Purpose Hospitality industry is one of the most diverse industries in terms of its manpower. Furthermore, in a country like India, which is inherently diverse, managing diversity becomes imperative. Hospitality education could gain immensely by integrating legal and psychological aspects in managing diversity issues. Since the societal exclusion surrounding minorities is prevalent, they are vulnerable to various psychological, physical, emotional and economical struggles. This research, hence aims to focus on minority issues regarding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and integration of legal and psychology fields in addressing them in hospitality education. Design/methodology/approach Explorative research was conducted to highlight the importance of integrating legal and psychological fields with Hospitality Education. Syllabi of leading Hospitality Education institutes were scrutinized for topics related to legal and psychological aspects dealing with diversity. Hospitality students’ opinion on psychological and legal factors were assessed quantitatively. The Delphi technique was used to arrive at a consensus amongst the expert panel. Findings Current hospitality education syllabi do not address the issues of DEI, neither through law nor through psychology. A set of 20 factors, psychology and legal combined, is recommended to be included in hospitality education for DEI. Research limitations/implications This research validated the importance and need for inclusion of psychological and legal factors in hospitality education, but forming a syllabus of DEI is beyond the scope of this research. Future research could explore the weightage, placement, time allocation and credit distribution of these factors to equip hospitality students to deal with DEI in their colleges and in the industry. Originality/value Hospitality industry and academia are people centric, and hence it is imperative for them to understand the legal perspectives to enable and empower their workforce, both present and future. Understanding how the legal frameworks contribute and where they fall short in addressing diversity-related issues is of prominence. It is equally important to understand the psychological bearings on creating more diverse institutions. This research strives to empower hospitality education by integrating interdisciplinary learnings from the legal and psychological domains. By integrating these learnings, the academia would contribute to the industry with a workforce that is more aware, inclined, and sensitive towards DEI issues.
Joshi et al. (Thu,) studied this question.