Purpose: Firstly, this study diagnosed professional competence amongst Chinese vocational students within a broad range of the manufacturing sectors; then, the authors examined how different types of P-E fit (job, organisation and vocation) and internship quality jointly shape the newly acquired professional competences of interns.…

Purpose: This study introduces a non-orthodox approach to the dominant policy-based approaches to graduate employability through contextualizing international students' everyday experiences within their educational and wider structural contexts of the labour market. Design/methodology/approach: The study used narrative frames to collect data from…

Purpose: This study examines the perspectives of undergraduate science and technology students in Thailand regarding the influence of various role models on their entrepreneurial skills. Design/methodology/approach: This study employed the single case study research method. Purposive sampling was used to select the participants. The sample…

Purpose: As competition in the graduate labor market intensifies, extracurricular internships have become increasingly popular among university students. This paper explores whether and how students' evaluation of the higher learning that they have received changes during extracurricular internships. Design/methodology/approach: We interviewed 47…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore US students' experience in for-credit, unpaid internships overseas with particular reference to their personal development, how they mobilised their knowledge across contexts, their learning as acquisition and as participation, and what they contributed. Students were thought likely to encounter…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the perspectives of Malaysian employers and students on the need for English language proficiency and skills for employment. Design/methodology/approach: Interviews were conducted with employers from various organisations. Additionally, questionnaires were disseminated to undergraduates at four…

Purpose: This research moves beyond a focus on employability skills and explores student perceptions of preparedness for graduate life in a more holistic manner. Design/methodology/approach: Final-year business students were asked to outline their concerns regarding graduate life and the personal and professional challenges anticipated in their…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways in which organisational context and individual agency interact (co-participate) to shape the workplace learning of graduate trainee accountants, and to examine the role of firm size in conditioning this interaction. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative, comparative approach was…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the students' attitudes towards private sector work during study. Design/methodology/approach: This study used a comprehensive social survey (including questionnaire and interviewing) distributed to experts in departments and colleges in King Saud University and Princess Nora University. Findings:…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare how the dimension of attitudes toward future that consists in perception of dynamic future may be affected by desirable goals (desired job flexibility) and probable events (probable job flexibility) in a group of permanent vs temporary employees. Moreover the aim is to explore the gender differences…

Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate whether educational drama can be used as a tool to facilitate expert knowledge development and to help students prepare themselves for working life. Design/methodology/approach: The target group consisted of 41 students of Forest Sciences who had participated in a course of professional ethics…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the "skills" or "employability" agenda which has long been anathema to the Humanities disciplines need not be the threat it appears to represent. This paper aims to examine the concept of realistic work environments and their focus, not only the provision of hard and soft…

Purpose: The aim of this research is to attempt to reveal the difference between what fresh graduates expect and their actual experiences pertaining to the working environment. Design/methodology/approach: Using a set of self-administered questionnaires, data were collected from 128 graduates. They were asked to indicate their preferences on…

Purpose: The industrial training component in a university's curricula adds tremendous value to a degree programme by enhancing the employable skills of graduates. The purpose of this paper is to assess the perception of organisations that have trained construction students from the Department of Building Technology of the Kwame Nkrumah University…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the issue of dual vocational education and training (VET) attritions as indicating difficulties in the transition from school to work. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology consists of a content analysis of semi-structured interviews with 46 young people who interrupted their dual VET during…