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Coping Strategy in Hospitality Internships: A Mixed Method Approach

Article in Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education · February 2015

DOI: 10.1080/10963758.2014.998765

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mixed method approach. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education, 27(1), 10-19.

COPING STRATEGY IN HOSPITALITY INTERNSHIP: A MIXED METHOD

APPROACH

ABSTRACT

This study aims to explore coping strategy in hospitality internship. Mixed method
with embedded design was applied in this study. Hospitality students who finished 6
month internship were selected as participants to response their internship experiences
on questionnaire. Managers of students are asked to provide work evaluation in
midterm and final. Both questionnaire and work performance are combined as dyad
data for analysis. Empirical results of this study contribute several meaningful findings.
First, prior work experience significantly influences students’ mid-term and average
work performance during internship. Second, main sources of affect and methods of
coping strategy change in different period of internship. Third, students with different
level of work performance perceived different main sources of affect and applied
different methods of coping strategy. Fourth, students who own high work performance
seems more willing to work in hospitality industry after graduation.

Keywords: Internship, coping strategy, positive affect, negative affect, mixed method,
embedded design

1. INTRODUCTION
As summarized by Tsaur and Tang (2012), “hospitality is a highly stressful
industry, as it is labor-intensive and involves frequent rotations, work overload, anti-
social working hours, intensive contacts with customers, and highly emotional labor
characteristics” (p. 1038) With such characteristic in the hospitality industry, interests
of hospitality researchers in studying stress (Chiang, Birtch, & Kwan, 2010; O’Neill &
Davis, 2011; Young & Corsun, 2009) and burnout (Karatepe, Babakus, & Yavas, 2012;
Lee & Ok, 2012; Liang, 2012) never ends. In recent years, hospitality researchers begin
to study coping strategy (Hsieh & Eggers, 2010; Kim & Agrusa, 2011; Kim & Han,
2009; Tsaur & Tang, 2012). Coping strategy is defined by Lazarus and Folkman (1984)
as “the constant changing of cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific
external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources
of the person” (p. 141).
 Previous studies of coping strategy is concern with practices of employee
(Karatepe et al., 2012; Kim & Agrusa, 2011; Kim & Han, 2009; Lee & Ok, 2012; Tsaur
& Tang, 2012), customer (Strizhakova, Tsarenko, & Ruth, 2012), and manager (Hsieh
& Eggers, 2010). However, there is no study that is concern with coping strategy of
intern students. As summarized by Yiu and Law (2012), internship is vital for students
in hospitality because it allows students to experience real job situations before
graduation so that students can imagine realistic expectations about future careers.
Several studies of internship provide reasons why coping strategy of intern students has
its emergent need to be studied. First, internship experience significantly influences the
intention to work in hospitality industry (Chen, Hu, Wang, & Chen, 2011; Siu, Cheung,
& Law, 2012; Song & Chathoth, 2011). Since the intention of the current intern students
to work will determine the sources of future new hotel employees, the more efficient
intern students’ coping strategy is, the higher the work performance of future new
employees will be. Second, a study by Zibin and Chathoth (2010) noted the importance
of socializing intern newcomers. Since intern employees contribute to financial
performance as full-time employees do, there is no reason to take them as outsider of a
hotel. Effective coping strategy of intern students can also reflect on service delivery
that contributes to corporate performance. Third, internship is a vital part of hospitality
education (Yiu & Law, 2012). As hospitality educators, it’s necessary for us to realize
effective learning in internship. Successful coping strategy learned from internship can
also reduce costs of hotels on educating new employees how to cope. Thus, this study
focuses on coping strategy of intern students in hospitality industry.
On the other hand, previous studies of coping strategy can be categorized into
different types. The first type is to explore different ways of coping strategy.
Researchers are interested in antecedents and outcomes of different ways of coping
strategy (Pearsall, Ellis, & Stein, 2009; Strizhakova et al., 2012). The second type
analyzes demographic differences in coping strategy, such as age and gender
(Cicognani, 2011) and work experience (Kim & Agrusa, 2011). The third type focuses
on the role of emotional intelligence in influencing coping strategy (Gabbott, Tsarenko,
& Mok, 2011; Lee & Ok, 2012). The fourth type explores sources of stress that make
people need to cope with (Kaiseler, Polman, & Nicholls, 2009; Lu, Kao, Siu, & Lu,
2010; Pearsall et al., 2009). However, several related questions are waiting to be
answered. First, most previous studies of work stress, coping, and burnout were only
concern with psychological constructs without considering the linkage with hotel
employees’ performance evaluation (Hsieh & Eggers, 2010; Kim & Agrusa, 2011; Kim
& Han, 2009; Tsaur & Tang, 2012). Second, there is no study in hospitality academy to
explore how high and low performance employees differ in coping strategy.
Nevertheless, realizing how high performance employees conduct coping strategy
during work can reveal what high quality of coping strategy in hospitality out to be.
