Abstract:

As the faculty of management creates new leaders for business and society, it is important to understand the vocational interests of upcoming leaders, especially that vocational interests are stronger predictor of future vocational success than personality or IQ (Stoll et al., 2017). The aim of this study is to reveal gender and cultural differences in vocational interests of Polish and Czech students of Management.

Vocational interests were measured by The Vocational Potential Inventory (Ochnik, Stala, Rosmus, 2016). The research has been conducted within 222 students of Management in Poland (N = 109) and Czech Republic (N = 113). There were 154 female students (70%) and 68 male students (30%).

Analysis of intensity showed that the profile of Polish and Czech students of management is similar except methodical interests. Both groups gained high scores in pro-social type, medium in leadership and creative type, and low in technical type. Nevertheless Polish students had higher interests (medium level) compared to Czech students (low level). The two-way ANOVA analysis showed significant although small gender effects, revealing female students as more pro-social but with lower leadership and technical interests. Nationality effect was confirm for more methodical Polish students compared to Czech students. The in-group differences have been showed. Czech female students were more pro-social compared to Czech male students but Polish female students scored lower in leadership and technical types of vocational interests compared to Polish male students.

The research showed small but significant differences in vocational interests of Management students with regard to gender and cultural dimension. The results are explained in The Contextual Model of Vocational Interests.

Keywords:

Vocational interests, students, Management, gender, cultural differences.