Employability of business students : the influence of personal attributes on the perceptions of business students

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Employability of Business students

The influence of personal attributes on the perceptions of Business

students

Bachelor Thesis

–

Business Studies

Amsterdam, June 29, 2015

Name of author: Ji Soo Kim Student number: 10081399 Faculty Economics and Business

Supervisor: Sofija Pajic and Renske van Geffen Academic year: 2014 - 2015

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Statement of Originality

This document is written by Ji Soo Kim who declares to take full responsibility for the contents

of this document.

I declare to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.I declare that the text and

the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Abstract

This study explores the perceptions of employability of business students at the University of Amsterdam and to what extent personality traits influence these perceptions. For this research a quantitative approach was chosen and the data was collected by self-administered online questionnaires among students from the Business school of the University of Amsterdam. An attempt was made to find out which personal attributes are most relevant and whether these personal characteristics influence the perceptions of how business students think about their chance of success in the labor market.

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Foreword

This thesis was written to obtain my Bachelor’s degree in Business Studies, at the University of

Amsterdam.While writing this bachelor thesis I got help from some people that I would like to

thank. First of all, I want to thank my supervisor S. Pajic for her willingness to be my supervisor during this period. Her feedback, guidance and suggestions allowed me to carry out this research correctly and come up with some interesting results. Secondly, I wish to thank the respondents that were willing to participate in the online questionnaire. I sincerely hope that the respondents can identify themselves in the findings of this study. Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends for supporting me in the last weeks of my bachelor studies and have helped me stay focused.

I hope you will enjoy reading this thesis about the influence of personal attributes on the perceptions of Business students!

Ji Soo Kim

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1 Introduction

“To be employable is to be secure” (Hawkins, 1999).

It has been concluded by many empirical and theoretical studies that the concept of

employability increasingly plays a crucial role, because today’s labor market context is intensely competitive (Greatbatch and Lewis, 2007). Today’s economy and society demands people with an ability to cope with change and adapt quickly to new environments and people (McQuaid & Lindsay, 2005, p.2).

Moreland (2006) defines employability as: “a set of skills, knowledge and personal

attributes that make an individual more likely to secure and be successful in their chosen

occupation to the benefit of themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy”. Many previous studies have described the skills’ part of a persons’ employability. However, managers are looking for personality traits as often as skills, saying they want employees who are reliable, able to work under pressure, creative and enthusiastic (Tymon, 2013). There is a link between these personal traits and career success. For example, proactive personality has been reported to efficiently improve processes, resulting in people reaching effective performer status faster and more easily (Seibert, Kraimer, and Crant 2001). Also, people scoring high on proactive

personality seem to be more likely to succeed in self-driven activity (Brown et al. 2006).

Additionally, although experience is highly attractive to employers, there seems to be an

increasing reluctance for the organization to supply development in transferable skills.

Moreover, student perceptions on employability appear to be changing over time, as the findings of a decade ago differ from findings on student approaches of studies that have been conducted more recently (Brown, 1995). Since perceptions seem to be changing over time, frequent research about the same topic is needed, as it might provide different insights and results.

Besides the fact that there are fewer studies focusing on personal attributes aiming to

increase employability prospects; the view of current students, the undergraduates, is also a missing perspective. Since these students are the intended recipients of employability skills development, their views are important (Tymon, 2013). So for this research the data will be collected among undergraduate students from the Business School of the University of Amsterdam.

It is interesting to look whether some personality characteristics shape beliefs about the

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for students to get involved in the activities which may in turn result in a more positive perception of the labor market. As consequence, it might be suggestible to shape up diverse activities tailor made to target at different profiles of students. Students need to become more actively involved and responsible for their education, investing in their own social capital (Villar & Albertin, 2010).

In this study the focus is on the perceptions of employability of business students. This is

because the effect of personal attributes on the employability perceptions from those students has not yet been researched thoroughly before. This study therefore aims to contribute to the

personality traits literature the literature on the dispositional approach to employability and it can rather provide practical implication for the career guidance initiatives within the Business school. It can contribute to knowledge about what the most important characteristics are, so that higher education institutions might encourage students to develop their personality traits in the future.

Providing students with a better understanding ofhow student-driven activities can develop or

demonstrate proactive personality could be a practical step. On the ground of previous research it

is known that work-based training and experience are the best techniques for stimulating of many

employability-related personal attributes. Moreover, they might propose getting students to take

more responsibility for their education through active participation in educational experiences and intentional investment in their own social capitals do this. (Brown, 1995).

In order to fill this gap in the literature, this study will investigate the effect of personal attributes on the perceptions of Business students. The main research question therefore will be:

To what extent influence personal characteristics the perceptions of business students about their chances of success in the labor market? The underlying sub question will be: What is/are the most influential characteristic(s)?

This paper will follow up with a comprehensive view of the literature, where previous

studies are used to explore the topic. Then, the conceptual model will be presented. After that the research proposal will be explained which contains a research design and methodology.

Thereafter, the results will be presented and discussed. Lastly, the paper will end with a discussion and conclusion with the answers on the research question and the underlying sub-question.

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2 Literature review

In order to explore the research topic more thoroughly, a comprehensive view of the literature related to this study will be outlined in detail. At first, the determinants graduate employability and self-perceived employability will be defined and explored. After that, the dispositional determinants of employability will be introduced, providing the overview of the research done on the personal characteristics that influence.

2.1 Graduate employability

Prior researches indicate that the determinant graduate employability is an extremely complex

concept to define and measure, as it varies greatly and is somewhat vague(Dacre Pool &

Qualter, 2013; Knight and Yorke, 2004; Harvey,2011). However, one of the more widely

accepted definitions suggests that it is a graduate’s possession of a certain level of achievements, skills, understandings and personal attributes, as well as their ability to utilize them for job search and retainment (Nabi, 2003). This will make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (Lim, 2009).