Third, mixed method is needed to explore how and why hotel employees practice what
kind of coping strategy and at when. Application of mixed method can provide rich
findings from both qualitative and quantitative data.
Taken together, this mixed method study aims to explore coping strategy in
hospitality internship. Students’ experiences from before internship, during internship
to after internship were collected with work performance rated by their hotel managers.
Students who finished internship were selected as participants to share their perceptions
at different periods of internship. Mixed method will be applied with embedded design
to combine qualitative and quantitative data. Scores of work performance are
quantitative data that are embedded in qualitative data to examine coping strategy.
Results of this study can provide rich theoretical implications and practical implications.
For theoretical implications, responses from participants about their perception at
different period can contribute new knowledge to coping strategy and internship. For
practical implications, this study can not only point out directions for schools to
improve internship but also guide hotel managers on what they can do for intern
employees.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Nicholls, Polman, Levy, and Backhouse (2008) summarized that “coping refers to
conscious cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage a situation that has been appraised
as stressful” (p. 1184). Wong, Reker, and Peacock (2006) pointed out major types of
coping strategy that have been well-established by research: problem-focused vs.
emotion-focused coping, approach vs. avoidance, primary control vs. secondary control,
mastery vs. meaning coping, emotional vs. tangible social support. Lazarus (2000)
added that “there is no universally effective or ineffective coping strategy. Efficacy of
coping strategy depends on the type of person, the type of threat, the stage of the
stressful encounter, and the outcome modality, such as subjective well-being, social
functioning, or somatic health” (p. 202-203). Additionally, sources applied in coping
can be separated into individual and social resources (Cicognani, 2011). “Self-efficacy
is the main individual resource used that refers to individuals’ belief to overcome
difficulties in their lives. Social support is the main social resource that refers to social
assets, social resources, or social networks that people can use when they are in need
of advice, help, assistance, approval, and protection” (Cicognani, 2011; p. 561).
Problem-focused and emotion-focused coping proposed by Lazarus and Folkman
(1984) best fits the characteristic in hospitality industry and is also the mostly used
types of coping strategy in academic research (Gabbott et al., 2011). As summarized by
Gabbott et al. (2011), “Problem-focused coping refers to coping efforts that involve the
management or alteration of the person-environment relationship. Emotion-focused
coping refers to the internal management of emotions experienced as a result of the
stressful environment.” (p. 235). For example, a new intern employee in a hotel may
not be familiar with the standard operation process of service delivery. The employee
may use problem-focused coping strategy to ask senior employees and learn from
managers to improve its competence. On the other side, the employee can also use
emotion-focused coping strategy to reduce anxiety by thinking “I can learn it!” or “I
can achieve it!”, or by doing leisure activities or sharing personal complains about the
stress to others.
Prior work experience can help students gain competence needed to work for
internship (Dragoni, Oh, Vankatwyk, & Tesluk, 2011). Work experience consists of
‘‘events that are experienced by an individual that relate to the performance of some
job.” positively impacted work performance (Quinones, Ford, & Teachout, 1995:890).
Facing similar work activities several times can improve the likelihood of repetition
and mastery (Dragoni et al., 2011). One study by Kim and Agrusa (2011) examined the
coping strategies of hospitality employees from full-service, mid or upscale hotels as
well as full-service restaurants in Hawaii. The results revealed that servers with
previous work experience has significantly better performance both in work and coping
skills, especially for female employees. Thus, students with work experience may
perform better than those without work experience.
Besides, experienced students may own high self-efficacy because they are already
familiar with service works and they have learned social skills for creating new
interpersonal relationship (Downey & Zeltmann, 2009). Sitzmann and Yeo (2013)
argued that more than 93% of studies have found positive correlations between self-
efficacy and performance at a between-persons level of analysis. In their study, a meta-
analysis was implemented and the results demonstrated a positive relationship between
self-efficacy and past work performance. Previous studies also indicated that students
with high self-efficacy are more comfort when facing problems and can display various
coping strategies pertaining to the problem (Bresó, Schaufeli & Salanova, 2011;
Sitzmann & Ely, 2011). Therefore, students with high self-efficacy are more likely to
perform better than those with low self-efficacy.
Both work experience and self-efficacy are individual sources for coping strategy
(Cicognani, 2011). On the other hand, expectation and perceived self-efficacy for
internship are also worth to be explored to realize students’ mental status before
internship (Moghaddam, 2011). Based on the reasons mentioned above, we propose the
following research questions:

