Money or fit? The tradeoff of intrinsic and extrinsic variables in hospitality managers’ job choice

Abstract

With the hospitality industry facing an ongoing labor shortage exacerbated by the pandemic, this study extends research on job applicants’ preferences for job offers, drawing primarily from the person-environment fit theory. It focuses on understanding the importance of entry-level salary, person-job (PJ) fit, and person-organization (PO) fit within the context of hospitality businesses. Using a two-phase model that unifies and extends the job choice of single-attribute and multiple-attribute job offers, this study uses mixed ANOVA analyses to test the proposed hypotheses. Our main result shows that job applicants experiencing high perceived financial stress are more likely to accept the job offer with both PJ fit and PO fit when compared to (a) the job offer with a higher entry-level salary and PJ fit and (b) the job offer with a higher entry-level salary and PO fit. Based on these findings, several theoretical and empirical implications are discussed.