Research continues to show that many Business students are not ready for the labor

market, and lack some of the most basic attributes required for successful employment (Tymon, 2013). Students should develop these graduate attributes during their time at the university (Yorke, 2006). The role of higher education institutions should be to develop diverse activities suitable to various profiles of students, which in turn might result in a different view of the working world (Tymon, 2013). Many universities attempt to pay significant attention to the development of the employability of their students.

Graduate employability is more than just getting a job or accumulating skills, and should

not be confused with employment rates or seen as a measure of institutional success or otherwise (Harvey, 2003, 2005). Measuring employability in this way is problematic, because the current state of the labor market will always impact on levels of graduate employment. Additionally, it is employers who ultimately convert graduate employability into employment, and there are a number of factors that mediate the employment process, including the type of higher education institution attended, mode and subject of study, age, ethnicity, gender, and social class (Harvey, 2001). As such, using employment rates as an objective measure of graduate employability

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would be flawed. For this reason, graduate employability is something that should not be an objective measurement. Instead, self-evaluation is likely to be the most useful way of approaching employability (Yorke & Knight, 2006).

Graduate employability development and some measures of self-perceived employability

help inform what these ‘skills, understandings and personal attributes’ might be. But there is still limited empirical research in this area particularly in relation to the self-perceived employability of undergraduates (Dacre Pool & Sewell, 2007; Knight & Yorke, 2004). Learning theory tells us that motivation and commitment of the recipients (in this case the students) are an essential prerequisite in order to have effective results. However, there has not been a lot of research done yet about the extent to which employability matters to undergraduate students, and what

employability is from their perspective. (Tymon, 2013).

2.2 Self-perceived employability (students)

The term employability is hard to define as mentioned before, and has been criticized for the lack of clarity with regard to the definition and application. Some scholars even characterized

employability research as ‘fuzzy’ or ‘hollowed out’ (McQuaid & Lindsay, 2005). Employability consists of the words “employment” and “ability” and thus concerns the ability to be employed (Vanhercke et al., 2013, p.2). Self-perceived employability is explained by the way higher education students are viewing the current labor market they would soon be entering. It concerns the student’s perceptions of the individual possibilities of obtaining and maintaining employment (Berntson and Marklund, 2007). The self-perceived employability approach provides an overall scan as it integrates all possible personal and structural factors and their interactions. As such, it provides information about the individual’s general feeling of perceived control over his/her career (Vanhercket et al., 2013).

The Brown (2013) study found that students largely caused a problem of employability

by developing a view that they would gain a clear return from their achievements in education. However, the findings of present studies show somewhat different approaches to career

progression on the part of current students. It was clear that whilst some students were

developing idealized views, the majority of students anticipated a much more difficult process of career progression. For the most part, students appeared to interpret the labor market as being increasingly flexible and higher risk. This was typically translated as being the ‘end of the job for

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life’. There is a growing realization that “finding a job”, becoming employable, and starting a career are important considerations in their choice of institution and course. Young people realize increasingly that simply having a degree is insufficient in itself and that graduates require other attributes to be employable (Berntson et al., 2006). As a result, students appeared to be concerned with the need to adopt a more flexible and adaptive approach to careers, involving the active management of their own employability. The issue of being employable has seen as crucial both in integrating into and sustaining positions within the labor market.

Students’ orientations to the labor market reflected the way they were beginning to

understand and manage their employability. Many students, particularly those whose future aspirations are strongly geared around their future employment, now perceive the need to develop more proactive and aggressive labor market strategies. This goes far beyond what they achieved in the formal education setting.

In this study employability will be examined from the perspective of individuals, the

students. That is, what students believe their chances of success are, and which personal characteristics influence their perceptions (Rothwell et al., 2007). Particularly in times of organizational change, what matters most is not so much “objective” employability but instead “subjective” or “perceived” employability (Berntson et al., 2006; Berntson and Marklund, 2007; De Cuyper et al., 2008; Silla et al., 2009). Workers are more likely to act upon their perceptions rather than upon any objective reality, and therefore, the focus of this study is on perceived

employability (Cuyper et al., 2011).

2.3 Dispositional determinants of employability

High levels of uncertainty result in inevitable change in the work environment. Since current work environments are becoming increasingly turbulent, employers and employees are confronted with unknown situations. As a result, organizations have modified processes,

structures, and practices to respond to these changes. A good way to investigate these situations is to approach employability as a disposition, since this is more likely to significantly influence

performance in these turbulent situations (Mischel, 1977).The well-known BIG Five dimensions

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agreeableness) and core self-evaluations are dispositions that have seen increasing attention in the last decade (Zillig et al., 2002).

This paper will approach employability as a disposition, as the definition of dispositional

employability provides a more precise and individual-based definition (McQuaid & Lindsay, 2005). Since the terminology of this study may be confusing, the terms self-perceived

employability, dispositional employability, and determinants of employment will be explicitly explained. As mentioned before, self-perceived employability is explained by students’

perceptions of the individual possibilities of obtaining and maintaining employment, how they are viewing the labor market (Berntson and Marklund, 2007). Fugate (2004) defines

dispositional employability as ‘a psychosocial construct that embodies individual characteristics and differences’ and treats employability as a disposition that captures individual characteristics (Fugate, Kinicki & Ashforth, 2006, p.20). Employability is a disposition that captures individual characteristics that foster adaptive behaviors and positive employment outcomes. Determinants

of employment refer to influential factors, which decisively affects the nature or employment.

2.4 Overview of personal characteristics that influence

The study of Tymon (2013) argues that personal attributes are unquestionably an inherent part of employability. According to his findings, the most common attributes for employability being flexibility, adaptability, hardworking, commitment and dedication.