Research question 1: What are the differences between students with and without
 prior work experience in work performance during internship?
Research question 2: What are the main expectation and status of self-efficacy
before internship?

Watson, Clark, and Tellegen (1988) defined that “positive affect (PA) reflects the
extent to which a person feels enthusiastic, active, and alert” (p. 1063). Besides,
“negative affect (NA) is a general dimension of subjective distress and unpleasurable
engagement that subsumes a variety of aversive mood states, including anger, contempt,
disgust, guilt, fear, and nervousness.” (Watson et al., 1988; p. 1063). Likewise, Berry
and Hansen (1996) argued that people who are high in PA are “consistently more likely
to describe themselves as enthusiastic, confident, and excited than are people who are
low in positive affect” (p. 796); one the contrary, people who are high in NA are “more
likely to describe themselves as guilty, fearful, and nervous than are low-NA individuals”
(p. 796).
Dynamic changes of PA and NA before, during, and after an event can contribute
to knowledge of human affect (Egloff, Schmukle, Carl-Walter, Burns, & Hock, 2003).
Previous literature consistently showed that PA will impact people’s performance
through coping strategies, social interaction, physical well-being, and problem solving
(Lyubomirsky, King & Diener, 2005). Positive source of affects and coping strategies
may influence the extent to which objective job demands are perceived as stressful
(Chiang, Birtch & Kwan, 2010). Results from a questionnaire-based study of
employees in hotel and resort by Liu, Prati, Prerewe, and Brymer (2010) demonstrated
that work performance was positively related to PA, but was not significantly related to
NA. Besides, empirical evidence confirmed that hospitality employees with higher
levels of PA tended to experience less emotive dissonance and in turns may impact their
work performance (Chu, Barker & Murrmann, 2012). NA such as stress, unhappiness
and psychological distress in workplace have been associated with lost productivity and
decreased work performance (Warr, 2007).
Moreover, coping strategy should be concerned together with PA and NA to
provide an overall understanding on how students react to their affect (Denız & Işik,
2010; Hovey & Seligman, 2007). Lazarus (2000) also noted that effectiveness of coping
strategy depends on what to cope for. Since affect shows dynamic changes, dynamic
changes of coping strategy should also be explored. A study by Pienaar and Willemse
(2008), investigating in hospitality industry of a South African city, displayed that
service employees who preferred an accommodative coping strategy showed better in
health. In the intensive work context of hospitality industry, a good health could help
service employees to perform better in work. Chuang (2010) found that college students
majoring in hospitality frequently used problem-focused methods to cope with
problems. The study also indicated that using qualitative method may have limited
students from considering all possible coping strategies, students appeared to seek
inward or internal solutions (e.g., improve self, work hard) more than external
assistance (e.g., professional help).
In hospitality industry, realizing dynamic changes of sources of PA and NA can
provide practical insights about how to make employees happy and how to reduce
possible NA. Scholars stated recently that within-person fluctuations were important as
predictors and outcomes of employees’ work performance (Xanthopoulou, Bakker &
Ilies, 2012). An interview-based study in Taiwan indicated that NA over work content,
environment, or atmosphere may cause employees’ leave a hotel and organizational
strategies should be implemented to increase employees’ happiness (Yang, Wan & Fu,
2012). Moreover, female employees engaged in coping strategies such as well-planned
leisure activities that develop resources to refresh from work stress and in turn enhanced
their job satisfaction and happiness (Tsaur & Tang, 2012). Due to the importance of PA,
NA, and coping in hospitality industry, it is worth for us to explore the detail
information of them. Based on the reasoning mentioned above, we propose the
following research questions:

Research question 3: What are the sources of positive affect in work during
different periods of internship?
Research question 4: What are the sources of negative affect in work during
different periods of internship?
Research question 5: What are the key sources of negative affect in work and
coping strategy during different periods of internship?

