The relationship between higher education students' perceived employability, academic engagement and stress among students in China

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 744-762
Author(s):  
Yin Ma ◽  
Dawn Bennett

PurposeWith a focus on Chinese higher education students, the purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between students' perceived employability and their levels of academic engagement and stress.Design/methodology/approachThe study engaged 1,155 students from three universities in China. Students responded to an online survey, reporting their confidence in relation to their perceived employability, academic engagement and stress in life. The authors employed structural equation modelling to explore students' confidence in each employability attribute and to assess perceived employability relation to academic engagement and perceived stress.FindingsThe results suggest that self-perceptions of employability are positively associated with students' academic engagement and negatively associated with perceived stress. Perceived employability mediated the majority paths.Originality/valueThis is one of the few studies to examine perceived employability in line with academic engagement or stress and the first study to do so in China.

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (5/6) ◽  
pp. 1154-1184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Chen ◽  
Judy Drennan ◽  
Lynda Andrews ◽  
Linda D. Hollebeek

PurposeThis paper aims to propose user experience sharing (UES) as a customer-based initiation of value co-creation pertaining to service provision, which represents customers’ level of effort made for the direct benefit of others in their service network. The authors propose and empirically examine a user experience sharing model (UESM) that explicates customer-to-customer (C2C) UES and its impacts on firm-desired customer-based outcomes in online communities.Design/methodology/ApproachBased on an extensive review, the authors conceptualize UES and UESM. By using online survey data collected from mobile app users in organic online communities, the authors performed structural equation modeling analyses by using AMOS 24.FindingsThe results support the proposed UESM, showing that C2C UES acts as a key driver of both firm-desired customer efforts and customer insights. The results also confirmed that service-dominant (S-D) logic-informed motivational drivers exert a significant impact on C2C UES. Importantly, C2C UES mediates the relationship between S-D logic-informed motivational drivers and firm-desired customer-based outcomes.Originality/valueThis study offers a pioneering attempt to develop an overarching concept, UES, which reflects customers’ initiation of value co-creation, and to empirically examine C2C UES. The empirical evidence supports the key contention that firms should proactively facilitate C2C UES.


2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark P. Bowden ◽  
Subhash Abhayawansa ◽  
John Bahtsevanoglou

Purpose – There is evidence that students who attend Technical and Further Education (TAFE) prior to entering higher education underperform in their first year of study. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of self-efficacy in understanding the performance of students who completed TAFE in the previous year in a first year subject of microeconomics in a dual sector university in Melbourne, Australia. Design/methodology/approach – The study utilises data collected by surveys of 151 students. Findings – A student’s self-efficacy is positively associated with their marks in a first year subject of microeconomics. However, the relationship between final marks and self-efficacy is negative for those students who attended TAFE in the previous year suggesting that they suffer from the problem of overconfidence. When holding self-efficacy constant, using econometric techniques, TAFE attendance is found to be positively related to final marks. Research limitations/implications – The findings are exploratory (based on a small sample) and lead to a need to conduct cross institutional studies. Practical implications – The research points to the need for early interventions so that TAFE students perform well in their first year of higher education. It also points to potential issues in the development of Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) programs. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the inter-related impact of attendance at TAFE in the previous year and self-efficacy on the subsequent academic performance of TAFE students.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 1507-1523
Author(s):  
Marian Buil Fabregá ◽  
Núria Masferrer ◽  
Josep Patau ◽  
Albert-P. Miró Pérez

Purpose The purpose of this research is to analyse the relationship between entrepreneurial skills and innovation commitment and entrepreneurial skills and environmental commitment as drivers of awareness on sustainable development of higher education students. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 1,318 business and management students out of the 3,535 students of Tecnocampus Pompeu Fabra University in Spain during the 2017-2018 academic year was selected to conduct a survey regarding their entrepreneurial skills and sustainability commitment, resulting in a total number of responses of 515. A structural equation model is proposed to contrast the hypothesis. Findings The statistical analysis showed the existence of a positive relation between the entrepreneurial skill of self-consciousness, innovation and environmental commitment to foster sustainability and sustainable development. It is one of the few studies related to the self-conciousness competence of the entrepreneurial skills which found, as a novelty, that the entrepreneurial skill of self-consciousness is the skill with the greater impact on innovation and environmental commitment. Research limitations/implications The limitations of the study are that it is based on a sample of students taking entrepreneurship courses at a specific Spanish University that is not representative of all entrepreneurs in all universities. Practical implications The research proposes including entrepreneurial skills programmes in higher education and research programmes as a way to assure commitment to innovation and environmental sustainability. Originality/value Promoting entrepreneurial skills among higher education students could act as drivers for sustainable development.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anwar Sadat Shimul ◽  
Matthew Barber ◽  
Mohammad Ishmam Abedin