Fugate et al. (2006) state that ‘employable people, by definition, possess a collection of

individual attributes necessary for effective adaptation. Their career identities cognitively cohere these elements while providing energy and direction to their influence’ (p.20). The ability to identify opportunities and personal learning and change are also necessary to succeed. Furthermore, a proactive orientation towards adaptability also belongs to dispositional employability. Specifically, ‘actively engaging the situation, learning and asserting whatever influence is possible to change the situation to fit their own needs and desires; at the same time, altering their own cognitions and behaviors to optimize the situation’ (Fugate et al., 2004, p.17).

In response to the ever-changing work environment, employee’s abilities to respond to

these changes are of high importance nowadays in order to fit and survive (Bretz & Judge, 1994). This is considered a reactive employee orientation, since employees respond after these changes

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occur. On the other hand, however, researchers also acknowledge the importance of proactive employee initiative and proactivity (e.g. Frese & Fay, 2001; Seibert, Kraimer, & Crant, 2001). This means that the disposition of employability consists of both reactive and proactive personal traits. Thus, in addition to the ability to adapt reactively to known demands, readiness for change and preparing in advance should be taken into account as well (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997).

Dispositional employability extends beyond traditional notions of adaptability in that it

explicitly represents a proactive orientation to adaptability and is specific to the work domain. It also facilitates a proactive orientation towards adaptability. Accordingly, employable individuals not only engage in their jobs and larger careers in order to meet the demands of the environment, but they also proactively create and realize opportunities. This person-centered and psychosocial conceptualization is grounded in active adaptation (reactivity) (Ashford & Taylor, 1990) and proactivity at work (Crant, 2000).

Employability is treated as psychosocial in that it incorporates individual characteristics

that bridge the individual - environment gap. Fugate et al. (2008) have identified and chosen five dimensions to use as the nature of dispositional employability for their study. These five

dimensions are: proactivity, work identity, job motivation openness to change, and work resilience.

2.4.1 Work and career proactivity

Proactive individuals with high levels of dispositional employability often obtain information about the environment. Gathering information about the environment of the career interests of the individual can serve as advise and is relevant in order to interpret efforts, which are

effectively adaptive (Fugate et al., 2008). Work and career proactivity is also similar to proactive handling. However, it is essential to know that particular challenges or difficulties are not

automatically expected. Proactive individuals prepare for what is to come. These individuals seek information of what is relevant to their job and career interests. In this manner, work and career proactivity assists recognition and awareness of work-related opportunities.

2.4.2 Work identity

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for dispositional employability. Individuals who define themselves as employable show performances and actions constant with this self-definition (Ashforth & Fugate, 2001). Furthermore, work identity also influences individual ambitions or desires. Work identities guide, control, and support behavior (Fugate et al., 2008, p.508). Moreover, the absence of well-prescribed career tracks in today’s setting necessitates individuals to handle their often boundary-less careers. Work identities help compensate by substituting established work arrangements with individualized psychological structures. As such, work identities stimulate direction to work related attempts and support dispositional employability (Fugate et al., 2004).

2.4.3 Job motivation

Job motivation builds on the concepts of motivation control (Kanfer & Heggestad, 1997, p.9) and learning goal orientation (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). Individuals with high motivation control are more likely to set goals. These individuals are motivated with regard to their job, and

withstand determination in challenges the face within the work environment. In the same way, a learning direction at the job establishes in preparations for the future, pursuing job opportunities (Cron, Slocum, Vandewalle, & Fu, 2005).

2.4.4 Openness to change

Openness to change is essential to dispositional employability, and cannot be left out of this study. Nowadays the work environment is constantly changing and openness to new experiences, and therefore openness to change support continuous learning and allow to recognize and fulfill work and career opportunities. This results in enhancing personal adaptability. Individuals are likely to be more flexible when they are confronted with uncertain situations (Digman, 1990). Open individuals are also more likely to perceive change as a challenge rather than a threat and be accessible to new technologies and processes (McCartt & Rohrbaugh, 1995). Hence,

individuals open to new experiences and change are adaptable to vibrant work requirements, making them in the end more employable.

2.4.5 Work and career resilience

The term ‘resilience’ is defined as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties and

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positive self-assessments and positive perceptions of life aspects (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992). Furthermore, individuals with optimistic self-assessments are probable to attribute career successes to personal ability and effort, whereas they are not prospective to personalize reasons for career failures or missteps (Brockner & Chen, 1996). Resilient individuals are also optimistic (Judge, Thoresen, Pucik, & Welbourne, 1999) and have positive prospects about future occasions and show confidence in their competence to handle these various challenges (Peterson, 2000). Accordingly, individuals who own career optimism are probable to frequently observe and identify opportunities at their work, interpret career changes as challenges and opportunities to grow, and continue in the pursuit of desired objectives (Scheier & Carver, 1994). As such, work and career resilience is a part of personal attributes and is reflective of their dispositional

employability.

3 Conceptual framework

Now that the previous research has been explored, in this section of the paper the conceptual framework will be presented. This framework is built on the conceptualization of dispositional employability through its proactive and reactive aspects. We adopted conceptualization of Fugate, adapting it to the domain of undergraduate students. Specifically, we consider the certain reactive determinants of perceived employability, such are openness to change, work and career resilience, to be equally important in the context of graduate students as well as in the context of employees. Additionally, we consider proposed proactive determinants, namely work and career proactivity and work identity, to be drivers of students’ proactive behavior within the domain of preparation for and entering in the job market. However, in this study, the characteristic ‘job motivation’ from Fugate’s conceptualization of dispositional employability has been excluded, since we considered motivation with regard to an individual’s particular job as not replaceable and comparable with study motivation. Fugate et al. (2006) used the variable for individuals that are currently in the workforce, whereas current students have in no way the same experience with regard to ‘job motivation’ in the way it has been operationalized by Fugate. For this reason, it is hard to let the respondents answer questions related to this matter. As a consequence, the personal characteristic job motivation will not be replaced for motivation to study in this paper.