Thompson (1985) summarized that “several empirical studies have supported the
notion that finding positive meaning in an undesirable event is especially important in
coping reactions” (p. 280). Internship is an important activity for hospitality students to
work in the real industry and apply what they learned into practice. Thus, thoughts and
feelings after hospitality internship become valuable information to extract key factors
of coping strategy in internship. Rethinking of finished internship is also a meaningful
way to make sense of an experience. Based on the concept of sense making after coping,
students who finished internship can review their affect and coping during internship,
generate suggestions for internship, and evaluate their willingness to work as well (Siu
et al., 2012; Song & Chathoth, 2011). Thompson (1985) added:

“Focusing on the positive aspects of a stressful event may lead to good coping
because it helps people deal with the psychological issues raised by the event.
 Perhaps the most important of these is the need to make sense of the experience:
to determine why it happened, who is to be held responsible, and what meaning
the event has for one's life and one's view of the world.” (p. 280)

On the other hand, several previous studies revealed the influences of work
performance on employees’ turnover intention (Halbesleben & Wheeler, 2008;
Jaramillo, Mulki, & Solomon, 2006; Poon, 2004). Such influence may also happen for
intern students. Students may take performance to form their self-efficacy to work in
the industry. Those who own are highly evaluated in performance may own high
confidence to work in the future. In sport psychology, Völp and Keil (1987) also found
that the achievement owned during a work motivates an individual to keep working on
the work. Taken together, students with different levels of work performance may
perform different content in review, suggestion, and work intention. Hence, we propose
the following research questions:

Research question 6: After internship, what do students think as the main source
of positive affect and negative affect during internship? And what is the mostly
used coping strategy during internship? Are responses of students different based
on their work performance?
Research question 7: What are suggestions of students for internship? Are
responses of students different based on their work performance?
Research question 8: How about intention to work in hospitality industry of
students? Are responses of students different based on their work performance?

3. METHOD
The mixed method applied in this study is embedded design. Creswell and Clark
(2011) argued that “the embedded design is a mixed methods approach where the
researcher combines the collection and analysis of both quantitative and qualitative
research design” (p.90). “In an embedded design, the researcher may add a qualitative
strand within a quantitative design, or add a quantitative strand into a qualitative design”
(Creswell & Clark, 2011; p.71). In this study, we add a quantitative strand (performance
of participants) into a qualitative design. The research framework of this study is shown
in Figure 1. With a longitudinal perspective, this study firstly explore “prior work
experience” and “expectation and self-efficacy before internship” to realize background
information of participants. Second, the process of 6 month internship is categorized
into three periods: 1st and 2nd month, 3rd and 4th month, and 5th and 6th month. For each
period, “sources of PA”, “sources of NA and coping”, and “key sources of NA and
coping” are included. Both Mid-term and final work performance in internship are also
considered. Third, after internship, review of internship, suggestions for internship and
intention to work at the industry after graduation are asked.

Figure 1. Research framework of this study

Students who finished 6 month internship in hospitality industry were selected as

