From A Literature Review To The Conceptual Framework For The Employability

Abstract

Globalization and technological advancements in the 21st century have drastically transformed the workplace practices. To ensure that graduates are standout contenders in today’s competitive job market, universities are in need to offer a global work-based learning opportunity to the students at the campus. A lack of studies is visible regarding the exploration of key influencing factors in enhancing graduates’ employability particularly in the context of Malaysia. A literature review is conducted on the topic of employability exhibited the yearly distribution, methodologies, and dimensions of employability of graduates. In order to understand the role of internationalization at home (IaH), intercultural competence and global citizenship in fostering graduates’ employability, a conceptual framework is suggested. The framework is oriented in concepts of internationalization at home (IaH), intercultural competence, and global citizenship as key constructs in enhancing the employability of Malaysian graduates. The proposed model offered institutional support as a moderator which is presumed to have a significant effect on the defined relationships. The directions for future research are given at the end.

Keywords: Internationalization at homeintercultural competenceglobal citizenshipgraduates’ employability

Introduction

A major and substantially common challenge in the 21st century is the deficit of global graduate skills. A recent survey conducted by QS named QS employer survey 2018 and QS Applicant Survey 2018 highlighted a lack of skills across the board and also a lack of expectations between students and employers (Abas & Imam, 2016; Omar et al., 2012; Poon, 2012). Such findings may indicate that there is a lack of internationalization and global competencies among students, and At the institutional level, a contact obstacle must be overcome between universities and industry to close the skill gap (Arrowsmith et al., 2011; Anho, 2011; Di Pietro, 2019; Holmes, 2013; Ornellas et al., 2019; Teichler, 2011). The findings of these surveys suggest that potential graduates do not fully adequate with how companies value soft and employability skills (Ismail et al., 2011; Saleh, 2019; Schomburg, 2011). Students have a habit of to overvalue the standing of leadership and creativity skills, rather undervalue the significance of global mindfulness, flexibility/adaptability, and intercultural skills, that are highly considered by employers (Chan, 2011; Hinchliffe & Jolly, 2011; Tomlinson, 2012; Xiao-qian, 2011). Such differences clearly require awareness-raising so that students are mindful of the skills organizations prioritizing them before they graduate (Shumilova et al., 2012; Wang & Tsai, 2014). It may also be reflective of a failure to properly train students in areas of productive jobs (Farčnik & Domadenik, 2012; Ornellas et al., 2019; Wilton, 2011).

From international, intercultural and global perspective, Van Gaalen and Gielesen (2014) assert that to achieve the graduates with intercultural, international and global skill only “if institutions consciously create controlled situations that lead to intercultural collaboration and the utilization of students’ specific international knowledge” (p. 16). This argument emphasized the need for an environment internationally and interculturally integrated for the students' development of global learning (Di Pietro, 2019; Pinto & Ramalheira, 2017; Puhakka et al., 2010; Støren & Aamodt, 2010). Di Pietro (2019) described the high potential for providing professional and individual skills to graduates but is still not widely practiced even in international organizations. In the same vein, Jones (2013) argued that domestic environments could play an equal role in offering opportunities for experience international learning in an intercultural context through campus-based internationalization and intercultural learning. These practices would be helpful in increasing the employability rate of local students (Asonitou, 2015; Huang, 2013; Jones, 2013). At the institutional level, some authors argued that internationalization at home (IaH), intercultural competence (Ciriaci & Muscio, 2014) and global citizenship are the factors that contribute to the development of students' employability (Al-Mutairi et al., 2014; Ayoubi et al., 2017; Yoong et al., 2017). For instance, this has started in the U.S. with some early studies conducted by Soria and Troisi (2014) where they emphasized that IaH and intercultural competence programs may yield greater benefits than study abroad in terms of acquiring global, international, and intercultural competencies which greater the chances of graduates’ employability (Barker & Mak, 2013; González-Romá et al., 2018; Støren & Aamodt, 2010).

