Career desires and expectations of event management students Matthew J. Stone a, * , Thomas C. Padron b , Michael L. Wray c , Joseph “Mick” La Lopa d , Eric D. Olson e a Department of Recreation, Hospitality, and Parks Management, California State University, Chico, 400 West First Street, Chico, CA 95929-0560, USA b Department of Hospitality, Recreation and Tourism, California State University, East Bay, 25800 Carlos Bee Boulevard, Hayward, CA 94542, USA c Department of Hospitality, Tourism, and Events, Metropolitan State University of Denver,1190 Auraria Parkway, Suite B, Denver, CO 80204, USA d School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Purdue University, 900 W. State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2115, USA e Department of Apparel, Events, and Hospitality Management, Iowa State University, 31 MacKay Hall, Ames, IA 50011, USA article info Article history: Received 3 November 2016 Received in revised form 20 April 2017 Accepted 21 April 2017 abstract This study measured the factors that undergraduate event management (EM) students perceive to be important in choosing a career, determine the expectations of an event career by EM students, and compare importance and expectation factors. Drawing on Social Cognitive Career Theory, this study surveyed 525 students from five U.S. universities. The most important attributes for choosing a career in EM were: an enjoyable job, pleasant working environment, and an exciting job. For expectations of a career in EM, students felt an EM career most highly offered: interaction with others, an enjoyable job, responsibility, excitement, and transferable skills. In general, students reported desired importance factors which exceeded expectation levels. However, findings indicate students are aware of weaknesses of EM careers. Implications for students, educators, universities, and industry are discussed. © 2017 The Authors. 1. Introduction Many hospitality programs have realized that a majority of students enrolled in their programs are claiming to want a career in Event Management (EM); yet little is known about what these students want out of such a career. To accommodate this career interest, Iowa State University introduced EM as an undergraduate degree program, and it increased from 24 to 217 students in the first year (Roppe, 2012) to 380 students in 2016. In another example, the hospitality program at Purdue recently added an a minor in EM since half of the 600 students were interested in event and meeting planners, a dramatic shift from when they were interested pri- marily in careers in hotels and foodservice. Despite the growth in EM careers, EM associations, and uni- versity courses and programs (Cecil, Reed, & Reed, 2011; Harris & Jago, 1999; Mair, 2009; Silvers, Bowdin, O'toole, & Nelson, 2006), attempts to study the educational experience, centered on stu- dent's perceptions of the relevance of their coursework (Barron & Whitford, 2004; Williamson, 2005) and student and employer perspectives of the EM field and the skills and attributes to succeed (Junek, Lockstone, & Mair, 2009), are limited. Although these studies have clarified the growth in EM careers, the value of their educational experience, and both student and employer perspec- tives of successful career skills, no studies have specifically identi- fied student perceptions of their desires and expectations in seeking an EM career. When choosing a career, students must balance what is important to them with what they expect from a career. Students may weigh career information in relation to their views of them- selves (Lent, Ezeofor, Morrison, Penn, & Ireland, 2015). Wang and Huang (2014) argued that it is important to understand students' perceptions and attitudes towards tourism and hospitality careers. An understanding of students' career perceptions may help aca- demics to provide accurate information about careers (Hurst & Good, 2009) and may also have a positive impact on the industry. While researchers have investigated perceptions of hospitality and tourism careers, the evolution of EM as an area of study creates the need for a parallel investigation. It is important to understand what EM students seek from careers, what their perceptions are of EM careers, why EM students have pursued this area of study, and how they compare these careers to other options. This paper ad- dresses the first two areas. It has been proposed that it is important for a career to meet * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: mjstone@csuchico.edu (M.J. Stone), thomas.padron@ csueastbay.edu (T.C. Padron), wraym@msudenver.edu (M.L. Wray), lalopam@ purdue.edu (J.M. La Lopa), olsoned@iastate.edu (E.D. Olson). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management journal homepage: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-hospitality- and-tourism-management http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2017.04.005 1447-6770/© 2017 The Authors. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 32 (2017) 45e53