participants in this study. A total of 44 students in the same class at the same university
volunteered to join this study. The teacher of these students used one hour to ask
students answer open questions on paper questionnaire. Questions in Page 1 of the
questionnaire ask students’ name, gender, age, location of internship, department for
internship, prior work experience in hospitality industry, and intention to work in
hospitality industry after graduation. Page 2 starts with a statement to ask what students
think about their feelings before internship, and then further ask questions about what
students were focusing on before internship. The beginning of Page 3 to page 5 starts
with statement to ask what students think about their feeling in the first 2 months (page
3), within the middle of the 2 months (page 4), and the final 2 months (page 5). For
these three pages, “sources of PA”, “sources of NA and coping”, and “key sources of
NA and coping” were all asked. Questions of Page 6 ask students to answer with an
overall review about the key sources of PA and NA, and their key coping strategy.
Finally, in page 7, students were asked to provide suggestions for internship. After all
participants submitted questionnaires, the teacher checked some questionnaires to
ensure that participants respond to all the questions. On the other hand, during
internship, managers of students are asked to provide work evaluation in midterm and
final. The total score for each work performance is 100 points. Both questionnaire and
work performance are combined as dyad data for analysis.
The data analysis was based on coding responses of questionnaire questions.
Firstly, every answer was translated from Chinese to English and imputed into one
Excel file per person. Each sentence owns a code as “number of participant - page
number - number of question of the page - number of idea.” For example, “1 - P6 - Q1
- I1” means this response comes from participant number one, on page 6, for question
number one of page 6, and this is the first idea of the participant for this question.
Secondly, answers for each question were classified into different categories and were
coded into SPSS. For instance, one question about the most challenge that students
considered before internship, answers like “Hard to communicate with supervisors” and
“I am afraid that supervisor will not be nice” are classified as “Interpersonal relationship
in work place.” Thirdly, two authors of this study discussed about regulations of
classification and keep mutual consensus in each classification. On the other hand, t-
test will be conducted to examine whether there exists differences in min-term, final,
and average work performance between students with and without work experience
before internship.
Triangulation implies that a single point is considered from three different and
independent sources. Derived from topography and first used in the military and
navigation sciences, the concept has been fruitfully adapted to social science inquiry
(Campbell & Fiske, 1959). Triangulation means looking at the same phenomenon, or
research question, from more than one source of data. Information coming from
different angles can be used to corroborate, elaborate or illuminate the research problem
(Decrop, 1999). Therefore, using triangulation limits personal and methodological
biases and enhances this study’s generality. In this study, students’ feelings for different
time period through internship were first collected into questionnaire questions.
Secondly, the teacher of these students assisted in distributing the questionnaires to
students and also checked contents of responses. Third, work performance of
participants evaluated by their managers during internship was also collected. Fourth,
during coding, each classification of responses reaches mutual consensus among
authors. These research steps fit the concept of triangulation and ensure validity and
reliability of this qualitative study.

4. RESULTS
The survey investigated 44 students, among whom 26 had no relevant working
experience and 18 had previous working experience before internship. The average
work experience is 8.77 months. The participants consisted of 38 female students and
6 male students with an average age of 21.36. In terms of locations for internship, 25
were in central Taiwan, 11 students work in north Taiwan, 1 in north Taiwan, 1 in eastern
Taiwan, and 6 in Japan (the location of university is in central Taiwan). Additionally,
16 participants work at housekeeping, 16 at food and beverage, 7 at recreation, and 5 at
front desk. Results of this study are separated into three parts: before internship, during
internship, and after internship.

4.1 Before internship

We are interested in whether there are differences in expectation, self-efficacy and
source of negative affect between students with or without previous work experience.
The results show that the students with prior work experience expressed relatively
stable emotion before internship. Within the students chosen “stable” to describe their
feelings before internship, 87.50% had work experience before. Some of them
mentioned that previous work experience enhanced their confidence of work ability to
handle the similar work content. On the contrary, the students without work experience
described the nervous (65.38% of 26 students) along with high expectation (50.00% of
26 students, only 11.11% of students with previous working experience used “expect”)
about the work content and self-performance. Both groups of students believed that
they will be capable for the work (Pno working experience=84.6%, Pwith working experience=77.8%).
Students with previous work experience had less worries than the others. Moreover,
both students with or without work experience were worried about unfamiliarity with
the work content (40% and 42.5%). In addition, students without previous work
experience cared more about the interpersonal relationship in work place (30%).
Students with work experience were more confident pertaining to this issue (20%).
Table 1 shows work performance of students with and without prior work
experience. The average wok performance of students with work experience is
obviously higher than students without working experience (Mno experience = 82.77, Mwith
experience = 87.06). The difference of mid-term performance between two groups is 5.14

while the difference of final performance between two groups is 3.45. Moreover, work
performance of students without work experience improved by 2.92 from 81.31 to
84.23 while work performance of students with work experience improved by 1.23 from
86.44 to 87.67. With the statistical results of t-test, we found that students with and
without work performance perform significantly different in mid-term performance and
average performance. With accumulated experiences, students without work experience
can gain competence and improve their work performance. Gaps of work performance
between students with and without work experience were reduced with accumulation
of internship experiences.