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3.1 Perceived employability

An attempt will be made to find out whether personal attributes influence the perceptions of how business students think about their chances of success in the labor market. This conceptual model will be applied to the Business school of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The University of Amsterdam can use this conceptual model to find effective ways to support the development of personal traits that will influence the perceptions of their Business students.

This paper explores the perceptions of employability of business school students at the

University of Amsterdam and to what extent personal attributes influence these perceptions. This brings us to the following Research Question:

‘To what extent do personal characteristics influence the perceptions of business students about their chances of success in the labor market?’

With the underlying sub-question: ‘What are the most influential characteristics?’

3.2 Predictions

In this study, we aim at illuminating self-perceived employability through a set of different personality characteristics that might drive it. Therefore, we will investigate the influence of 2 independent variables, namely the proactive personal attributes and the reactive personal

attributes (Tymon, 2013) on the dependent variable, self-perceived employability. The proactive attributes include ‘work and career proactivity’ and ‘work identity’, whereas the reactive

attributes consist of the variables ‘openness to change’ and ‘work and career resilience’. This brings us to the following main hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Personal attributes are positively related to business students’ perception of future career prospects.

This hypothesis is related to the main research question and has a direct effect, which means there is a positive relationship between X and Y. This hypothesis serves as the large umbrella for

Personal

attributes

Perception of

Business

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the underlying sub-hypotheses.

Individual contribution of different personal attributes will be tested in order to answer

the underlying sub-question: What is/are the most influential characteristic(s)? With the purpose of answering this sub-question, the following four hypotheses are set up:

Proactive dispositions (tending to have a perpetual readiness for change, prepare in advance (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997), rather than waiting for a specific change to occur)

Hypothesis 2: Proactive dispositions are positively related to business students’ perception

Hypothesis 2a: Work and career proactivity will be positively related to business

students’ perception of future career prospects.

Hypothesis 2b: Work identity will be positively related to business students’

perception of future career prospects.

Reactive dispositions (ability to adapt reactively to known demands)

Hypothesis 3: Reactive dispositions are positively related to business students’ perception

Hypothesis 3a: Openness to changes will be positively related to business students’

perception of future career prospects.

Hypothesis 3b: Work and career resilience will be positively related to business

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3.3 Conceptual model Hypothesis 2 Pro-active:

H2a. Work and career proactivity

H2b. Work identity

Perceived employability

Hypothesis 3 Reactive (adaptability):

H3a. Openness to changes

H3b. Work and career resilience

By classifying the personal attributes into pro-active and reactive , we can investigate the difference in effects between two sets of individual attributes and compare these two

classifications in order to test which classification has a more positive effect on the perception of Business students with regard to their future employability. As briefly discussed in the literature review, BIG Five is the conceptualization of personal characteristics through 5 main traits: openness for experiences, extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness (Zillig et al., 2002). As such it is also focused on the dispositions, like this study. However, the BIG Five characteristics are more focused on the core personality traits, which are more basic and general. The characteristics that this study is trying to capture through dispositional

employability are more proximal than the BIG Five ones, also the characteristics used in this study are more focalized on the domain of work and career development.

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4 Method

The method part will discuss the research design, namely a questionnaire-based survey. Further, the sample used in the survey and the procedure will be described, followed by the

measurements of the independent variables openness to change, work and career resilience, work and career proactivity and work identity. Finally, the methodological limitations will be

discussed.

4.1 Research design

This thesis is a thesis oriented, deductive research and will provide insights in the personal attributes that influence the perception of Business students. The overall design of this paper is a quantitative study, based on theory and a questionnaire-based online survey in order to collect data needed to answer the research question. The reason for choosing a quantitative approach over a qualitative approach is because a survey allows the collection of a large amount of data from a sizeable population in a quick and affordable way (Saunders et al., 2009, p.144). Furthermore, the survey strategy makes it easy to compare the answers of a large amount of people, because when using a standard survey questionnaire these data are standardized (Saunders et al., 2009, p.144).

4.2 Sample

This thesis will be conducted within the University of Amsterdam, focusing on the students of the University of Amsterdam Business School. Since the Business school at the UvA is large; consisting of the four specializations: Economics, Accounting, Finance and Business studies, this research will be focusing on students that have followed the Business Studies program within the Business school. There will be no distinction made in age, gender or social background.

This study aims for a sample size as large as possible, to increase the generalizability and

validity of the outcomes (Saunders et al., 2009, p.217). The time period of the data collection for this research is three months. In order to make sure the sample is normally distributed a sample size consisting of at least 100 participants is desirable. Furthermore, a self-selection sampling method will be used, since each case is allowed to identify their desire to take part in the Internet

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survey (Saunders et al., 2009, p.241). A systematic bias can occur, since people can choose whether they want to accept the survey invitation or not.

4.3 Procedure

The questionnaire is written in the English language, in order to reach out to both Dutch and international Business students from the University of Amsterdam. During the Dutch major of Business studies at the UvA, most of the books, presentation slides, exams and sometimes even the lectures are in English so it is safe to say that Dutch Business students from the University of Amsterdam are proficient in the English language to answer the questionnaire in English.

Writing the questionnaire in English also has a practical and convenient reason, since in this

way, it is not necessary to translate the survey questions and answers in English anymore.

To administer the questionnaire an internet-mediated method is used, because this

method can reach a lot of respondents in a relatively short time. Besides that, an Internet survey is an easy and appropriate way to contact a lot of students.

For this research a self-administered questionnaire is designed. Self-administered

questionnaires increase the chance of anonymity, so this will reduce the subject or participant bias and therefore increase the reliability of the data (Saunders et al., 2009, p.156). Thereby, these questionnaires can increase the participation rate, as it will give respondents the

opportunity to answer the questions at the time that is most convenient to them. Furthermore, most of the questions will be rating questions, which don’t take a lot of time to complete.

Moreover, since there is no interviewer around who writes down the answers of the respondents, this reduces the chance of socially responsible answers (Saunders et al., 2009, p.365).

