Extensive studies have been done on employability and the factors that lead to employability. Previous studies have focused on career development programs, internships, work experience programs, soft-skill development programs, and even university admission criteria which can be considered external factors to university student learning experience. Focus on these external factors and their influence on employability appears to have taken attention away from the core function of university education, "learning". Learning done in universities has been the focus of many studies but it's difficult to find consensus due to different learning models and approaches considered. Learning and employability are clearly supportive constructs but this relationship appears to be under represented and lacks clarity. Present study overcomes this issue by introducing a framework that clearly represents learning and employability in a manner that is both easy to understand while providing necessary theoretical support. The "Learning and employability framework" is at attempt to overcome the limitations of popular employability models which either lacks operational clarity or simplicity. The model has identified new dimensions of employability which were not considered in previous studies and links learning process, learning environment and learning outcomes to employability. Extensive review of literature on employability and learning revealed two new factors, namely; university reputation and learning outcomes and their influence on graduate employability. While learning outcomes appear to mediate the relationship between lower-tier employability skills and employability, university reputation appear to moderate learning outcome and employability. The "learning and employability framework" can be considered as a timely and relevant study since its simple enough to be understood by students, parents, employers and faculty while providing the required operational clarity and theoretical support for research community. The framework provides direction to those looking to design curricula and pedagogic approach to maximize employability.
There is increasing pressure from governments, funding organizations, students and parents on universities around the world since graduate employability has been clearly recognized as one of the main objectives of university education. Accreditation bodies also appear to measure quality of education through the contributions made towards employability. In such a context one would assume that employability of university graduates to be clearly understood and extensively researched area. However, the real situation appears to be one which requires the urgent attention of all stakeholders of university education. A review of literature on graduate employability is a clear need today and current paper achieves this by summarizing the major articles on university graduate employability theoretical frameworks and empirical studies. Despite the large number of studies, graduate employability appears to be suffering from the problems of lack of theoretical control and politicization which appear to have become major obstacles for future developments of the concept.
The sense of value organizational members demonstrate in their workplace influences employee commitment, performance, productivity, and even absenteeism. The concept of Organization Based Self-Esteem (OBSE) reflects the self-efficacy of organization members and has become a popular research topic in Organization Behavior and Psychology. While there are many prior findings about how OBSE influence the ultimate employability of employees, the lack of clear definition and operationalization of the employability concept has negatively influenced knowledge development. The concept of Self-Perceived-Employability (SPE) has been introduced as an alternative concept to operationalize employability in a clear and measurable manner. There is evidence to show the relationship between OBSE and SPE but they are mainly theoretical and qualitative in nature, while there is little research evidence that quantifies the OBSE and SPE link. The current research paper brings quantitative research evidence to understand the association between two very important factors that influence organizational performance in IT export sector, fast growing service industry in Sri Lanka. The study explains the findings of self-administered questionnaires done on 372 employees in Sri Lankan IT export sector. Data analysis done using quantitative statistical analysis methods, while reliability analysis was performed to ensure the internal consistency of OBSE and SPE. The correlation analysis revealed a strong and positive correlation between OBSE and SPE, and confirms the earlier notion that OBSE influences SPE.
Despite the attention given to graduate employability, it remains to be poorly defined and operationalized. Each new study appears to complicate things further with new employability definitions. The concept appears to be theoretical in nature with limited research support. The increasing politicization of the concept, where different stakeholders attempt to define employability according to their own perspectives is a main reason for this situation. Employability literature reveals the differences of perceptions among the employees, employers, and university faculty. The perception that employees have towards their own employability appears to influence the ultimate work, and self-perceived-employability (SPE) has evolved as an alternative approach to conceptualize and operationalize employability. SPE has strong theoretical support and is ready for operationalization with clearly defined underlying factors which has been proven and tested through multiple studies. Current paper critically evaluates the concept of SPE and makes recommendations for future researchers based on review of existing literature.
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