Color Portrait of Charles Perry

Charles Edward Perry (Chuck), 1937-1999, was the founding president of Florida International University in Miami. He grew up in Logan County, West Virginia and graduated from Bowling Green State University. He married his wife, Betty Laird in 1960. In 1969, at the age of 32, Perry was the youngest president of any university in the nation. The name of the university reflects Perry’s desire for a title that would not limit the scope of the institution and would support his vision of having close ties to Latin America. Perry and a founding corps opened FIU to 5,667 students in 1972 with only one large building housing six different schools. Perry left the office of President of FIU in 1976 when the student body had grown to 10,000 students and the university had six buildings, offered 134 different degrees and was fully accredited. Charles Perry died on August 30, 1999 at his home in Rockwall, Texas. He is buried on the FIU campus in front of the Graham Center entrance.

Mobility of General Managers as Lodging Size, Service Vary

Hotel Managerment has usually been viewed as a single labor market which allows considerable movement between properties of different sizes and service levels. The authors question this assumption and support the hypothesis that general managers in one type of hotel will have spent a large majority of their careers in hotels of the same type.

Development of ``HealthServe'': A measure of customer service orientation in healthcare

An assessment tool designed to measure a customer service orientation among RN's and LPN's was developed using a content-oriented approach. Critical incidents were first developed by asking two samples of healthcare managers (n = 52 and 25) to identify various customer-contact situations. The critical incidents were then used to formulate a 121-item instrument. Patient-contact workers from 3 hospitals (n = 102) completed the instrument along with the NEO-FFI, a measure of the Big Five personality factors. Concurrently, managers completed a performance evaluation scale on the employees participating in the study in order to determine the predictive validity of the instrument.^ Through a criterion-keying approach, the instrument was scaled down to 38 items. The correlation between HealthServe and the supervisory ratings of performance evaluation data supported the instrument's criterion-related validity (r =.66, p $<$.0001). Incremental validity of HealthServe over the Big Five was found with HealthServe accounting for 46% of the variance.^ The NEO-FFI was used to assess the correlation between personality traits and HealthServe. A factor analysis of HealthServe suggested 4 factors which were correlated with the NEO-FFI scores. Results indicated that HealthServe was related to Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and negatively related to Neuroticism.^ The benefits of the test construction procedure used here over the use of broad-based measures of personality were discussed as well as the limitations of using a concurrent validation strategy. Recommendations for future studies were provided. ^

Towards an Understanding of Lodging Asset Management and its Components

Lodging asset management has emerged as one of the most important areas of strategic hotel management. Increasingly, lodging companies are soliciting the services of asset management firms or developing internal asset management competencies. This article synthesizes and discusses the essential components of dynamic lodging asset management. The article provides a detail background on asset management and its importance and explains the role of lodging asset managers and their working relationships with ownership and operators. The article also discusses the competencies and skills of asset managers.

Mentors: Helping Younger Managers up the Hospitality Ladder

Mentoring is a centuries-old concept. However, in the hospitality industry, with its fast pace and high pressures, mentors can be of benefit in the training of younger managers before burnout The author discusses both the problems and benefits of mentoring, and how the system can work in the industry.

File Control: The Heart Of Business Computer Management

In his study - File Control: The Heart Of Business Computer Management - William G. O'Brien, Assistant Professor, The School of Hospitality Management at Florida International University, initially informs you: “Even though computers are an everyday part of the hospitality industry, many managers lack the knowledge and experience to control and protect the files in these systems. The author offers guidelines which can minimize or prevent damage to the business as a whole.” Our author initially opens this study with some anecdotal instances illustrating the failure of hospitality managers to exercise due caution with regard to computer supported information systems inside their restaurants and hotels. “Of the three components that make up any business computer system (data files, programs, and hard-ware), it is files that are most important, perhaps irreplaceable, to the business,” O’Brien informs you. O’Brien breaks down the noun, files, into two distinct categories. They are, the files of extrinsic value, and its counterpart the files of intrinsic value. An example of extrinsic value files would be a restaurant’s wine inventory. “As sales are made and new shipments are received, the computer updates the file,” says O’Brien. “This information might come directly from a point-of-sale terminal or might be entered manually by an employee,” he further explains. On the intrinsic side of the equation, O’Brien wants you to know that the information itself is the valuable part of this type of file. Its value is over and above the file’s informational purpose as a pragmatic business tool, as it is in inventory control. “The information is money in the legal sense For instance, figures moved about in banking system computers do not represent dollars; they are dollars,” O’Brien explains. “If the record of a dollar amount is erased from all computer files, then that money ceases to exist,” he warns. This type of information can also be bought and sold, such as it is in customer lists to advertisers. Files must be protected O’Brien stresses. “File security requires a systematic approach,” he discloses. O’Brien goes on to explain important elements to consider when evaluating file information. File back-up is also an important factor to think about, along with file storage/safety concerns. “Sooner or later, every property will have its fire, flood, careless mistake, or disgruntled employee,” O’Brien closes. “…good file control can minimize or prevent damage to the business as a whole.”

