topic in Film tourism.  While I was doing that he responded and said that he thought my topic was really good and he would be disappointed if I changed it.  He said that there are always certain risks and sometimes it is worth taking them.  At that point I just did not know what to do anymore.  The deadlines for all my subjects kept popping up in my head and I realized that I was not going to make it.  I thought about just quitting everything and disappearing for weeks and handle the mess later.  Of course I could never do that, so I suppose I didn't really consider it as an option.  If I'm gonna fail, I will fail trying at least.  So I kept reading about film tourism and finally decided that, as my supervisor said, it is too late to change the topic.  I have already read many articles for my original topic and I have a lot of books.  Besides, before my breakdown last night, in the morning I did a "perfect" combination of key words that through out there article titles that seemed to really pin point towards what I have been trying to write about all along.

So after thinking about it, I decided to read some of those articles I found and it turns out I found a "perfect" article! It talks about everything that I have been thinking I wanted to talk about and it points me in the right direction finally.  It is even better than the one about Indian women.  It is called "Career Advancement and Family Balance Strategies of Executive Women".  It was a qualitative study in which women shared exactly the concerns that I think are in the minds of women in Chile.  In addition, I found an article called Modifying Best Practices in Women's Advancement for the Latin American Context, that I haven't read yet in detail yet, but from skimming through it I know it will give me some background on Latin American culture.  It even mentions Chile, which is bound to be helpful.  I hope it is not a quantitative study though! I hate those.

In any case, I am back on track.  I once again went to bed at 1:30 in the morning and got up at 8:30 so I'm a little tired but I have new confidence and feel that I can do this.  I just feel bad that I worried my poor supervisor.  I know the time constraints will be a problem, but I think that I'll go to Chile with whatever research I manage to get done, which will be as much as possible, of course, but I have to think like I used to when I was working at the hotel: I can only do what is humanly possible and with my limitations.  If it's not enough, I will fix it somehow.  I know I can read more when I come back.  It's not over until it's over so I'm back reading and I will start writing today! 

As long as I'm trying, there is no way I can fail.

What should I focus my dissertation on...

"If at first our idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it" - Albert Einstein

During the past two days I've been freaking out and calming down and freaking out again.  As I read the literature I realize that I don't really know what I'm looking for!  I have been reading a few articles and if anything, I'm becoming more confused, which is why I decided to write on my blog, since sometimes it helps me clear my ideas.

So, my topic has to do with female hospitality managers in Chile and in my draft research proposal I came up with a question that I wanted to answer, which I wrote about in my last post but I'll write about it again... My question is:

Do women want to give up their career goals for their families or do the have to?

Of course, to answer that question I would have to know whether women give up their career goals at all.  I know a few managers who have but I don't know that that is common in Chile since there are no studies to support it.

This is why I'm having so much trouble!  My question is too specific and it has no basis.  From the reading that I've done, I've come up with two alternatives that could lead me to study the same phenomenon.

One is the concept of the "glass ceiling".  There was a study done by Owen et al. in the early 2000s - (there is no date on the article, strangely) that talks about women being underrepresented in upper level managerial positions.  I know that other studies in general support that.  I have not read them yet, but if this is the angle that I take, of course I will.  Anyway, the concept of the glass ceiling, however, relates to women not being considered for higher positions, while here I am investigating whether perhaps they are not even getting to that point because of family issues.  But maybe that is putting too much of my opinion into it.  Maybe my broader topic should be like this:

Glass ceiling: are women not being considered for executive positions or are they quitting before they ever could?

Again, that presupposes that they are quitting... maybe they are not... I will be interviewing managers, so I guess they have not quit, so it would be silly to ask whether they are considering it...

Or maybe the question is more: would you consider higher positions?  But then how do you ask that without making it sound like they have to choose between their family and their work life... I do want to know if they are choosing, but they are not just going to tell me that.