Problem Statement

The employability of graduates in Malaysia is not a concern that is new and none-existed before (Belwal et al., 2017; Coetzee, 2017). It was among discussions from a decade ago. There is an increasing number of competition among the graduates because of a limited number of availability of jobs (Pouratashi & Zamani, 2019; Shafie & Nayan, 2010). University students have been reported to lack several skills, particularly problem-solving, communication and other soft skills (Bello et al., 2013; Hanapi & Nordin, 2014; Harvey & Shahjahan, 2013). On the other hand, hard skills that are also lacking among students include lack of technical expertise, lack of knowledge and communication skills in English. The lack of skills is also identified as other causes of unemployment for Malaysian graduates, according to which about 30,000 students were employed in an area not matching their higher education qualifications (Coetzee et al., 2015; Hanapi & Nordin, 2014). Investigating the youth unemployment further to examine graduates in particular (Cai, 2013; de Guzman & Choi, 2013), a recent report in 2015 showed that only 53% of the graduates earned jobs within six months of graduation, 24% of graduates remains unemployed, and 18% were in tertiary studies in Malaysia (Shanmugam, 2017). The only reasons given for 53 percent securing jobs were the gap between university training and employers' demanding skills. The majority of university programs do not reflect current qualifications (Shanmugam, 2017). The given statistics, therefore, indicating the need for academics reforms in Malaysian higher education institutions to meet the challenges of globally competent job markets.

The most noticeable skill which is lacking among Malaysian graduates is the resilience/dealing with conflict and adaptability at a diverse workplace (Nisha & Rajasekaran, 2018; Shafie & Nayan, 2010; Wickramasinghe & Perera, 2010). Researchers suggested that these are not personality-related traits but behavioral characteristics that are learnable, thus higher education institutions (HEIs) enable themselves to advance the tools to cultivate these behaviors among students (Clarke, 2018; Tran, 2015). Considering that the same problems are repeated for Malaysian workers, it seems fitting, in order to effectively resolve the foreign violence, that employers must share experiences and solutions with enhanced cooperation with academic institutions (Fenta et al., 2019; Wang & Tsai, 2014). Global graduates necessitate and must be able to apply skills and the appropriate qualities covering global thinking and cultural endurance (Di Pietro, 2015; Eurico et al., 2015).

Throughout academic literature, a great deal is debated about how colleges and universities develop students for jobs, sometimes named as the "graduate ability gap" (Andrews & Russell, 2012; Chan, 2011; Fatima & Ameen 2011). However, despite the discussion, There seems still to be an inadequate best possible way to prepare graduates with the hard skills needed for work and still less consideration of how best to equip students with the soft abilities needed for a constantly changing and troubling labor market. This, therefore, stress the need for increased graduates’ employability through offering students’ international, intercultural and global competencies to overcome the challenges of unemployment and mismatch of skills. It is crucial to enable Malaysian students to participate in global curriculum and intercultural relations between students. Cross-cultural skills (Hinchliffe & Jolly, 2011) clearly mean employers and the attractiveness of the sector in international student recruitment is improving (Angelova & Zhao, 2016; Messum et al., 2015; Nilsson, 2010). Hasan et al. (2016) support this claim by their research emphasizing that the inconsistencies of employer and qualifications is one of the main causes of unemployment in Malaysia. Dr. Soji, CEO of a management consultant company's mentioned the need of graduate skills as he said that the problem is not unemployment, but the absence of employability by the graduates (Jackson & Chapman, 2012; Suleman, 2016; Tomlinson, 2010).

Malaysian graduates often have lack communication skills and cross-cultural knowledge, which reduces their chances of participating in the increasingly global labor market (Harvey & Shahjahan, 2013; Stiwne & Alves, 2010). According to QS Graduate Employability Ranking 2019, there is not a single university in Malaysia that makes a place in the top 100 universities (Sarkar et al., 2016). Universiti Malaya (UM) is the only university that establishes its position in the top 200. As shown in a World Bank and Talent Corp study, only less than 10 percent of companies have developed university curricula or programs. The study also discussed the global youth unemployment issue, which in Malaysia is 13.2 percent. Of people aged 15-19, the highest unemployment rate is 18.7%, followed by those aged 20-24, 11.9%. While, 68 percent consider the skills of communication to be the most significant factor among employees, followed by work experience, interpersonal abilities, passion, and engagement (Beelen & De Wit, 2012; Finch et al., 2016; Saad & Majid, 2014; Stiwne & Alves, 2010).

Given the above statements, there is a need to inline the strategic objectives of an educational institution with the industrial transformation, that promotes both the development and implementation of a curriculum of a global perspective which results in improved employability for its students. A dynamic framework, incorporating the key influencing factors being considered as the determinants of the graduates’ employability will be highly assistive in this regard. With a strong emphasis on building international, intercultural and global skills, a university can produce globally employable graduates and contribute to the national economic growth by reducing the unemployment rate.

Research Questions

The study aims to answer the following questions;

• What are the distribution, methodologies, and dimensions of literature on the employability of graduates?

