Earl Honeycutt, professor of business administration, Casey DiRienzo, assistant professor of economics, and Bob Pavlik, associate professor of finance, along with Shawn Thelen of Hofstra University, had their article: “How Realistic Are Student Attitudes Toward Selected Careers” accepted for publication by The Journal of Learning in Higher Education. The article will appear in the Spring 2006 edition which will be published in late summer 2006. An abstract of the article appears below:
“This study examines the importance undergraduate business students place on five career attributes: career position, entry-level salary, length of workweek, time to management, and freedom to make choices at work. Five hypotheses were tested on 220 and 152 student respondents, respectively, at two medium-sized universities, located in the southeastern and northeastern U.S. All five hypotheses were supported at both universities, based upon the results of conjoint analysis. That is, initial salary was the most important factor in selecting a career path and students rated managing their own business and marketing management careers over sales careers. Respondents also preferred positions with high freedom to make choices and shorter total work hours per week. As predicted, students assigned different utilities to the five attributes depending upon their college major. A discussion of the findings and suggestions to business educators for improving the accuracy of student attitudes toward their initial career choice is presented.”