I've read a book - a chapter - called Feminist Dilemmas in Qualitative Research.  The author of the chapter, Tina Miller, is conducting a study on pregnant women before and after they have their babies to find out what they feel about motherhood.  Her issue is that she wants to know more than what she calls "public" aspect of it, meaning that the women would discuss what society knows and accepts regarding pregnancy and motherhood.  She knows that by interviewing women she can get them to talk about the "private" aspect, that Miller describes as safe still because it is relaxed but not too personal.  What Miller is really interested in, however, is getting some more "personal" information, which is when people say what they really feel even if that is not what it is publicly accepted.

Miller was doing this for her PhD and it was on-going research that required two or three interviews with the same women before and after they had the baby.  Clearly, there is no way I can get that level of depth.  First because I don't have the time, and second because I am not really a researcher.  I have no experience doing this and the amount of time that I have to do it - the interviews in particular - is extremely limited.

For all these reasons, I can't just go up to someone I don't know, have a half-hour interview and expect them to tell me about whether they chose family over work or the other way around.  I don't think is that simple.


(...)


Ok, I've talked about it with my boyfriend and I have an article that I had just started reading when I freaked out and felt the compelling need to write.  Turns out, this article may be exactly what I want to do.  It's written by Reimara Valk and Vasanthi Srinivasan (2011) and it's called: Work-family Balance of Indian Women Software professionals: A Qualitative Study.  It is very similar to what I want to do with women in hospitality and in Chile.  It just has a slightly different question.

 Their question is:  How do work and family related factors influence the work-family balance of Indian women IT professionals?

My question is: How do work and family related factors influence the women's career in the hospitality industry in Chile?

Under that she talked about:

Women professionals and the work-family balance: literature review
Nature of the software services - which of course I would talk about hospitality services - and its impact on work-life balance
Methodology - they also did interviews
Findings - I would have to discuss them according to what I find in my data
Discussion and conclusion

I think this will probably be the best option.  Ok, now back to work because I have to continue doing a lot of reading.

Stressed, but alive and still going...

Finally I find a short moment to write on my blog before the end of the semester.  The past couple of weeks have been intense!  With five essays to complete by the end of the month, all my time is being spent reading and writing.  The hardest part is that I am slow at both!  So I'm surrounded by books and I keep going between one and the other looking for the stuff that I read that was really useful and that I know I read it in Weaver's book on Ecotourism... or was it Wearing?  Yes, it's been difficult and I feel the pressure more and more as I hear everyone finishing their papers and I am still behind.  It feels like I'm always behind.

This week I also met with my supervisor and he said I need to finish my essay as soon as possible, since I made the brilliant mistake to book my return ticket to Chile for the 28th of March, which happens to be two days before some of my deadlines.  When I booked the ticket of course I did not know it would be like this, and I guess I could just sit and write whatever, but I can't.  I can't because I want a good grade and I can't because the essay that I have to write for my Dissertation class really matters.  It is not just the basis for future work but it is actually most of the literature review I will do since as soon as I get to Chile I will be conducting my interviews... well, actually, it'll be as soon as my supervisor gives me the OK, which is why I need to read a lot and I need to read now!

The pressure is not making things easy though.  I'm tired.  I have been going to bed at 2 in the morning every night and waking up at 8 to try to work on everything and finish as fast as possible, but the lack of sleep is catching up with me and I just don't have time for it!  I have started to wonder if I should do my dissertation on Chile at all... the deadlines are coming so soon and I really want to do a good job.

Anyway, I guess I'm just venting.  Now to the point.  I have decided to do my dissertation topic on female leaders in the hospitality sector in Chile and my broad question is: Do women want to give up their career goals for their family or do they have to?  I have known a few female managers in hospitality who were really successful and, as they say, on the fast-track until they had children.  Then, they decided to give up their careers and either settle for a less demanding job or just not work at all.  While I know they did this because they wanted to be with their children, I wonder if also they felt like they didn't really have a choice.  Moreover, I wonder if they ever even considered that their husbands could take time off when the child was sick instead of them having to.  Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying women shouldn't take time off if they really want to.  I am not even saying that they should continue to have a career they no longer want if they really prefer to have more time with their children.  My question has to do with the fact that the alternative of having the man take time off is not even being considered.  Legislation certainly does not support it like it would in other countries such as Sweden.  If it did, and if men would consider it, would women keep their leadership roles?  Or would they still prefer to have more time at home?

