Developing business buccaneers: employer expectations of emergent leaders

Abstract

This study investigates employer expectations of graduates to inform pedagogical practice within a context of industry-university collaboration. Employers' views of graduates as future leaders are explored through interviews, focus groups and a survey, with a regional sample of 146 managers. Findings show employers have different understandings and diverse expectations of leadership traits and generic competencies. Employers anticipate future graduates will need greater adaptability and flexibility for volatile business contexts; with some highlighting rule-breaking that implies a buccaneer approach rather than responsible leadership. The dissonance between an academic aim to educate socially responsible, global citizens and industry demands, potentially undermine the coherence of partnership. Consequently, this study casts doubt on implicit assumptions that practiceinformed, industry-university, collaboration will deliver better leaders. The main implications are that educators need to clearly communicate to employers how university learning transfers into actual work practice, and for graduates to better articulate their broad capabilities. The research offers fresh insights on educators' responsibility to nurture capabilities in critical thinking and graduates with the learning agility to question and responsibly navigate organisational rules. The study also contributes to the industry-university partnership debate by revealing the academic complexity of developing future leaders given the multiple lenses of practice-informed views.

A Theoretical Literature Review on the Social Identity Model of Organizational Leadership

“…This renewed focus on collective leadership becomes more evident in complex work environments where knowledge work requires collaboration: “the solitary image does not fit the incremental nature of how complex work actually gets done” (Jacobs, 2017, p. 184). The focus of leadership has changed to the collective involving “processes, systems, followers and environment” (Tymon & Mackay, 2016, p. 433). Just as knowledge work requires collaboration in complex environments, managing in this type of environment “logically differs from traditional work” (p. 184), and so does leadership.…”

The influence of internationalised versus local content on online intercultural collaboration in groups: A randomised control trial study in a statistics course

“…Interaction with diverse peers during university has similarly been linked with higher thought complexity and openness (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Intercultural collaboration has also been found to help students develop key graduate employability skills, such as intercultural competencies (Spencer-Oatey & Dauber, 2017), which are frequently desired by employers (see, for example: Tymon & Mackay, 2016).…”

Competitive communities of practice, knowledge sharing, and Machiavellian participation: a case study

“…() note the irony that a number of otherwise negative traits aligned with Machiavellianism are often celebrated in senior managers and entrepreneurs. In these populations being charming, self‐confident, cleverly deceptive and cunning are behaviours that are largely celebrated; in their work, Tymon and MacKay () note how ‘entrepreneurial’ leadership behaviours are favoured by organizations in lieu of ethical or ‘globally responsible’ leaders.…”