Table 1. Differences of performance evaluated by firms between students with or

without work experience.

Pertaining to expectation and self-efficacy of participants before internship, more

than half of students felt nervous or worried before internship, 27.59% of them were
highly expectant about the internship, and 13.79% kept stable mood, and 5.18% felt
nothing special. Moreover, in terms of most of the challenges faced during internship,
most students (41.54%) think about being unfamiliar with the work content. In addition,
students were worried about interpersonal relationship (26.15%) before internship.
Overall, 81.8% of students were confident about their capacity to handle the internship.

4.2 During internship

For sources of PA in different periods, “Get along with coworkers/supervisors”
was considered as the top three sources of positive affect for students cross different
periods in internship. In the first two months, students entered a new environment, the
interpersonal relationship with coworkers and supervisors provided social support and
became the most important source of positive affect (32.84%). In the 3rd and 4th month
of internship, the “Be familiar with work content” (44.26%) provided students PA while
nice communication with coworkers and supervisors (27.87%) kept play as key driver
of PA. During the final 2 months of the internship, social interaction with coworkers in
a service team (36.73% of responses) contributed as the main source of PA. Moreover,
in considering sources of PA in the final 2 months, 26.53% responses noted that there
was nothing special. It reveals that students at the final period may establish clear
boundary between work domain and personal affect mechanism.
In terms of the source of NA, at the beginning of internship, students considered
“Unfamiliarity with work content” (38.60%) as main source of negative affect.
However, as time went by, work content was no longer a problem at the end. On the
contrary, work load became a main concern in influencing NA (19.15% in 3rd and 4th
month and 14% in 5th and 6th month). The communication with supervisors/coworkers
and pressure from supervisors were concerned by students. In the last two months, since
students got familiar with work, half of them think there was nothing special as negative
source of affect. Just like we had interpreted before, students at this period may establish
clear boundary between work life and personal affect mechanism. Moreover, some
students in the final 2 months had to face a new problem: “Teaching new workers” (8%).
Students at this period were no longer newcomers. They had the responsibility as
mentor to lead and teach new employees. Such responsibility became an emerging
source of NA.
Table 2 shows what do students think as the key source of NA at each period and
how they cope with it. In the first period, students cope by asking coworkers and
supervisors questions about work content (31.11%) and practicing more (17.78%) to
get familiar with work content. In addition, 20.00% of responses talk to family member
or friends about problems they faced during work. In the second period, students use
“Practice more” (34.12%) as top one coping strategy. Communicate with co-workers
and supervisors (21.05%), ask others for help (15.79%), and adjust self mentally
(15.79%) are also applied in the second period. In the third period, students no longer
consider work content as a problem. Instead, they try to establish a long-term strategy
for working in this industry. For example, change mindset, regular leisure activities,
and own a positive attitude toward job are practices of adjust self mentally. Such finding
revealed that problem-focused coping were generally used in the beginning of
internship while use of emotion-focused coping were increasing with accumulation of
work experiences.

Table 2. Key sources of NA and coping strategy.

4.3 After Internship
Based on work performance evaluated by students’ manager during internship,
participants were divided into three groups. Average of midterm and final work
performance was used to separate students. Group 1 includes students with less than 77,
group 2 contains students with scores between 78 and 90, and group 3 owns students
with score higher than 90. Finally, group 1 has 6 students, group 2 has 31 students and
group 3 has 7 students. Table 3 shows students’ overall perception about the main source
of PA, main source of NA, and main coping strategy. Compare with the main sources
of positive affect, the results show that group 3 cares more about recognition or
satisfaction from customers (33.33%) than group 2 (27.91%) and group 1 (0.00%). Only
group 1 has “Encouragement from friends or family” (25.00%) as one of their main
sources of positive affect. On the contrary, only group 3 takes self-achievement (16.67%)
as main source of PA. Moreover, all three groups gain positive affect from
“Communication with coworkers/supervisors”, but the importance varies from 50% for
group 1, 46.51% for group 2, to 25% for group 3.
In considering source of negative affect, all three groups choose the pressure or
requirements from supervisors. Group 1 (37.5%) and group 2 (27.78%) is concern about
pressure or requirements from supervisors more than group 3 (12.50%). Moreover, all
three groups choose entertainment (Sports, movies, trips etc.) to release pressure, 75%
for group 1, 61.90% for group 2 and 36.36% for group 3 respectively. Also, talking with
friends or family is a main strategy for all three groups. Moreover, only group 3 takes
communication with coworkers and supervisors as main coping strategy (18.18%).
Thus, students with lower work performance seem to prefer to conduct emotion-
focused coping while those who gained high work performance practiced more
problem-focused coping.

