BUS101: Annotated Bibliography - Are Business Students Work-Ready?

This annotated bibliography addresses the critical question of whether business students are adequately prepared for the contemporary global workplace. It analyzes five journal articles, including those provided, to explore the competencies essential for business graduates' employability. The articles examine the perspectives of academics, employers, and graduates, revealing gaps between the skills universities impart and the demands of the job market. The bibliography synthesizes research on work-ready skills, including communication, time management, and digital marketing, and investigates how universities can refine curricula and teaching methods to better equip students. The analysis highlights the importance of aligning university programs with industry needs and fostering personal attributes valued by employers, ultimately aiming to improve the transition of business graduates into the workforce.

1
ARE BUSINESS STUDENTS WORK-READY
Name of the student
Subject Name:
Date:

2
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 major purpose of this article is to show how a model of the capability of undergraduate skills
for employment is tested together with its effects among stakeholders. The author of this article
is of the view that, regardless of the recent advancement, employability techniques remain to be
strongly well-established in the global policy agenda within higher education. It is reported that
values of different standards of graduates in specified skills in present society are not meeting
expectations of the industry. The author was of the view that employability skills are essential in
the job market. However, skills that are expected by different corporations are not being attained
by the present graduates. Research was conducted by qualitative research method through
interview of respondents. In this examination, 1008 undergraduate from Business as well as Law
schools were participants that completed the online survey. This article used multiple regression
statistical models in analyzing the collected data. The findings of this study state that education
and different stakeholders around the global marketplace have the capacity of improving
employability capabilities among graduates to suit their desires. Some of the principal factors
that have been identified to influence employability in this article include gender, characteristics
of demographic, stage of degree, work experience, professional affiliation, and perception of
participants towards the significance of employability skills. The major limitation of study within
this article is that the examination used the idea of self-assessed rating in the process of gathering
data and the fact that there is no gauge to estimate skill outcomes. Besides, this article is
significant as it provides ideas on how employability skills of graduate are of importance in
performing a fundamental function.
Wilton, Nick. 2011. "Do Employability Skills Really Matter In The UK Graduate Labour
Market? The Case Of Business And Management Graduates". Work, Employment
And Society 25 (1): 85-100. doi:10.1177/0950017010389244.
The primary purpose of this critique is to give an answer to whether employability
abilities are of any importance in the graduate labor market within the UK. The author records
that two dominant rationales are being offered by policymakers in the UK for the major purpose

3
for the timely expansion of higher education. Research was conducted by qualitative research method
through interview of respondents. This article records that employability skills matter in the labor market
and there is a need to improve education systems so as the graduates are able to adapt to different needs
of working sectors. It is clear from the study in this article that disclosure of employability of a
learner connected with the two discussed rationale in the manner that is simple in nature. From
this article, it is apparent that individual employability refers to the means by which an
organization or an individual is able to maintain and obtain superior quality employment.
Employability of a graduate is described by the author of this article to be the ability of an
individual to be capable of eradicating the social reproduction of inequality. However, the article
has major strenght as it draws some evidence from an examination of a graduate career that
proposes that for the group of business and management of graduate, the association among
employment alongside employability is far from basic. From this article helped in answering
question by showing that, it is apparent that traditional labor market problems still appear as
tough to get graduates that have effective employability skills for different operations.
Jackson, Denise, Ruth Sibson, and Linda Riebe. 2013. "Delivering Work-Ready Business
Graduates - Keeping Our Promises And Evaluating Our Performance". Journal Of
Teaching And Learning For Graduate Employability 4 (1): 2.
doi:10.21153/jtlge2013vol4no1art558.
This article has the major purpose of addressing the issue of looking at work-readiness
among graduates by primarily relating to their development of employability techniques. This
article report that different business schools around the global society are working hard to
respond to different calls for the need to have graduates that are ready to work. Such techniques
that make graduates to be work-ready include need to have appropriate management skills for
work. The authors were of the view that there has been a considerable concern to attain
appropriate understanding ion which skills need to be developed among graduates for them to
effectively fit to the employment sector. The need to have appropriate employability skills
according to this article remains to be a major concern that makes most companies to look for
appropriate mechanisms of improving the graduates that they recruit in their operations. The article
outlines a systematic approach that can be utilized in the process of evaluation of outcomes of
employability skills and its effectiveness of different learning programs towards the creation of

4
much-needed skills in the employment sector. The author acknowledges that there is a need for
every learning institution to focus on improving on how they conduct their operations by
releasing only qualified graduates that can add immediate value to job markets.
Oliver, Beverley & Tucker, Beatrice, and Jones, Sue & Ferns, Sonia. 2010. Are our
students work-ready? Graduate and employer feedback for comprehensive course
review. Peer-reviewed paper presented at the Evaluations and Assessment Conference,
Brisbane. 1 (1): 2.
doi:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237829405_Are_our_students_work-
ready_Graduate_and_employer_feedback_for_comprehensive_course_review
This article addresses the issue of whether the students are work-ready by compressively
reviewing feedback of graduates and employers. The authors report that the significant factor of
noting whether graduates are work-ready is through reviewing different courses that form the
basis for extensive internal along with external feedback of stakeholders. This research article
relies on mixed research method by using existing literature and interviewing different workers.
The collection of data in this article consists of interviewing different employers and graduates if
the current education system is useful for the job market. The article denotes that while the use of
technology is useful in the implementation of online education processes, there is a need for
universities to concentrate on the quality of courses they offer instead of units. In order for
graduates to be work-ready, these authors denote that the curriculum of universities need to be
set on a wide initiative to ensure that every syllabus is current, aligned, as well as pedagogically
sound. Comprehensive reviewing of course in different university is needed to improve the
employability skills of learners. Such improvements can make graduates to adapt well in different
organizations that seek their services. The major limitation of this research paper is that the authors
only focused on the evaluation of graduate rather than including the management of universities
to ensure that they get appropriate data. It is important in this study as its data aid in finding out
the reason as to why current systems in their institutions are essential in improving graduates to e
work-ready.
McArthur, Ellen, Krzysztof Kubacki, Bo Pang, and Celeste Alcaraz. 2017. "The
Employers’ View Of “Work-Ready” Graduates: A Study Of Advertisements For

5
Marketing Jobs In Australia". Journal Of Marketing Education 39 (2): 82-93.
Doi:10.1177/0273475317712766.
This article has major purpose of representing the examination of a job advertisement that
aims at extending understanding of the society of how managers operate. The article recorded
that different employers have varied views on each graduate as they do not possess similar traits
in job markets. This research article relies on mixed research method by using existing literature
and interviewing different workers. This critique presents outcomes of the content examination
of 359 job adverts of marketing used in 2016 within two distinct periods that were 6 months
distant. The content offers a comprehensive primary account gathered from different managers
and aligns the survey aside from other existing examinations. Lack of communication skills, lack
of skills of managing time, lack of motivation techniques, and lack of experience for digital,
marketing are some of the much-needed skills that can make a graduate to be unready for a job in
accordance to this article. It is reported in this article that the ability of the present student is hinged
by the capability for different organizations to contend efficiently on the international foundation
and function successfully inexpert marketplaces. Lack of alignment of university curriculum
with present requests of managers has been illustrated in this article to be the major factor that
makes graduates not to be work-ready. Lack of personal attributes as demanded by employers
remains to be another factor that has been reported by this article to affect work-ready of
graduates. It help in answering research question by providing essential data that are useful in
updating and aligning the university curriculum to concentrate on improving the skills of
graduates as required by most employers.