Friends and study partners were approached through e-mail, phone, and the social

network site Facebook and were asked to fill in and also to distribute the survey when they had acquaintances studying at the UvA Business school as well.

To develop the self-administered questionnaire the online tool Qualtrics is used. The

invitation included a direct web link (hyperlink) for the self-administered questionnaire and a short and clear description, which explains the purpose of the online survey from the University of Amsterdam, the prize for respondents, and the confidential and voluntary nature of

participation. Using the tool Qualtrics saved a lot of time and money, because the survey did not need to be handed out and data did not have to be entered manually. No printing, pen, paper

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costs will be needed (Saunders et al., 2009, p.365).

4.4 Measurements

For this study primary data will be used in order to collect self-rated answers of each of the participants regarding various indicators of personality and perceived employability constructs. In the online questionnaire the items were administered in English, so international participants were given the opportunity to complete the questionnaire as well. As for Dutch business students from the UvA, we assume they have sufficient knowledge of the English language to participate in this survey, since most of the textbooks, lectures and exams of Dutch business courses are given in the English language.

The survey started with a number of questions about the respondents’ demographics. Thereafter, The questionnaire contained questions that describe the personal attributes. For each of the construct of interest previously validated measures have been used. In the survey we used attribute variables, opinion variables and behavioral variables (Saunders et al., 2009, p.268) to measure demographics, respondent’s individual attributes, and respondent’s perspectives on employability. All the variables are measured at the higher education student-level with borrowed scales.

To measure the determinants of dispositional employability and self-perceived

employability, used rating questions were used. This is an appropriate method to collect opinion data (Saunders et al., 2009, p.379). Responses for the dispositional employability items, as well as for the self-perceived employability items were given on a 1 to 5-point agreement scale (1=’strongly disagree’ to 5=’strongly agree’). These rating questions contain an odd number of points on the rating scale, which allows the respondent to ‘sit on the fence’ by choosing the middle category (Saunders et al., 2009, p.379). Besides rating questions, this study also used category questions to measure the control variables. Category questions are questions where only one response can be selected from a given set of categories (Saunders et al., 2009, p.375).

The independent variables openness to change, work resilience, and work identity was

measured using items developed by Fugate & Kinicki. For the variable openness to change, the respondents answered items like: ‘I feel that I am a person generally accepting of changes at work’. The applied scale demonstrated a coefficient alpha of 0.591 in this study. Secondly,

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subset of 5 items was used to measure work resilience. A sample item measuring work resilience is: ‘In uncertain times at work, I usually expect the best’. Evidenced Cronbach’s alpha was 0.647. The variable ‘Work and career identity’ is measured by a 6-item scale from Fugate & Kinicki. An example question for capturing work identity is: ‘I define myself by the work I do’ and ‘it is important to me that others think highly of my job’. The questions were answered on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The applied scale demonstrated a coefficient alpha of 0.574 in this study.

The independent variable work and career proactivity is measured with 7 items borrowed from Crant & Kraimer (1999) to make it more suitable for students. Sample items are: ‘I am constantly on the lookout for new ways to improve my life’ and ‘If I see something I don’t like, I

fix it’. The Proactive Personality Scale demonstrated a coefficient alpha of 0.757 in this study.

The final set of questions in the survey concerned the measurement of the dependant

variable, self-perceived employability. Moreover, to capture the students’ perceptions about the labor market we adopted Rothwell and Arnold’s (2008) scale for measuring self-perceived employability of University students. Respondents were asked to respond to each of the 11 questions on a 5-point scale, with anchors strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Sample items measuring self-perceived employability are: ‘People in the career I am aiming for are in high demand in the labor market’ and ‘I can easily find out about opportunities in my chosen field’. Evidenced Cronbach’s alpha was 0.818.

The demographic variables gender and current education level are used as control

variables. Control variables are included to test if other factors may also affect the relationship between personal attributes and self-perceived employability. The control variables were measured with category questions developed by my thesis supervisor Sofija Pajic. The respondents were asked to answer the items: ‘what is your gender? 1) Male, 2) Female 3) I would rather not specify’ and ‘what is your current level of education? 1) I am doing my Bachelor, 2) I am doing my Master 3) I have graduated’.

4.5 Analyses

The statistical program SPSS is used to test the hypotheses of this study and analyze the

collected data. First, the variables needed to be checked in order to determine if they were fine to actually run the analysis with. In this first phase, we excluded 36 participants, because of the lack

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of completion. The next step was to run the reliability analysis to test whether the collected data set makes sense in the first place. It was not possible to run the reliability analysis for the control variables, because they were measured with just one item. After the reliability analysis, the descriptive statistics (the mean and standard deviations) and correlations of the variables were calculated. Thereafter the regression test was conducted to see if the independent variable ‘creative organizational reputation’ predicts the dependent variable ‘employee performance’. A hierarchical linear regression is chosen, because we have control variables and the aim was to predict values of 1 dependent variable based on the values of independent variables.

4.6 Methodological limitations

Besides the advantages of doing a survey study, there are also some methodological limitations. First of all, data comes from relying mainly on self-reported measures, as we are researching

perceived employability. Using more objective indicators, such as actual employability and peer

or supervisory ratings might provide more valid measures or alternatively (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986, p. 533). Also, using several sources of data might enable to triangulate the data. This means the ratings are combined from different sources or different people. Secondly, designing the survey must be done adequately and precisely prior to data collection, since there is just one opportunity to collect the data. It is problematic to identify participants or to return to collect additional information (Saunders et al., 2009, p.366). Another methodological limitation is that due to time constraints, this study is cross-sectional with the focus on a particular phenomenon at a particular time (Saunders et al., 2009, p.155). Moreover, a disadvantage with regard to the internet-mediated method is that collecting data through the Internet can lead to a systematic bias because people engage in self-selection and choose whether they want to participate or ignore the invitation (Wright, 2007).