Table 3. Differences in each question of this part among 3 groups by performance.

Among these three groups, suggestions for school about internship have no
difference. Most students suggest school to provide more information about intern
hotels before their internship. Students in group 2 and 1 mention that managers should
avoid their emotional contagion of individual NA in work environment. Additionally,
most students suggest human resource department should provide more training for
intern employees to get familiar with work content as early as possible. To summarize
the intention to work in hospitality after graduation of these three groups, obviously,
group 3 has the highest percentage (71.40%) of willingness to work in the future and
the lowest percentage (14.3%) was of no intention to enter this industry after graduation.
Students in group 1 have three equal responses for intention to work. Students in group
2 have 54.85% for “Yes”, 16.15% for “Not Sure” and 29.00% for “No intention after
graduation”. The results indicate that work performance during internship may
influence intention to work in hospitality industry after graduation.

5. DISCUSSION
The aim of this study is to explore coping strategy of hospitality internship.
Embedded design of mixed method was applied in this study. Base on responses from
students who finished internship and performance evaluations from hotel managers for
these students, this study contributes rich findings in before internship, during
internship, and after internship. Both academic and practical implications generated
from this study are discussed in following sections.
This study contributes several academic implications. First, we found differences
in using problem-focused and emotion-focused coping. In the process of internship,
students practiced more problem-focused coping than emotion-focused coping to
improve their competency. After being familiar with work contents, emotion-focused
coping will gradually replace problem-focused coping to cope with work load and stress.
Additionally, high performance students use more problem-focused coping than
emotion-focused coping, such as communication with coworkers/supervisors. On the
contrary, low performance students mostly use emotion-focused coping, like
entertainment, to cope with their NA. Second, information exchange and
communication before internship are worth to be added into internship. Many
participants of this study suggest school and intern hotels provide trainings for them to
access work related information and meet future coworkers. Besides, participants also
report that NA and anxiety before internship mainly come from unfamiliarity with
intern hotel and unfamiliarity with coworkers/supervisors. Thus, training, meeting or
workshop before internship may effectively reduce NA and anxiety. Moreover,
performance gap between with and without prior work experience may also be reduced
through training, meeting or workshop before internship. Third, “communication with
coworkers/supervisors” and “adjust self mentally” are effective coping strategies.
Communication with coworkers and supervisors can provide intern students knowledge
and skill needed to solve problems. Additionally, communication can strengthen social
networking that provides potential social support in the future. Communication is also
one way to improve interpersonal relationship that leads to PA as well. Adjusting self
mentally can establish an active and positive attitude toward work. Work in a stressful
environment, an optimistic mindset is important for employees to keep working. Fourth,
high performance intern students take recognition from customers as main source of PA
more than low performance intern students. For students who are naturally customer-
oriented, they can enjoy working at hotels and gaining PA from providing services.
 This study also contributes several practical implications. First, school should
cooperate with intern hotels to provide training, meeting or workshop before internship.
Such activity is different from orientation held by hotels for intern employees. The
activity should introduce the difference between work place and campus, share prior
intern experiences, point out possible difficulties and possible coping strategies, and
teach social skills for communicating with coworkers and managers. Second, positive
social interaction and atmosphere in a department can provide employee PA. At
different period of internship, get along with coworkers/supervisors is the main source
of PA. Several participants also noted that affect control of hotel managers should be
improved. Hence, hotel managers and senior employees have the responsibility to lead
a pleasant work environment. Based on emotional contagion, it is only when employees
perceive happiness that they can frequently and naturally deliver service with a smile.
Third, hotel managers should design intensives to retain high performance students by
“recognition from customers” and “self-achievement.” These two sources are
mentioned by high performance students as main sources of PA. To retain high
performance students to become employees, hotel managers can provide possible
promotion chances to attract those who like self-achievement. During working,
managers can apply empowerment to improve employees’ perception of recognition
from customers.
Although this study has revealed a great deal about the nature of coping strategy
in hospitality internship, more research is called for to expand the understanding of
coping strategy in hospitality. First, longitudinal study of full-time employees’ coping
strategy is worth to be explored. Same as this study, future research can combine work
performance with coping strategy as dyad data to explore new findings. Mixed method
can be applied to combine both qualitative and quantitative data. Second, different level
of job position may own different coping strategies. The difference of job position
reveals different coping sources and social support for material wealth and coworkers
will be changed. Third, differences of department may generate differences in coping
strategy. For example, coworkers in food and beverage are always the similar age as
intern students while coworkers in housekeeping are mostly senior employees.
Generation gap may influence intern students’ willingness to ask and communicate with
coworkers. Additionally, employees at food and beverage and front desk are more
frequent than housekeeping to contact with customers. Situational differences may lead
to different sources of positive and NA. Fourth, large sample size should be considered
when taking quantitative research as main body of the embedded design.
 Internship