Purpose This paper aims to examine the role of religiosity on consumers’ forgiveness when celebrities get involved in transgression. The celebrity’s reaction and its impact on consumers’ forgiveness is tested as well. In addition, consumers’ attitudes towards the brand and celebrity as well as purchase intention for the endorsed brand are examined both before and after the transgression. Design/methodology/approach Data (n = 356) were collected through a self-administered online survey and analysed though structural equation modelling in AMOS 26. Findings The results show that consumers’ attitude towards celebrity, brand and purchase intention gets weaker once the celebrity gets into transgression. Consumers tend to forgive more if the celebrity apologises (vs denies) for the wrongdoing. The hypothesised relationship between attitude towards celebrity and purchase intention did not sustain after the transgression. In addition, consumers’ intrinsic religiosity strengthens the relationship between attitude towards the celebrity and purchase intention. Practical implications The findings of this research present valuable implications for brands practitioners. Brands should formulate actionable contingency plans to mitigate the negative ramifications of celebrity transgressions. Specifically, intrinsic religiosity and celebrity apologies should assist consumers in forgiving the transgression and negate the implications that could have arisen if the celebrity instead denied the transgressions. Originality/value This research extends the previous research by examining religiosity and forgiveness within the context of celebrity transgressions. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first few research studies to consider the role religiosity plays in consumers’ intention to forgive celebrity transgressions.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaizatulaqma Kamalul Ariffin ◽  
Nur Qistina Ihsannuddin ◽  
Ainul Mohsin Abdul Mohsin

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between attitude functions and attitude towards social media advertising. Additionally, this study also examines the relationship between attitude towards social media advertising and purchase intention. Design/methodology/approach The data was collected via an online survey among Malaysian Muslim participants. Quantitative analysis was used to test the hypothesis. A total of 280 respondents participated in the online survey but only 264 responses fit the analysis. The data was analysed via SPSS and partial least squares structural equation modelling. Findings The findings of this paper show that attitude functions, namely, utilitarian, value-expressive, ego-defensive and religiosity have a significant positive influence on attitude towards social media advertising, whilst knowledge function was found to be insignificant. Attitude towards social media advertising was also found to have a significant positive influence on purchase intention. Practical implications Advertisers should also consider the religious aspects of Muslim consumers and their level of sensitivity as Muslims nowadays are well-informed. This is to avoid controversies and have a better understanding of their consumer needs. Originality/value This is one of the few studies examining the influence of religiosity in the social media advertising of controversial products such as bubble tea.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jatin Pandey ◽  
Manish Gupta ◽  
Yusuf Hassan

PurposeIntrapreneurship is gaining traction in organizations to buckle up for the dynamic business environment. Scholars have argued that intrapreneurship increases positivity at work and helps employees attach themselves better with their job. However, empirical evidence suggests that these relationships do not exist. The objective of this paper is to examine the mediating role of psychological capital (PsyCap) in the relationship between intrapreneurship and work engagement.Design/methodology/approachData were collected through an online survey. Responses from 309 employees working in different industries in India were analysed. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the hypothesized relationships.FindingsThe results show that there exist positive relationships among intrapreneurship, psychological capital (PsyCap) and work engagement. Further, it was observed that the PsyCap partially mediates the relationship between intrapreneurship and work engagement.Practical implicationsManagers may not only encourage intrapreneurial behaviour in their organizations but also ensure that the employees are psychologically capable (high on PsyCap). It would enable the employees to engage themselves wholeheartedly into their work.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is one of its kinds to relate intrapreneurship with PsyCap and work engagement.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phan Vo Minh Thang ◽  
Winai Wongsurawat

