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In a rapidly changing career landscape where lifelong job security is no longer guaranteed, this study investigates how audit firms play an important role in shaping their employees’ career perceptions and the subsequent effects on auditor behavior. Specifically, it explores the link between audit firms’ career development initiatives and auditors’ perceptions of external employability – an important determinant of auditor behavior. Using the framework of social exchange theory, the study investigates how perceived external employability affects both relational and operational behaviors of auditors.

The study employs structural equation modeling on survey data from 359 auditors.

The results indicate that when audit firms actively support career development, it positively contributes to auditors’ perceived external employability. A higher perceived external employability, in turn, leads to positive behavioral outcomes among auditors, including stronger relational behaviors (such as professional commitment) and operational behaviors (including heightened professional skepticism and reduced behaviors that could compromise audit quality).

This study uncovers a paradox where perceived external employability, typically viewed as a risk, emerges as a potent driver of desirable auditor behavior. In today’s dynamic career landscape, emphasizing individual-centered and flexible careers, these results highlight the benefits of perceived external employability. Rather than undermining audit services, increased perceived external employability driven by firm investments in auditors’ careers acts as a catalyst for desirable auditor behavior. Organizational support in terms of career development practices creates an environment where auditors are more committed, professionally skeptical and uphold the quality of audit services.

This paper examines the influence of micro-credential learning on students' perceived employability. In addition, the study aims to explore different components that will help students to gain knowledge, enhance their careers and develop their human capital (social, cultural and scholastic capital). Hence, the study also analyzed the mediating role of human capital on the aforementioned association.

Explanatory research was conducted by utilizing a correlational research design. A questionnaire comprising of closed-ended items was utilized in the study. The data was analyzed by employing PLS-SEM technique.

Our findings stipulate that micro-credential learning is an essential component to improve students' perceived employability. The study identified that micro-credential programs have a positive relationship with students' perceived employability. Moreover, the findings that micro-credential learning significantly impacts students' human capital, i.e. cultural, social and scholastic capital. Additionally, human capital acts as a significant mediator in the relationship between micro-credential learning and students' perceived employability. Moreover, participation in micro-credential learning can ensure that students can identify diverse career directions, seek information about the labor market and educational system, attain relevant qualifications for their vocations, and develop a plan for their future.

Micro-credential programs are short and focused educational programs that offer specialized knowledge and skills in a particular area. These programs are becoming increasingly popular in the modern workforce to upskill or reskill quickly and efficiently. However, lack of empirical evidence is the ultimate gap in determining the importance of micro-credential learning; as the limited literature is unable to determine the importance of MCL on students' perceived employability. Thus, the study identifies the impact of micro-credential learning on students' perceived employability.

This study aims to understand how employability capitals’ dynamics foster self-perceived employability (SPE) among students and graduates, which is still being empirically explored. Building upon the Employability Capital Growth Model and the Social Cognitive Career Theory’s career self-management model, we aimed to understand how different capitals associate by testing a serial mediation model connecting career identity (reflecting career identity capital) and SPE through the serial mediation of cultural capital and job interview self-efficacy (ISE) (an element of psychological capital).

We adopted a two-wave design involving 227 Italian University students and graduates. We recruited participants through multi-channel communication. The hypothesised relationships were analysed employing the structural equation modelling approach with the SPSS AMOS statistical package.

The results indicated that career identity, cultural capital, ISE and SPE are meaningfully related. In particular, in line with our expectations, we observed that career identity predicts cultural capital, which is positively associated with ISE which, ultimately, impacts SPE.

Our work adds to existing research by advancing the understanding of employability capitals, explaining how they interact and influence SPE, which is crucial for a sustainable transition into the workforce. At a practical level, our findings call upon, and guide, efforts from various stakeholders in the graduate career ecosystem (i.e. universities and their partners) to offer students and graduates meaningful experiences to form and use their employability capitals.

This study explores practitioners’ perspectives on the perceived gap between university and practice beyond the hard and soft skill paradigm. Utilising Tomlinson’s graduate capital model of employability (2017), we explored human, social, cultural, and psychological capitals to enrich the understanding of this issue and employability. It provided a new perspective, useful for implementing curriculum renewal.

This study utilised a two-stage mixed methods design. Using Tomlinson’s (2017) Graduate capital model as a framework, the first stage involved distributing an online survey to qualified architects in hiring positions practising in Australia. This served as the foundation for generating qualitative and quantitative data. The second stage involved a two-hour practitioner workshop where the survey results were discussed and expanded upon.