Prior work 1st and 2nd month 3rd and 4th month 5th and 6th month Review of
experience internship
Sources of positive Sources of positive Sources of positive
affect affect affect
Expectation and Suggestions
self-efficacy Sources of negative Sources of negative Sources of negative for
before Internship affect & coping affect & coping affect & coping internship

Key sources of Key sources of Key sources of Intention to

negative affect & negative affect & negative affect & work after
coping coping coping graduation

Performance Performance
evaluation 1 evaluation 2

Figure 1. Research framework of this study

Table 1. Differences of performance evaluated by firms between students with or
without work experience.
Mid-term performance Final performance Average performance
work No Yes No Yes No Yes
experience (n=26) (n=18) (n=26) (n=18) (n=26) (n=18)
mean 81.31 86.44 84.23 87.67 82.77 87.06
S. D. 6.75 7.56 6.64 7.01 6.41 7.21
t-value -2.501* -1.812 -2.253*
Note: *p < .05, **p < .01, *** p < .001

Table 2. Key sources of NA and coping strategy.

Steps during internship
1st and 2nd month 3rd and 4th month 5th and 6th month
Unfamiliar with work
Workload 19.15% Workload 14%
content 38.60%
Working Schedule Unfamiliar with work Pressure from
14.04% content 14.89% supervisor 10%
Key Communication with
Pressure from
sources supervisors/co- Teach new workers 8%
supervisors 12.28%
of NA workers 10.64%
Communication with
Communication with
Pressure from co-
supervisors/co-
supervisors 10.64% workers/Supervisors
workers 8.77%
8%
Communication with
Adjust self mentally
coworkers/Supervisors Practice more 34.12%
24.49%
31.11%
Communicate with
Talk to friends/families
Key coworkers/supervisors Practice more 8.16%
20.00%
coping 21.05%
strategy Communicate with
Adjust self mentally coworkers/supervisors
Practice more 17.78% 15.79% 6.12%
Ask for help 15.79% Do sports/See doctors
6.12%

0
Table 3. Differences in each question of this part among 3 groups by performance.
Categorize participants into groups based on work performance
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
(less than 77) (between 78 and 90) (above 90)
Recognition from
Communication with Communication with customers 33.33%
coworkers/supervisors coworkers/supervisor Communication with
Main 50% 46.51% coworkers/supervisors
source Self-Achievement Recognition from 25%
of PA 25% customers 27.91% Self-Achievement
Encouragement from Recognition from 16.67%
friends/family 25% supervisors 11.63% Recognition from
supervisors 16.67%
Self 25%
Pressure/Requirements
Pressure/Requirements
Pressure/Requirements from supervisor
from supervisors
from supervisor 37.5% 27.78%
Main 12.50%
Self 25% Communication with
source Communication with
Communication with coworkers/supervisors
of NA coworkers/supervisors
coworkers/supervisors 25%
12.50%
25% Work content related
Work content related
19.44%
12.50%
Entertainment 36.36%
Entertainment 61.90% Talk to friends 18.18%
Main Talk to friends 19.05% Communication with
Entertainment 75%
coping Adjust self mentally coworkers/supervisors
Talk to friends 25%
strategy 7.14% 18.18%
Practice more 7.14% Adjust self mentally
18.18%

1
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