I am going to do interviews.  I few of the people I am planning to interview I have worked with, but they are not my friends.  In fact, I haven't even really asked them yet, but I'm hoping they will participate.  A friend of mine also will help get in touch with a few more people and I'm considering interviewing men as well if I can get a hold of any male managers willing to discuss this topic.

For now I have found a few articles and books that I will list below in case you are interested.  However, most of the reading is still ahead of me.  I going to start today and I will try to finish by next Friday.  I am quickly running out of time and after this I have one more essay to write... I hope it all works out.  Now, to work!

Xiao, Q. and O’Neill, J. (2010), “Work-family balance as a potential strategic advantage: a hotel general manager perspective,” Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, 34, pp. 415 – 439

Arber, S. and Gilbert, N. (ed.) (1992), Women and working lives: divisions and change, London: Macmillan
Stichter, S. and Parpart, J.L. (ed.) (1990), Women, employment and the family in the international division of labour, London: Macmillan

Witz, A. and Urry, J. (ed.) (1992), Professions and patriarchy, London: Routledge

Pinar, M., McCuddy, M., Birkan, I. and Kozak, M. (2011), ‘Gender diversity in the hospitality industry: an empirical study in Turkey,’ International Journal of Hospitality Management, 30, pp. 73 – 81.

The first thing you should know about me is that I like to write!  You probably have guessed that from the length of this posting.  Don't worry though, people often tell me that the things I write are easy to read and interesting enough to follow.  I don't know if that's true or not, since I am always interested in what I write, so I guess you will have to be the judge of that.  Please keep on reading!  I'll try not to bore you!



Most of you already know me and have heard me talk on and on about Chile, my job at Holiday Inn in Santiago and my life in California before that.  If you don't know me all that well or if you don't know me at all, here's the quick summary: born in Chile, moved to the US at 15, went back to Chile, went back to the US, went back to Chile, worked at a hotel and now I'm here.  Short and simple.  The truth is that I would've stayed in the US, but when I graduated from Film and Television Production, my visa ran out and the only place I could go to was Chile.  I already knew then that I wanted to come to London, but my South American passport did not allow me to do much other than visit places and I had no money for that.  So I moved back to Chile and looked for a job in anything that I could find that would give me enough money to come to London.  That's when I got hired as a Guest Service Manager at a Holiday Inn.  I had no experience in either guest service or management so it wasn't exactly an easy job, but in time I learned the ropes and I realized I really like working in tourism.

I lived and worked in Chile for 3 years.  After my second year there I decided that the easiest and fastest way for me to be able to move to London would be to go back to school and get a masters degree.  That said, when I applied for the International Tourism Management program I was more interested in living in London than I was in going back to school.  I applied one year before I moved and by the time I came I did not even remember what I was going to be studying at all.  You can imagine that the first couple of months I had a hard time readjusting to being a student, especially since the last time I was a student I studied something completely unrelated that required neither reading nor writing; at least not as much as we have had to read and write here.  I felt a little lost and I often wanted to just go back to work!

Soon, however, I began learning many concepts and ideas about tourism that I didn't even know existed.  Since the school year started until now I have learned about so many places that I would like to visit, and have thought of so many projects that I would like to work on, that choosing a dissertation topic has become surprisingly difficult!  When I first chose to study tourism was because I enjoyed my job at the hotel and I knew that jobs in the hospitality industry became available fairly often so my plan was always to do my dissertation on a topic that was related to the hospitality industry.  Yet, I find myself torn between many options and I don't want to end up choosing something that is going to be either too boring to work on for 6 months but useful for my career, or something very interesting but useless for my career.

This leads me to the main point of this posting, and this blog for that matter.  I have a few ideas that I am toying around with based on my interest, and maybe some of you would be able to help.