Our results found that the practitioner’s perspective on the perceived skills gap is more complex than the hard/soft skill paradigm commonly discussed. Practitioners expressed a need for students/graduates to possess identity and cultural capital to contextualise industry norms and expectations. This knowledge lets students know where and how hard/soft skills are used. Our results also suggest practitioners are concerned with the prevailing individualistic approach to the higher education system and traditional architectural teaching methods, instead suggesting a more industry-aligned collaborative disposition.

By expanding the employability discourse beyond hard/soft skills, the results of this research provide an opportunity for architectural curriculum renewal in line with industry expectations.

This study aims to explore the impact of engaging in serious leisure (SL) on the well-being (WB) and self-perceived employability (PE) of university students while also considering the role of career adaptability (CA) as a mediator.

A total of 905 domestic undergraduate students from China completed an online survey.

The findings reveal that participation in SL positively influences WB and PE. Additionally, the results indicate that CA mediates the SL-WB relationship but not the SL-PE relationship.

The theoretical contribution of this research comes from advancing our understanding of sustainable career theory through empirical testing of SL, PE, and CA on WB outcomes within a higher education setting. The practical implications of this study involve providing universities with strategies to support domestic Chinese undergraduate students in enhancing their WB and PE through active engagement in SL pursuits and the development of CA. Moreover, our findings serve as a foundation for future research investigating whether insights gained from domestic Chinese undergraduate students can provide solutions on a global scale to address the persistent challenges of improving student WB and PE.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the boundary conditions between objective overqualification and perceived overqualification. In addition, we aim to investigate the mediation patterns between objective overqualification, perceived overqualification and job satisfaction.

A two-wave survey was conducted with 382 new entrants of job market. Data was analyzed with Process 3.5 in SPSS 26.0 to test the hypothesized moderated mediation model.

Results indicated that perceived overqualification fully mediated the relationship between objective overqualification and job satisfaction. In addition, the relationship between objective overqualification and perceived overqualification was significant unless employees perceived high internal employment opportunities but low external employment opportunities at the same time. Same moderating pattern was also evident in the indirect effect of objective overqualification? Perceived overqualification? Job satisfaction.

This study has theoretical and practical implications for personnel management. Theoretically, this study contributed to the understanding of the relationship between objective overqualification and perceived overqualification. Practically, this study found that offering internal employment opportunities can mitigate the perception of overqualification when employees perceive limited external employment opportunities.

This is one of few studies that stressed the boundary conditions between objective overqualification and perceived overqualification under the framework of relative deprivation theory. In addition, this study provided time-lagged evidence of the relationship between objective overqualification, perceived overqualification and job satisfaction.

Prosperity and growth of emerging economies rely heavily on the innovativeness of higher education institutions (HEIs) and their ability to provide employable graduates with entrepreneurial competencies and flexibility in the assessment of their progress in gaining knowledge. The innovativeness of the higher education system is not always reflected through optimal educational content, innovative study programs, skills improvement, assessment methods, etc. The study aims to analyze and evaluate how selected internal factors, reflected in organizational support for innovativeness of HEIs, and external factors reflected in government support for innovativeness of HEIs determine the innovativeness of HEIs, as one of the key determinants of economic prosperity.

The authors analyzed three facets of higher education innovativeness, i.e. graduates' employability, entrepreneurial competencies and new ways of assessment. The sample included 664 students from the University of Kragujevac, Serbia, and the University of Maribor, Slovenia. The authors applied structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine relations.

The results clearly show that in order to become the driver of development in emerging economies, universities must act in different directions, focusing on different organizational drivers of innovativeness, such as academic autonomy of teachers, student participation in curricula design, enhancing new ideas and compensation system, provide resources etc. Organizational support and government for innovativeness of HEIs affect students' entrepreneurial and social skills, creative thinking, leadership, interactive competencies and knowledge-skill-attitude. Assessment tasks and associated learning should be redesigned to enable students to be involved in the evaluation of their work.

The study strives to reduce the research gap identified in the field of researching the drivers of innovativeness in higher education and offers implications for emerging markets regarding various factors that determine the innovativeness of HEIs and consequently contribute to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in emerging markets. Originality derives from the fact that even though the authors have explored HEIs in Serbia and Slovenia, the results are fully transferrable to other former socialist states, considering their similar socio-economic and educational background. Results of this research complement the understanding and provide new knowledge for further development of innovativeness in HE.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on university students' employability skills and give insights into preparation for future crises that may happen.