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the key determinants of employability of information technology (IT) graduates in Vietnam and examines their impact on self-perceived employability and the duration of the job search. Design/methodology/approach – This study is based on data collected from the responses to an online survey from more than 500 IT graduates from different higher education institutions in Vietnam. Employability, its outcome and its key determinants were integrated into one model. Exploratory factor, confirmatory factor and path analyses were conducted to test the model by means of structural equation modeling. Findings – The self-perceived employability of IT graduates in Vietnam was determined by graduates’ English language skills, soft skills, adaptability skills, the quality of the institution’s IT program and job seeking efforts. Results also indicated that work experience, professional competencies and employability made the job search duration shorter, but job seeking efforts made job search duration longer. Research limitations/implications – Only determinants from individual and institutional aspects were considered, and the sample was also limited to one profession in one country. Practical implications – Results can inform students and educators about the improvable areas of employability enhancement. Originality/value – This study fills a gap in the employability research by providing a quantitative explanation about relationships among the employability, the job search duration and their key predictors from different aspects.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 1349-1372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Sciarelli ◽  
Mohamed Hani Gheith ◽  
Mario Tani

PurposeThis study aims to empirically investigate the effects of both soft and hard quality management (QM) on innovation and organizational performance. It also examines the mediating role of hard QM, administrative innovation and technical innovation on the relationship between soft QM and organizational performance in higher education (HE).Design/methodology/approachThe approach of this study is quantitative. The data used to test the hypotheses were obtained through online questionnaire sent to the academic staff of public universities in Naples (Italy). The hypothesized relationships are tested with data collected from 356 respondents by using the partial least squares structural equation modeling technique (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe results show that quality practices improve innovation and organizational performance, while innovation positively impacts organizational performance. The findings also indicate that soft QM affects organizational performance directly and indirectly through hard QM. Hard QM and innovation show a partial sequential mediating effect on soft QM-performance relationshipPractical implicationsIn order to implement quality management properly in HE, directors need to recognize the different roles that soft and hard QM can have on innovation and organizational performance. It is important that higher education institutions (HEIs) allocate resources to establish both types of QM practices to achieve the effectiveness of the whole QM system.Originality/valueDespite the existence of numerous studies on the relationship between QM, innovation and organizational performance in manufacturing and services, studies conducted in higher education are still few. This is one of the earliest studies that adopt the multidimensional approach of QM in HE which could help directors understand the interdependencies and different roles of soft and hard quality practices.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 527-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heikki Karjaluoto ◽  
Juha Munnukka ◽  
Katrine Kiuru

Purpose This study aims to test and extend Carroll and Ahuvia’s (2006) model on the antecedents and outcomes of brand love by examining the moderating effects of experience and price on the relationship between brand love and offline word of mouth (WOM) and between brand love and electronic WOM (eWOM). Design/methodology/approach An online survey was conducted on Facebook, which generated 342 valid responses. The data were analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling. Findings The results mainly support the model by confirming that the self-expressiveness of the brand and trust are positively associated with brand love. No association between hedonic product type and brand love was found. The study’s findings also suggest positive associations between brand love and both types of WOM. Experience and price were found to strengthen the relationship between brand love and offline WOM but not the relationship between brand love and eWOM. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by introducing and testing an extended model of brand love. It tests two moderating effects on the relationship between brand love and WOM.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abeer F. Alkhwaldi ◽  
Amir A. Abdulmuhsin

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the factors that affect the acceptance of distance learning systems by university academic staff and students in Jordan. To achieve this objective, it has been proposed to examine the distance learning experience of Jordanian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) after the universities institution suspended face-to-face (traditional) courses delivery owing to novel Coronavirus’ (COVID-19) fears. Design/methodology/approach This study expands upon unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 by incorporating contextual variables such as trust (TR), autonomy (AUT) and compatibility (CMP). Data collection has been carried out through an online survey, which targeted participants at public and private universities during the crisis time of coronavirus. Structural equation modelling has been used to validate the proposed research model. Findings The outcomes revealed that performance expectancy, facilitating conditions, TR and AUT were the significant predictors of distance learning acceptance in both samples. By identifying the factors affecting the acceptance of distance learning systems, it will be more useful to offer better services of distance learning. This will also help to demonstrate that distance learning will be capable of delivering the educational aims of HEIs to areas where a pandemic outbreak in the Middle East. Originality/value Distance learning provides university students with quality education, engaging platforms and most significantly a safe teaching environment. The results and implications to both practice and theory are described.


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