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5 Results

In this section, the results of the study will be reported. Firstly, the participants of the survey questionnaire will be described. After that, the reliability analysis of the used scales is conducted by means of the Cronbach’s alpha for the dispositional employability and self-perceived

employability items. Then, some descriptive statistics and correlations will be mentioned and discussed. Finally, the results from the hypothesis testing through regression analysis will be presented.

5.1 Participants

A total of 133 Business students from the University of Amsterdam agreed to participate in this study. After conducting the survey, we immediately discarded 6 participants, since they

completed less than 5% of the survey questionnaire. After this exclusion, another 30 respondents were removed in the data set. The reason we deleted these respondents is because of the lack of completion. Too many of the self-perceived employability items, as well as the dispositional items were missing. So regardless of the number of respondents, 36 respondents had to be discarded in total from the analyses for this reason.

The final dataset therefore consisted of 97 participants (Valid N = 97). From these 97 participants 67% were female and 33% were male. Regarding country of origin, more than half of the participants were from the Netherlands (61.9%). Because all participants were Business student at the UvA, we assumed a sufficient level of the English language so the English dataset was used.

Most of the participants were current Bachelor students (71.1%). The remaining participants are Master students (16,5%), and 12,4% respondents have recently graduated. Even after excluding the 33 participants there were still some items missing. The missing items were in the control variables ‘year of study’ and ‘GPA’. However, for this study we did not use these particular control variables, Despite the fact that these respondents that did not fill in the survey completely brings no further consequences for the outcomes of this data analysis. For this reason, these participants will not be excluded from the analyses.

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5.2 Reliability

The reliability analysis is conducted in order to test the reliability of the items for the variables ‘self-perceived employability’ and dispositional employability. It is not possible to run the reliability analysis for the control variables ‘gender’ and ‘level of education’, because these are

measured with just one item.The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of the remaining variables are

presented in Table 1. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for self-perceived employability was highly reliable (α = .818), as well as the alpha coefficient for dispositional employability (α = .833).

In order to test whether the high reliability of the variable self-perceived employability

derives from itself, and not simply as result from the high number of items, we divided the variable self-perceived employability viewed through external factors and internal factors. Internal factors included items of ‘I achieve high grades in relation to my studies’, ‘I regard my current studies as top priority’, ‘I can easily find out about opportunities in my chosen field’, ‘the skills and abilities that I possess are what employers are looking for’, and ‘I am generally

confident of success in job interviews and selection events’, whereas external factors included items as ‘the status of this business school is a significant asset to me in job-seeking’, My business school has an outstanding reputation in my field of study’, My future profession ranks highly in terms of social status’, ‘People in the career I am aiming for are in high demand in the labor market’, There is generally a strong demand for graduates at the present time’, There are plenty of job vacancies in the geographical area where I am looking’. Fortunately, the

Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of self-perceived employability (external) was highly reliable (α = .727), and self-perceived employability (internal) moderately reliable (α = .669).

The second construct of interest in this study, dispositional employability, is also a

multidimensional construct. Therefore, the dispositional employability scale also consists of several subscales, measuring its different aspects: Proactivity, and Identity, Openness to change, and Work resilience. In order to verify the reliability of the subscales, we performed the reliability check of each of the subscales. The results indicated that independently, the performance of these subscales is lower than the performance of the overall scale. Whereas Proactivity and Work Resilience maintained desirable reliability, the reliability of Openness to change and Identity was somewhat problematic. This might have happened as a result of

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relatively low number of questions measuring each of the two, still complex, sub dimensions of self-perceived employability. The constraining factor of lower internal consistency of these two subscales will be when analyzing and interpreting the results of this study.

Finally, the Cronbach’s alpha of the variables self-perceived employability and

dispositional employability could not significantly increase, when one of the items would be deleted. Therefore, we conducted all the analysis with the complete scales.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients between the variables (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients

between parentheses)

Note. N=97. *p <.05, **p <.01(2-tailed)

5.3 Descriptive statistics and correlation

In table 1, the descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and correlation coefficients between the variables self-perceived employability, proactivity, work identity, openness to change, work and career resilience, and dispositional employability are presented. Important to note is, that correlation coefficients, in no ways, explain causality.

As predicted, a significant moderate correlation is found between the independent

variable dispositional employability and the dependent variable self-perceived employability (r =

.399, p < .001). This correlation indicates that Business students scoring high on dispositional

employability seem to have a more optimistic view about their future prospects. In other words,

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 Self-perceived employability 3.4461 .55049 (.818) 2 Gender 1.33 .473 -.117 . 3 Level of education 1.04 .538 -.203* .110 . 4 Openness to change 3.9485 .52284 .207* -.036 .026 (0.591) 5 Work resilience 3.9485 .55191 .496** -.044 -.194 .293** (0.647) 6 Proactivity 3.8115 .55541 .218* .041 -.113 .269** .588** (0.757) 7 Identity 3.8540 .45596 .308** -.274** -.088 .380** .406** .380** (0.574) 8 Dispositional employability 3.8515 .39768 .399** -.091 -.156 .498** .772** .848** .737** (0.832)

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the more the respondents are proactive, having the tendency to define themselves by the work that they do, open to change, and better in recovering quickly form difficulties, the more optimistic they are about their future career prospects.

The proactive variable ‘work and career proactivity’ is weakly and positively correlated

with the outcome variable ‘self-perceived employability’ (r = .218, p < .05). This means that students who are constantly on the lookout for work related opportunities and continuous

assisting recognition have a more positive outlook on their future career prospects. Further, table 1 shows a significant relation (r = .308, p < .01) between the other proactive disposition ‘work and career identity’ and ‘self-perceived’ employability. This indicates that Business students that define themselves to a greater extent with the work that they do, have a more optimistic

perspective on their future career.

