Are Business Students Work-ready? - Article

ARE BUSINESS STUDENTS WORK-READY?

Jackson, Denise. 2013 "Business graduate employability–where are we going wrong?."
Higher Education Research & Development 32, no. 5: 776-790.
DOI:10.1080/07294360.2012.709832
The aim of this article, firstly, was to evaluate learning transfer and its effect on graduate
employability. Secondly, the aim was to propose a model that can allow graduates to
incorporate learning transfer from their educational institute to the workplace. The author has
mentioned that lack of non-technical skills is causing failure of graduate students at the
workplace. A two-staged model has been proposed in this article. In the first stage, the
process of developing non-technical skills has been discussed. On the other hand, the second
stage of this model postulated the process of transferring non-technical skills to the
workplace. This study has included a shared responsibility for graduate transfer. This article
can be considered as helpful for business students to become work-ready. They can
incorporate the model proposed in this study to ensure transfer of learning to the workplace.
It can help them to understand the importance of acquiring non-technical skills. However,
this study is limited to the present literature. Lack of appropriate methodology has affected
the validity of this research. During the study, the author has not collected any data from
respondents based on their practical experience. The needs for changes in attitude and role of
business students have been mentioned in the article can be considered by students to become
work-ready.
McCormick, Marleen, and Sheryl-Ann K. Stephen. 2016. "Are Graduate Business Students
Ready for the Global Business Environment?" Journal of Higher Education Theory
and Practice 16 (5) (10): 25-35.
This article examines the effectiveness of graduate business programs from the perspective of
graduate students. The current business environment is competitive and the global economy
is interdependent, which makes it essential for graduate business colleges to prepare
managers for global competition. The business colleges have developed an international
business curriculum and it is necessary to measure effectiveness of it for ensuring that they
are indeed graduating global managers. Literature shows that many international
organizations failed due to improper cross-cultural competence from managers. Moreover, it
is costly for organizations to provide training to managers for increasing their competence
level. Experiential learning needs to be included in the global multicultural business
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