Are we teaching what employers want? Identifying and remedying gaps between employer needs, accreditor prescriptions, and undergraduate curricular priorities

Abstract

<jats:p> Employers and policy makers have criticized higher education institutions for the perceived knowledge and skills deficiencies of their graduates. This article seeks to identify the gaps between employer needs, curricular priorities, and accrediting standards, specifically in the management domain. To this end, the authors content analyzed 200 job announcements for entry-level management positions in the 10 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the United States and the learning goals of 51 business programs, comparing both to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business’s Standard 9. While the findings demonstrate considerable overlap between employers’ stated needs, business programs’ curricular focus, and accrediting standards, notable gaps emerged, especially in the area of self-management. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for both business programs and accrediting bodies. </jats:p>

Analytics Capability in Marketing Education: A Practice-Informed Model

“…There is an increasing consensus that marketing practitioners are important stakeholders in marketing education, and that a major role for universities is to equip graduates with the right knowledge and skills for employment (Rhew et al, 2019;Ye et al, 2017). The divide between what is taught in the curriculum and marketplace requirements has long been observed in the literature (Duffy & Ney, 2015;McArthur et al, 2017), with some calling for a shift toward a pracademic paradigm where practice and skill development is prioritized over theories (McNatt et al, 2010).…”

“…Live project-based learning could be used by educators to successfully develop students' soft skills and technical skills (Rohm et al, 2021). The value of experiential and live project-based learning in bridging the theory-practice gap (Spiller & Tuten, 2019;Wilson et al, 2018;Ye et al, 2017), as well as developing these soft skills through real-world projects or work placements (Rhew et al, 2019;Rohm et al, 2019) has been demonstrated.…”

“…A broader issue requiring further research is the exact role of soft skills education in academia, including whether or how these should be part of the formal marketing curriculum. Soft skills tend to be the most requested by employers (Di Gregorio et al, 2019;McArthur et al, 2017) and are the most lacking in graduates, while typically not being part of academia's remit (Finch et al, 2013;Rhew et al, 2019). In the digital economy purely quantitative tasks are more likely to be automated in the future, thus increasing the value of well-developed soft skills such as interpersonal and communication skills (Burning Glass Technologies, 2019;LeClair, 2018).…”

An empirical approach to identifying employability skills required of graduates in the environmental sciences

“…The use of job advertisements as a data source is well established, although there is little guidance available on how best to collect and analyze these data (Harper, 2012). A search of the graduate employability literature has revealed a number of studies that have used job advertisements to gauge what employers require of graduates in the workplace, including for marketing (Bennett, 2002; McArthur et al, 2017; Wellman, 2010); general management, finance and human resource management (Bennett, 2002; Rhew et al, 2019); sport marketing, ticket sales and sponsorship sales (Bae and Miller, 2011; Diamond et al, 2014; Pierce et al, 2012); recreation and tourism (Crossley, 1992; Keung and Pine, 2000); library and information science (Clyde, 2002); information technology (Todd et al, 1995); project management (Ahsan et al, 2013); and event management (Arcodia and Barker, 2002). A search of the literature failed to turn up any such studies for jobs in the environmental sciences.…”

A Framework to Create Employability Skills for Small and Medium Scale Industry

“…Along with a good technical knowledge industry also demands a set of skills which are necessary for better performance of an employee in the described job profile. (Nicholas D. Rhew, 2019)An engineer needs different managerial skills as well as various technical skills. Skill sets required by the various types of industries differ at each level.…”