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emed of hospitality graduates a number of times in hospitality literature (Okeiyi et al. 1994; Breiter and Clements, 1996; Siu 1998; Kay and Russette, 2000; Kriegl 2000; Nelson and Dopson, 2001).

There were some major changes in the rankings over a period of 5 years. The ranking of Ethics went down from 1 to 4, service management from 10 to 18, Principles of Marketing from 12 to 19, and Hospitality Marketing Strategy from 14 to 20. On the other hand, Revenue/Asset Management went up 14 places to number 6, and Finance from number 18 to 13. Finance, accounting, and related skills were recognized as very important by hospitality employers in various studies (Getty et al., 1991; Umbriet, 1992; Ashley et al. 1995; Nelson & Dopson, 2001; Agut et al. 2003) in the past. In that aspect, this improvement in ranking of finance and related areas is consistent with past literature.

As mentioned before, t-tests revealed significant differences in means between 2009 rankings and 2004 rankings in 10 out of the 29 subject areas. 8 of those 10 subject areas had significantly higher means in 2004 compared to 2009. These areas include Hospitality Management and Organization, Principles of Marketing, Hospitality Marketing Strategy, Hospitality Operations Analysis, Ethics, Strategic Management, Service Management, and Innovation and Product Development. Ethics, especially, showed a very significantly high decrease in means (t (670.079) = -5.116, p = .000). Time and again, ethics has been recognized as the most important skill in the hospitality workplace (Enz et al., 1993; Nelson & Dopson, 2001; Gursoy & Swanger, 2004). This significant decrease in the ranking of ethics shows that it is not quite deemed as important in the hospitality workplace as it used to be. This decrease in importance can be accounted to two reasons. Firstly, following the wake of Enron, WorldCom, and Adelphia corporate scandals that shook the business community in early years of this new millennium, audit firms were increasingly putting a lot of emphasis on having stringent audit practices. Consequently, businesses all over the world were paying special attention to preventing corporate fraud through promoting ethical practices within the organization. This has increased the demand for ethics, as a top level competency/skill/subject area deemed of recent graduates in the workplace during the time period of Gursoy and Swanger’s (2004) study. However, the increased emphasis coming out of the shock the business community received from the corporate scandals has faded away a little as time went by. Moreover, business schools all over the world have been producing much better graduates reflecting ethical preparedness in response to those corporate scandals and the increased pressure from the business community. This can be demonstrated by the increased importance on ethics posed by universities in response to industry pressure. MBA programs that require students to take a course dedicated to business and society issues have increased dramatically over time: 34% in 2001 to 63% in 2007, and to 69% in 2009 (Aspen Institute CBE, 2010). In the accreditation standards of AACSB, formulated in 2003, an increased emphasis on ethics was made, and schools were mandated to integrate ethics across the curriculum to meet the accreditation standards, although there was no requirement of a standalone ethics course in the curriculum (Swanson, & Fisher, 2009). Ha