Are Business Students work-ready?

Running head: ARE BUSINESS STUDENTS WORK-READY?
Are Business Students work-ready?
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
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1ARE BUSINESS STUDENTS WORK-READY?
Topic: Are Business Students work-ready?
Jackson, Denise. 2014. “Testing a model of undergraduate competence in employability
skills and its implications for stakeholders.” Journal of Education and Work 27 (2): 220-242.
DOI: 10.1080/13639080.2012.718750
The paper examines the ways in which the stakeholders can contribute towards the expertise
of the undergraduates related to these skills and provides a model of business undergraduate
competence pertaining to the employability skills. For conducting the research, the author used
quantitative method for the collection of data by conducting an online survey on the 1008
business undergraduate students, who were accomplishing their core employability skills
program from an Australian University (Jackson 2014). The researcher used a sample of 1232
business and law undergraduate students who were enrolled in a core employability skills
program in an Australian University. The main findings of the research was the vital factors that
influences the employability skills competence of the undergraduates and the joint responsibility,
which the educators and the stakeholders possess in order to develop the employability skills of
the undergraduates. The strength of the paper was that the sample size that was taken for the
research was large and the proposed model of the research made use of the large number of
parameters that provided significant amount of accuracy. The weakness of the paper was that the
study made use of the self-assessed ratings of the students in order to measure the dependent
variables of competence related to employability skills. The researchers concluded that the
employability skills is just one of the key factors related to graduate employability , there are
other factors like the mobility of jobs , market conditions of labour , learning transfer and
disciplinary knowledge(Jackson 2014).

2ARE BUSINESS STUDENTS WORK-READY?
Topic: Are Business Students work-ready?
Wilton, Nick. 2011. Do employability skills really matter in the UK graduate labour
market? the case of business and management graduates. Work, Employment & Society 25 (1):
85- 100. DOI:10.1177/0950017010389244
The paper examines the two rationales provide by the UK policymakers pertaining to the
expansion of the higher education. One of the rationale aims to help the high-skill labour
requirements of a knowledge economy and the other rationale aims to increase the employment
and educational opportunities for the underrepresented groups. The research adopted a
quantitative survey method by making use of questionnaires to the students who completed their
under graduation in the year 1999 from the UK higher education institutions. Samples of 8571
undergraduate students were used, out of which 1060 students were from Business and
Management (Wilton 2011). The research findings indicate that for the Business and
Management graduates, the relationship between employability and employment is inconsistent
and identifies the disadvantages related to the traditional labour market which acts as an
obstacle for the achievement even if the undergraduate students develop their employability
skills during their undergraduate studies . The strength of the paper is that the sample size taken
for the research was large and wide range of factors were used in order to evaluate the
employability skills. The weakness of the paper was that, for the research there were low
response rate from certain minority ethnic group data, which hindered detailed analysis of the
data. The researcher shed light to the fact that the contribution of the Business and Management
degrees shows inconsistency with the development of skills (Wilton 2011). The research helps to
conclude the fact that the relationship between employability and employment is not
straightforward.