• How a framework is needed and can be supportive to enhance the employability of graduates?

Purpose of the Study

This study, hence, set out to develops a research framework by considering the key influencing factors such as internationalization at home, intercultural competence, and global citizenship for the developing graduates’ employability among Malaysian graduates. The study suggests how students can contribute to the global job market by having the desired employability skills for the 21st century.

The central feature of this study is to highlight the need to encourage universities to produce internationally, interculturally, and globally competent Malaysian graduates who are capable to meet the job requirements of the global market (Finch et al., 2013; Pouratashi & Zamani, 2019). This study also stresses the need for improved collaboration and networking between local and international industry and Malaysian higher education institutions. Schech et al. (2017) called for further studies in order to examine the relation between the factors of internationalization and globalization and employability, because the links of those variables in the Malaysian universities are not very well known. Some authors emphasized the need for a literature review on the issues of employability to bring clarity in this specific research area (Andrews & Russell, 2012; Succi, 2019; Suleman, 2018). Given this, the main aims of this study are to conduct a literature review of the previous study on employability and offer a conceptual framework which would be supportive in explaining the relationships between internationalization at home, intercultural competence, global citizenship, and graduates’ employability among Malaysian students, as well as to explore the mediating influence of institutional support on these relationships (Lau et al., 2014; Pheko & Molefhe, 2017; Sin et al., 2016).

Research Methods

A literature review, as defined by Fink (1998) is a systematic, clear and reproductive method to classify the current documented text set, analyze it and interpret it. The analysis of documents aims at opening up material that is not to be created by the researcher on the basis of the data collection. Literature reviews are usually directed at two objectives: firstly, by defining trends, themes and problems (Pavlin & Svetlik, 2014) to summarize the current research. Secondly, this could assist in identifying the field's conceptual material and can help to develop a conceptual model or framework.

The literature reviews might also be understood as a content analysis from a methodical point of view where quantitative and qualitative factors are combined in order to evaluate (descriptive) structural and content requirements. In the content, analysis, the analyst decides different ways of understanding and extending a particular research topic. This study employed content analysis through a descriptive method to direct and interpret the literature review on graduates’ employability.

Findings

Descriptive Analysis

Distribution Across the Time Period and Main Journals

There are 82 papers were identified in the basic literature search. Figure 1 represents the publications for the projected period (2010–2019). As 2010 is the first year of the literature search, the first published papers have been found from the year 2010. For the years of 2011 and 2017, there are high numbers of publications were recorded from the searched terms.

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Research Methodologies Applied

There have been identified five methodologies of research: (1) conceptual and theoretical papers; (2) literature reviews; (3) surveys; (4) empirical/modeling papers; and (5) case studies. Table 1 . displays the articles related to the methodology of analysis.

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Determinants of Employability

Based on the thorough reviews, three broader categories were formed such as internationalization at home (IaH), intercultural competence, and global citizenship. These three categories along with their further dimensions and constructs were found highly influential for enhancing graduates’ employability. Table 2 represents the results of this differentiation.

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Conceptual Framework

Internationalization at home, intercultural competence, and global citizenship play a vibrant role in developing graduates’ employability for graduates. The present study developed a framework with the consideration of three independent variables such as internationalization at home, intercultural competence, and global citizenship. The dependent variable is the graduates’ employability in the context of Malaysian graduates. Moreover, the study also aims to examine the effects of institutional support as a moderator on the relationship between internationalization at home, intercultural competence, global citizenship, and graduates’ employability. Hence, the current study proposed a research framework presented in figure 1 .

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Conclusion

Graduates' employability has become a popular topic for scholars and industrial experts who consider it as a useful tool for developing a responsive diversity of human capital to fulfill the needs of modern jobs (Deardorff et al., 2012; De Wit, 2011; Killick, 2014). However, still, a scarcity of research is noticeable, particularly in developing and emerging nations such as Malaysia. This study thus contributed to the literature by clarifying the strength of the relationship between internationalization at home, intercultural competence, global citizenship, and employability of Malaysian graduates. It also offered institutional support as a significant moderator which have the potential to strengthen the relationship between key determinants of graduates’ employability. More empirical research is encouraged to investigate the proposed model by gathering information from a primary source and by analyzing the possible relations. though, the proposed model centred on the Malaysian universities and suggested for further studies are required to test the generalizability of findings in other countries.

Acknowledgments

I acknowledge and highly appreciate the School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia for their enormous support in publishing my research.

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