Employing an interpretative phenomenological approach with the frame of social cognitive theory, the current study examined the changes in environmental, behavioral and personal elements of human functioning for employability skills being affected by the conditions during the pandemic.

Findings based on ten in-depth semi-structured interviews with students at universities in Vietnam highlighted that the global pandemic performed as both challenge and an opportunity for employability skills development, yet the extent to which the students can benefit from the new studying conditions attributed to each individual's initiatives in taking advantages of resources and acting against difficulties.

Whether the pandemic became a hindrance or a motivation for students' employability skills to develop and whether students effectively utilized an agency to overcome challenges and improved their skills after the pandemic have not yet been investigated. This study added to the body of literature regarding self-regulated learners by demonstrating agency in the learning process as well as how to manage careers and improve employability skills by making use of resources in disconnected settings.

Using the theoretical framework of social comparison theory (SCT), this study investigates the effects of employee envy on service sabotage behaviors in the hospitality industry. It further examines the complex dynamics of self-performance and job dissatisfaction in this context. Notably, this paper seeks to determine the potential moderating role of perceived employability in the interactions between service sabotage, employee envy, job dissatisfaction and self-performance.

Our research structure was divided into four distinct models. The findings of Model 1 highlight the significant impact of employee envy on service sabotage. The analysis in Model 2a shows that job dissatisfaction acts as a partial mediator in the employee envy and service sabotage linkage. On the other hand, Model 2b reveals self-performance as yet another partial mediator between envy-service sabotage relationships. In turn, Model 3 demonstrates that job dissatisfaction and self-performance play a serial mediation role in the envy-service sabotage relationship. In addition, our research shows that perceived employability effectively moderates the three proposed paths within these relationships.

Our research structure was divided into four distinct models. The findings of Model 1 highlight the significant impact of employee envy on service sabotage. The analysis in Model 2a shows that job dissatisfaction acts as a partial mediator in the employee envy and service sabotage linkage. On the other hand, Model 2b reveals self-performance as yet another partial mediator between envy-service sabotage relationships. In turn, Model 3 demonstrates that job dissatisfaction and self-performance play a serial mediation role in the envy-service sabotage relationship. In addition, our research shows that perceived employability effectively moderates the three proposed paths within these relationships.

Hotel managers must keep a close eye on their front-of-house staff to avoid any unintentional or direct interactions with customers. Equally important is the consistent and impartial treatment of all employees, which is an important consideration for managers to consider because it can help mitigate employee envy and job dissatisfaction.

This study seeks to enhance understanding of SCT by emphasizing perceived employability as a boundary influencing the relationships between these factors and desired outcomes in the hotel industry, such as job dissatisfaction, self-performance and service sabotage. This paper is an initial attempt to investigate the underlying mechanisms in the relationship between envy and service sabotage.

Training has been an important tool for enhancing the skills and productivity of employees. Having productive employees helps organizations sustain themselves. Today, the authors organisations have an increasing number of employees on third-party payroll performing core as well as noncore business functions. However, due to the lack of ownership and moral obligation of employers, these employees are often not provided training, resulting in skills obsolesce and less productivity. The present study is a systematic literature review (SLR) on client organizations’ roles in training third-party employees (TPEs) and its related outcomes.

The present study is a SLR on client organizations' roles in training TPEs and their related outcomes. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) approach, this study presents a review of 217 research papers on training of TPEs and its related outcomes.

The study identifies the outcomes of providing training to TPEs and presents the findings and suggestions made by researchers. The study concludes that TPEs are an important investment for the client organization. Training them would benefit the client organization, TPEs and the economy as a whole. The paper also suggests some avenues for future research.

This paper tries to answer an important question: What could drive productive behavior among TPEs? Based on the literature reviewed, the answer is that TPEs could be offered training opportunities with a view to enhancing their employability. This could induce, among them, a sense of being valued and supported while contributing to organizational performance and creating a feeling of reciprocal obligation. This is an important contribution to literature. Low investment in these employees affects their employability, i.e. be it in the same organization for another term or another organization and thus the need for training and development, for sustained productivity among TPEs, in organizations.

Training and development, for them, would result in enhanced employability within as well as outside the organization. These employees could also be a good source for regular positions within the organization, if required, benefiting both the organization and the employee. Additionally, the economy would also benefit from a pool of skilled workforce. Therefore, it is suggested that governments initiate some policy framework regarding mandatory training of TPEs to increase their competencies, resulting in increased organizational productivity, especially for TPEs at lower and middle levels of management.

The paper is an original contribution by the researcher. An attempt has been made to highlight the training needs of TPEs and their related outcomes.