ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
When Dirty Work Meets Social Identity: Decoding Career Avoidance Intentions of Chinese Hospitality Students
Provisionally accepted
- 1Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
- 2wildlife tourism, Lanzhou, China
- 3School of Management of Northwest Minzu University, Lanzhou, China
- 4School of Sport, Sichaun University, Chengdu, China
- 5Northwest Minzu University, Lanzhou, China
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In China's higher education system, there has been a long-standing structural imbalance between the talent supply of hospitality management programs and the actual demand of the industry. Integrating Social Identity Theory (SIT) with Face Theory, this study constructs a theoretical model to explore the dual-path mediating effects of dirty work perception and face concern, as well as the moderating role of face concern. Its core objective is to reveal how social identity influences tourism management students' avoidance tendency toward employment in the hotel industry through the mediating chains of dirty work perception and face concern. Data were collected from 416 Chinese students majoring in tourism management and related fields via online questionnaires, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to test the research hypotheses. The results indicate that dirty work perception and face concern exert a significant serial mediating effect on the relationship between social identity and career choice intention. Additionally, face concern plays a negative moderating role in the association between dirty work perception and career choice intention. The measurement model demonstrates excellent reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. Theoretically, this study innovatively integrates Social Identity Theory with Face Theory, delves into the interactive mechanism between social-level and individual-level work cognition, thereby expanding the research boundary in the field of tourism education. Practically, the research findings provide strategic insights for hotel enterprises to optimize job design, for educational institutions to improve vocational guidance systems, and for industry associations to establish mechanisms for eliminating occupational prejudice, which is of great significance for promoting the reform of China's tourism talent supply system.
Keywords: Perceived work dirtiness, Social identity, face concern, career choice intention, Tourism management
Received: 03 May 2025; Accepted: 30 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hu, Liang, Chen, Xie and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xiaowen Hu, 296079144@qq.com
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