Non-academic employment and matching satisfaction among PhD graduates with high intersectoral mobility potential

Abstract

PurposeThis paper contributes to the empirical analysis of PhD holders' transition into the non-academic labor market (i.e. their intersectoral mobility). The research focuses on doctoral graduates specialized in a field of study supposed to have notable non-academic applications, namely Industrial and Information Engineering. We inspect whether these doctoral graduates experience lower satisfaction with PhD knowledge use on the job when they work outside universities and non-public research centers.Design/methodology/approachWe use cross-sectional survey data collected by the Italian National Institute of Statistics in 2014. Ordinary least squares and ordered logit analyses provide baseline results; furthermore, we apply a multinomial endogenous treatment model to control for potential bias arising from self-selection into employment sectors.FindingsWe find evidence that for PhD holders Industrial and Information Engineering being employed in the industrial and services sector implies lower satisfaction with the use of doctoral knowledge than that reported by their counterparts working in universities or public research centers.Originality/valueThese results complement and extend previous evidence about PhD holders' career outcomes by focusing on the intersectoral mobility issue and on a specific group of doctoral graduates whose intersectoral mobility potential is expected to be high. Our findings call for policies that might trigger a better alignment between doctoral education and non-academic jobs.

Is it only the university they are satisfied with? – Foreign student satisfaction and its effect on loyalty

“…Taken together, the findings suggest that foreign student satisfaction relates to the whole study abroad experience and both university- (Alfy & Abukari, 2020;Moslehpour et al, 2020) and non-university-related satisfaction (Alfano et al, 2021;Mihanovic et al, 2016) can be defined and distinguished between. Even though in the current study only five variables (competences, content, international environment, living in the city, places to spend free time at) influenced foreign student satisfaction, non-significant path-related variables can be included in the overall study of foreign students, as results may vary based on foreign student study track, level, and phase.…”

“…However, these factors are not clearly differentiated between. There is a negligible number of studies focusing on non-university-related satisfaction (Alfano et al, 2021;Faizan et al, 2016;Mihanovic et al, 2016), while the majority of studies focus on university-related aspects of satisfaction (Giner & Rillo, 2016;Alfy & Abukari, 2020;Moslehpour et al, 2020). In the current paper, foreign student satisfaction has been determined as the comparison between expectations and experience, which is related to the whole study-abroad process of students and is relevant to both university-and non-university-related issues.…”

“…In previ-ous research, WOM and its role in loyalty was found to be significant (Alves & Raposo, 2007;Alves & Raposo, 2009;Kakar et al, 2021). Despite the extensive literature on higher education marketing and international students' satisfaction, only a small portion of these studies is concerned with those factors, which are not closely university-related, but might influence the satisfaction and loyalty of students (Alfano et al, 2021;Faizan et al, 2016;Mihanovic et al, 2016;Schertzer & Schertzer, 2004;Yang et al, 2013). Based on the evidence in the higher education marketing literature, the following hypothesis can be stated: H6: Non-university-related foreign student satisfaction has a positive effect on foreign student loyalty.…”

Postgraduate education and job mismatch in Italy: Does migration help?

“…In fact, voluntary migration-particularly of the youngest and brightest people-is often motivated by the search for better employment opportunities that match their educational level (Docquier et al, 2014;Greenwood, 1975Greenwood, , 1985Williams et al, 2018), resulting in higher job satisfaction (Abreu et al, 2015) and higher salaries (Jewell & Faggian, 2014). While a number of studies have considered the impact of spatial mobility on the education-job match of university graduates (Dolton & Silles, 2008;Iammarino & Marinelli, 2015), the literature on PhD holders is still in its infancy (Alfano, D'Uva, et al, 2019;Alfano et al, 2021;Di Cintio & Grassi, 2017;Ghosh & Grassi, 2020).…”

A Practice Perspective on Doctoral Education – Employer, Policy, and Industry Views.

“…However, doctoral education faces its own challenges, with common critiques surrounding the overspecialization and lack of real-world applicability of their work (Cui and Harshman, 2020). Change is needed to meet the goals of national and international strategies and to enable doctoral graduates to improve their own employability in the process, given how few remain in academia (Alfano, Gaeta, & Pinto, 2021). While the topic has understandably become popular with academics, there is still a considerable lack of other voices in the discussion.…”