With regard to the reactive personality traits, the variable ‘openness to change’ is weakly

correlated to self-perceived employability in a positive way (r = -.207, p < .05). This indicates a weak, but however a significant relation between students that are more open to change and having a more positive attitude regarding future employability. Furthermore, the other reactive variable ‘work and career resilience’ has a positive correlation (r = .496, p < .01) with

self-perceived employability. This implies that students with a greater capacity to recover quickly

from difficulties and challenges are significantly related to having a more optimistic perception about their future career.

For the first control variable ‘gender’ one significant correlation was found with the

variable ‘work and career identity’. The control variable gender is negatively correlated with the variable work and career identity. The correlation is weak (r = -.274, p < .01). This means that more female students compared to male students define themselves to a greater extent by the work that they do in the career context.

The second control variable ‘current level of education’ also has one significant

correlation. This control variable is negatively correlated with the outcome variable ‘self-perceived employability’ (r = -.203, p < .05). This implies that students with a higher level of current education have a more optimistic view on future career prospects. This makes perfect sense, because the graduate student have a more realistic view of their employability, that means

that they are more optimistic about their future employability.With other words, Master students

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and preparing to enter the labor market have a more optimistic view than Bachelor students. Noticeably, the control variable ‘level of education’ is not significantly correlated to

‘dispositional employability’. This confirms to predictions of this study; dispositional

characteristics are difficult to develop or to change and to get different outcomes on dispositional employability, at least in this short timeframe.

5.4 Regression analysis

A regression analysis is a statistical process that estimates the relationships among variables. This analysis examined the linear relation between the independent variables and the dependent variable self-perceived employability. The first aim is explanatory, to understand the effects of the independent variable on the dependent variable based on a specific theoretical model and the second aim is predictive, to identify a linear combination of the independent variable to predict in the best way the value of the dependent variable.

In table 2, the results of the effects of the control variables, proactivity, work identity,

openness to change, work resilience on the dependent variable self-perceived employability are presented.

Table 2. Regression results Self-perceived employability B SE Beta Sum of squares Df F Sig Step 1 1.464 2 2.490 .088 Constant 3.799 .188 .000 Level of education -.197 .103 -.193 .060 Gender -.111 .118 -.095 .348 Step 2 3.996 96 3.630 .009 Proactivity .108 .106 .109 .310 Work Identity .292 .133 .242* .031* Step 3 7.767 6 5.464 .000 Openness to change .073 .105 .070 .485 Work resilience .517 .134 .469 .000** R² .050 .136 .267 Adjusted R² .030 .099 .218 R² Change .050 .086 .131 Sig. F Change .088 .013 .001

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For this study, hierarchical multiple regression was performed to investigate the ability of dispositional employability factors to explain the perceptions of business students regarding future career prospects. This regression adds variables to the model in steps. At each step, variables are added to the model and the change in R2 is calculated. The R2 indicates the proportion of variance of self-perceived employability explained by the model and provides

information of the predictive ability of themodel. The (significant) change in R2 is a commonly

used indicator for checking the hypotheses.

The hierarchical multiple regression was run after controlling for gender and level of

education. In the first step of hierarchical multiple regression, two control variables were entered: current level of education and gender. This model was not statistically significant F (df=2, N=97) = 2.49; p (.088) > .05 and explained only 5 % of variance in self-perceived employability. This indicates that gender and current level of education do not play an important role in explaining the perceptions of Business students about their opportunities in their future career. It does not have a significant outcome so these control variables do not affect self-perceived employability.

In the second step, we investigated the role of proactive characteristics: proactivity and

work and career identity to test our second hypothesis: Proactive dispositions are positively

related to business students’ perception. We investigated the role of proactivity and work and

career identity on the perception of Business students about their career prospects. After entry of these two factors at Step 2 the total variance explained by the model consisting of control

variables and proactive characteristics was significant, 13,6% F (df=4, N=97) = 3.630; p (.009) < .05. The introduction of proactivity and work and career identity explained additional 8,6% variance in self-perceived employability, after controlling for gender and current level of

education (R2 Change = .086; F (df=2, N=97) = 4.581; p < .01). Hypothesis 2 confirms with the output. With regard to the Beta values in the table, only proactivity and work identity are visible in step 2 in Table 2. However, because we are working with a hierarchical multiple regression, the previous factors from step 1 (level of current education and gender) are also included in this Beta, and their Beta values changed a bit, however remaining not significant.

Thirdly, we added the reactive dispositional characteristics to the model to test our third

hypothesis: Reactive dispositions are positively related to business students’ perception. The final model explained 26,7% of the variance. Moreover, adding reactive characteristics

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significantly improved the quality of the model(R2 Change = 0.131; F (df=2, N=97)= 8.022; p (.000) < .001). This outcome result of step 3 is in line with hypotheses 3, so hypothesis 3 is supported.

However, regardless of the results about the significant effect of both proactive and

reactive characteristics on the students’ perception of future employability, we looked into individual contribution of each of the four characteristics of dispositional employability. In the final model it becomes evident that only ‘work and career resilience’ has a significant outcome. Thus, only one out of four predictor variables was statistically affecting self-perceived

employability recording the highest Beta value (.000 p < .01).

To explain the Beta values in step 3, recall that the beta values do not only consist of the

factors openness to change and work and career resilience, but also the values of the proactive factors: proactivity and work identity, and the control variables: current level of education and gender. The Beta value of work identity becomes non-significant in the third step, while in the second step it was significant. With other words, when we look at the factors altogether, only work and career resilience remains significant.

6 Discussion

In this section of the paper, the key findings will be integrated in the theory. Thereafter, several theoretical contributions and managerial implications built on the findings will be presented. Lastly, the limitations of this study and suggestions for future research will be provided.