Overcoming The Impotency Of Marketing

In his dialogue titled - Overcoming The Impotency Of Marketing - K. Michael Haywood, Assistant Professor, School of Hotel and Food Administration, University of Guelph, originally reveals: “Many accommodation businesses have discovered that their marketing activities are becoming increasingly impotent. To overcome this evolutionary stage in the life cycle of marketing, this article outlines six principles that will re-establish marketing's vitality.” “The opinion of general managers and senior marketing, financial, and food and beverage managers is that the marketing is not producing the results it once did and is not working as it should,” Haywood advises. Haywood points to price as the primary component hospitality managers use to favor/adjust their marketability. Although this is an effective tool, the practice can also erode profitability and margin he says. Haywood also points at recession as a major factor in exposing the failures of marketing plans. He adds that the hotel manager cannot afford to let this rationale go unchallenged; managers must take measures to mitigate circumstances that they might not have any control over. Managers must attempt to maintain profitability. “In many hotels, large corporate accounts or convention business generates a significant proportion of occupancy. Often these big buyers dictate their terms to the hotels, especially the price they are prepared to pay and the service they expect,” Haywood warns. This dynamic is just another significant pitfall that challenges marketing strategy. The savvy marketing technician must be aware of changes that occur in his or her marketplace, Haywood stresses. He offers three specific, real changes, which should be responded to. “To cope with the problems and uncertainties of the hotel business during the remainder of the decade, six components need to be developed if marketing impotency is to be overcome,” says Haywood in outlining his six-step approach to the problem. Additionally, forward thinking cannot be over-emphasized. “A high market share is helpful in general, but an even more crucial factor is careful consideration of the market sectors in which the company wants to operate,” your author advises. “Taking tactical initiatives is essential. Successful hotels act; unsuccessful ones react. The less successful marketing operations tend to be a hive of frantic activity. Fire-fighting is the normal way of life in such organizations, Haywood observes. “By contrast, successful firms plan and execute their tactical marketing activity with careful timing and precision so as to create the maximum impact,” he extends in describing his fruitful marketing arabesque.

Tourism Professionals Profile: Theme Park Managers

Theme park managers are a unique group of tourism managers. Their perspectives on effective tourism management skills and abilities differ from some public sector tourism managers. The authors present the results of a study focusing on theme park managers and compare these results with those of other tourism manager groups

General Managers in Mid-scale Hotels: Are they Plateaued?

This research investigated the career-plateau patterns of general managers (GMs) in mid-scale hotels. In regard to plateau categories, by far the largest number of GMs reported that they were in the productively plateaued category. The hotel industry can use this research to view the career satisfaction and productivity of GMs in light of the plateau pattern into which they are classified.

Technology Vendors: Lodging Managers View Support They Receive

The authors report on a comparative study of regional differences in the perceptions of lodging managers in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom on the support they receive from their technology vendors, and the technology systems they are using. Besides a comparison based on regions, the study also looks at differences of opinions based on property size.

Toward a unified theory of task -oriented and relationship -oriented leader behavior: A multi -country generalizability study

The theoretical foundation of this study comes from the significant recurrence throughout the leadership literature of two distinct behaviors, task orientation and relationship orientation. Task orientation and relationship orientation are assumed to be generic behaviors, which are universally observed and applied in organizations, even though they may be uniquely enacted in organizations across cultures. The lack of empirical evidence supporting these assumptions provided the impetus to hypothetically develop and empirically confirm the universal application of task orientation and relationship orientation and the generalizability of their measurement in a cross-cultural setting. Task orientation and relationship orientation are operationalized through consideration and initiation of structure, two well-established theoretical leadership constructs. Multiple-group mean and covariance structures (MACS) analyses are used to simultaneously validate the generalizability of the two hypothesized constructs across the 12 cultural groups and to assess whether the similarities and differences discovered are measurement and scaling artifacts or reflect true cross-cultural differences. The data were collected by the author and others as part of a larger international research project. The data are comprised of 2341 managers from 12 countries/regions. The results provide compelling evidence that task orientation and relationship orientation, reliably and validly operationalized through consideration and initiation of structure, are generalizable across the countries/regions sampled. But the results also reveal significant differences in the perception of these behaviors, suggesting that some aspects of task orientation and relationship orientation are strongly affected by cultural influences. These (similarities and) differences reflect directly interpretable, error-free effects among the constructs at the behavioral level. Thus, task orientation and relationship orientation can demonstrate different relations among cultures, yet still be defined equivalently across the 11 cultures studied. The differences found in this study are true differences and may contain information about cultural influences characterizing each cultural context (i.e. group). The nature of such influences should be examined before the results can be meaningfully interpreted. To examine the effects of cultural characteristics on the constructs, additional hypotheses on the constructs' latent parameters can be tested across groups. Construct-level tests are illustrated in hypothetical examples in light of the study's results. The study contributes significantly to the theoretical understanding of the nature and generalizability of psychological constructs. The theoretical and practical implications of embedding context into a unified theory of task orientated and relationship oriented leader behavior are proposed. Limitations and contributions are also discussed. ^