1. The first idea I have been wanting to research has to do with the hospitality industry.  During the three years that I worked at the hotel, I had to deal with people coming and going all the time.  Normally you would expect that from a hotel but when I say "people" I actually mean employees not guests. It was so hard to keep employees that after only three years on the job I was a dinosaur in that hotel!  Many people would argue that the reason employees kept leaving was that most of the jobs were not well paid and yet required a lot of work that included weekends and bank holidays.

Those two simple facts sound like enough to make people look for another job in the short-term.  My theory, however, is that those were often not the main reasons why employees left.  Part of my job was to supervise the staff of the hotel in general.  That meant that I got to spend a lot of time with them when the hotel was busy and when it wasn't.  I got to know the people behind the jobs which is why I believe that most people that quit their jobs did not do it for the money, or at least that was not their main reason for leaving.  I believe it all came down to motivation and recognition.  This is why my top choice for a dissertation topic right now is exactly this.  Causes of hospitality turnover: the case study of Holiday Inn Santiago Airport.  I could interview some of the people that have left since I am still in touch with many.

Another angle would be to see the point of view of the customers and the effects that turnover has on overall service.  During the three years that I was there we were always understaffed in one area or another so it was like a circus! The show had to go on and I believe we mostly managed to make people believe that the hotel was working just fine when instead I often ended up performing all kinds of jobs, from waitressing, to checking people in, to even making beds and cleaning bathrooms.  I didn't do it every day, but I had to do things like that more often than I should have been doing them. So how badly understaffed does a hotel have to be before it reflects on the overall service that the guest receives?  I'm not talking about the random complaint here and there, I'm talking about many bad reviews.  That would be another option, though it seems harder to research.

2. My second idea has to do with female leadership in the hospitality industry.  Holiday Inn in Chile is a franchise, which means that they abide by all the rules that Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) establishes, but the chain in Chile is owned by a Chilean company.  This is an important fact to mention because Chile is still a very sexist country where men are usually given more managerial opportunities than women.  However, at Holiday Inn they always preferred hiring women for managerial positions.  In fact, they usually hired men to be either night receptionists or waiters at the hotel's restaurant and they had little chance to advance to better positions, while women often did move from being a receptionist to being a junior manager of some sort, to being an assistant manager and even a hotel manager.  Most managers were female.

I am not exactly sure about what the approach could be here.  One option could be to write about the emergence of female managers in the hospitality industry in Chile, and I can interview managers at my hotel and other hotels as well.  I am not sure what the question would be here, though... I am open to any ideas that you may have.  So far I've thought about these managers juggling their careers and their family life.  Maybe that could be an angle that I could explore.  I'm not exactly sure yet, though.

Other ideas that I have come up with but have not given much thought yet are:

• Film tourism - A case study of Highclere Castle, the location where they shoot Downton Abbey, a British show that has become popular world wide.  This location used to be open to the public a few times a year but now they are also requiring that you book tickets given the increase in the number of visitors since the show started.
• Disaster effects on tourism - Chile's tourism decline and recovery after the 2010 earthquake.
• Disaster effects on tourism - Chile's tourism increase after the issue with the trapped miners.

These last three are not related to hospitality so they may be less useful to my career but they are interesting issues to research.

Anyway, writing does help to get ideas sorted!  I think I am a little bit more clear on my first idea than I was before I started writing about it.  I hope I didn't bore you too much!  I will try to keep the next few postings a little shorter.  Now it's time to focus on the literature review.  Still, any thoughts or comments are really welcomed and encouraged!

Just the beginning

Tomorrow is my first Research Methods class and I still don't have a clear idea of what I want to do.  It seems like choosing a dissertation topic is quite a commitment since I'm going to be stuck with this topic for the next few months.  On top of that, this idea that I am going to write about will determine whether or not I get a masters degree.  Therefore, choosing a topic is not an easy task, but I hope I will get the right guidance to get to where I want to be sooner rather than later.