6.1 Key findings

The predictor variable work and career proactivity had a significant positive correlation (.218**)

with the outcome variable self-perceived employability. However, the overall outcomes from the regression analysis surprisingly suggest that the personal attribute work and career proactivity does not have a significant effect on self-perceived employability. Based on these findings, hypothesis 2a Work and career proactivity will be positively related to business students’

perception of future career prospects is not supported. This indicates that students do not

necessarily have a more positive outlook on their future career prospects when they are

constantly on the lookout for work related opportunities and continuous assisting recognition. This finding is not in line with the theory of Fugate et al. (2008) that proactive individuals are

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constantly obtaining information of opportunities related to their job and career interests is relevant in order to interpret efforts, which are effectively adaptive.

The key findings about the variable work identity is that students who define themselves to a greater extent by the work that they do or will do seem to have a more optimistic perception about their future employability. This is an assumed direction of causality, which confirms with the theory of Ashforte & Fugate (1999) proposing that individuals who define themselves as employable show performances and actions constant with this self-definition. Furthermore,

Fugate et al. (2008) suggest that work identity also affects individual ambitions or desires.

Additionally, work identities guide, control, and support behavior (p.508). Based on the findings of this study it can be concluded that students with a higher degree of work identity have a more positive perspective on their future employability. The findings of this factor also confirms with the theory of Fugate et al. (2004) that work identities stimulate direction to work related attempts and support dispositional employability (Fugate et al., 2004).

A new finding of this study was that the personality trait ‘openness to change’ is

positively correlated with self-perceived employability. However, even though the reactive variable ‘openness to change’ had a significant correlation with self-perceived employability, the outcomes of the regression analysis unexpectedly do not present significant effects between these two variables. This means that Business students, who are more open to change, do not

significantly have a more optimistic perception about their future career prospects. Hypothesis 3a is not supported. The theory of Digman (1990) and McCartt & Rohtbaugh (1995) is not

confirmed with this outcome, stating that openness to change is essential to dispositional employability.

The other reactive variable ‘work and career resilience’ has a positive correlation (r =

.496, p < .01) with self-perceived employability. As predicted, Business students who have a

higher capacity to cope and recover quickly from difficulties and challenges score higher on self-perceived employability. This implies that students with a greater capacity to recover quickly from difficulties and challenges are significantly related to having a more optimistic perception about their future career. As mentioned in the literature review, Aspinwall & Taylor (1992) argued that individuals with high resilience have positive self-assessments and positive perceptions of life aspects. Their ‘cognitive adaptation theory’ corresponds with the findings from this study. Furthermore, this finding is in line with the theory of Brockner & Chen (1996)

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saying that individuals with optimistic self-assessments are probable to attribute career successes to personal ability and effort, whereas they are not prospective to personalize reasons for career failures or missteps. The outcome of this study shows that this is also in line with students’ perceptions. According to Judge, Thoresen, Pucik, & Welbourne (1999), resilient individuals are optimistic and have positive prospects about future occasions and show confidence in their competence to handle these various challenges (Peterson, 2000). This theory is also in line with our results. The significant output of work and career resilience on self-perceived employability means that resilience seems to be the most important individual factor to have a positive

perception about future employability. This outcome can be explained by today’s constantly changing environment. Adapting is of high importance and inevitable.

The individual factors resilience and identity are particularly relevant in the current labor

market because the business environment is constantly changing; hence the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties is becoming increasingly relevant. Furthermore, according to (Peterson, 2000) resilient individuals show confidence in their competence to handle these various

challenges. Relevant mechanisms that might trigger resilience are mechanisms of reward,

optimism, motivation, helpfulness, fear responsiveness, and adaptive social behavior (Charney,

2014). Additionally, the individual factor identity is also relevant in the current labor market. Fugate et al. (2004) state that it is absolutely necessary in today’s setting that individuals handle their often boundary-less careers, because of the absence of well-assigned career tracks at present. Identities help compensate by substituting established work arrangements with individualized psychological structures. As such, work identities stimulate direction to work related attempts.

Finally, the current level of education evidently has a significant negative correlation with self-perceived employability. This outcome indicates that students with a higher level of current education have a more optimistic view on future career prospects. However, there was no significant effect found between these two variables in the regression analysis.

The way Business students feel and think about their future opportunities is very

important and worth doing researches about, because behaviors follow perceptions (Vancouver & Scherbaum, 2008). Young people, namely Business students from higher education are soon entering the labor market. Prior studies indicate that a more positive outlook leads to self-confidence (Fishbach & Dhar, 2005).

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6.2 Theoretical contributions and practical implications

The influence of personal characteristics on self-perceived employability, especially the view of current Business school students, has not been researched thoroughly before. This study

contributes to the personality traits literature, and the literature on the dispositional approach to employability. It contributes to knowledge about what the most important characteristics are in order to have a more optimistic perception about future employability.

One of the main findings of this study is that the personal characteristic ‘work and career

resilience’ is the only one from the four personality traits investigated, that has a significant positive effect on self-perceived employability. This means that resilient Business students have the most optimistic perception regarding future career prospects. This finding corresponds with the theories of Aspinwall & Taylor (1992), Brockner & Chen (1996) and Thoresen, Pucik, & Welbourne (1999). Science should use this outcome to focus on the relation between resilient students and their future perspectives, further explaining motivational, cognitive, emotional, or other potential regulatory mechanisms through which resilience drives more favorable

perceptions.

Since ‘work and career resilience’ is the personality characteristic that has a significant effect on self-perceived employability, this finding can provide practical implications for the career guidance initiatives within the Business school. Henceforward, the focus should be on improving resilience in practice. To realize this, we suggest investigating thoroughly what resilience actually is to Business students and the reason why Business students consider it so important to possess it in order to have a more optimistic view about their future career. A suggestion is to provide trainings to improve resilience, since resilience affects their perceptions in a positive way.

On the ground of existing research it is known that work-based training and experience

are the best techniques for stimulating many employability-related personal attributes

(Brown, 1995). Business Schools should encourage students to develop resilience in the future,

providing students with a better understanding ofhow student-driven activities can develop or

Employability of business students : the influence of personal attributes on the perceptions of business students