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This article presents the case for creating stronger connections between research on graduate and worker employability. We offer a narrative review of commonalities and differences between these research streams and offer thoughts and suggestions for further integration and mutual learning.

We outline some of the main theories and concepts in the graduate and worker employability domains. Furthermore, we analyze how these show considerable overlap, though they have barely connected with each other yet. We also formulate an agenda for future research that would spur stronger connections between the fields. Finally, we turn to our fellow authors, reviewers, and editors to encourage a more open approach to each other's work that would enable more cross-fertilization of knowledge.

We hope our narrative review, critical analysis and future research suggestions will lead to more collaborations and mutual learning among employability researchers in the educational, career and psychology areas.

This exploratory research aims to identify the types of social networks established by German and French expatriates.

The authors use the concepts of social capital and social networks, as well as the societal and cultural approaches, to investigate the way expatriates develop their social networks. The authors' empirical study is based on 40 semi-structured interviews conducted with German and French expatriates.

The authors' findings show that German expatriates mainly establish professional networks, whereas their French counterparts also focus on personal networks. They further indicate that managing social capital lies within the individual responsibility of German expatriates, whereas it is part of higher education institutions in France.

The authors highlight the way German and French expatriates manage their social networks and provide novel insights into the role played by higher education systems and the cultural characteristics of their home country context.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to identify and discuss ways in which informal financing of the kind discussed in the case study can provide new or different opportunities for access to alternative financing schemes; assess the role of“social capital” in micro and small business development and to understand and apply the role of social capital for female entrepreneurs in the Global South; critically analyse and reflect on the new role of digital technologies in challenging traditional patriarchal social norms and exclusion and ultimately be able to evaluate the role of digital technologies in terms of its practical implications for female entrepreneurs; and understand the role played by socio-cultural and historical contexts in female-owned/managed businesses within informal sectors of the economy. Furthermore, the students should be able to discuss how these contexts provide opportunities or challenges for actionable/robust/relevant business plans for female entrepreneurs.

This case study aims to create a platform for classroom conversations around: context of entrepreneurship in informal economies, challenges of accessing finance, women entrepreneurship, opportunities of digital entrepreneurship and resource acquisition and social capital. Overall, this case study intends to inspire and cultivate additional voices to advance authentic understanding of informal business practices in the financial sector that go beyond traditional formal western settings. This case study is based on a true story relating to the “sou-sou” financing system – an informal financing scheme – originating from West Africa which has been transported to other parts of the world including Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and other parts of Africa. The characters involve Maria, the main protagonist; Eunice, from LAC; and Fidelia from West Africa. With first-hand information from Eunice and Fidelia, Maria learnt about the ideological principles and the offerings of flexibility, trust, mutual benefits and kinship of the sou-sou system and was inspired to integrate digital technologies as a sustainable game changer for accessing microfinance. This case study draws on the contextual understanding of the economy in the Global South as well as the gender-based aspects of entrepreneurship as key aspects of women entrepreneurship and digital entrepreneurship. The sou-sou system is presented as a practical solution to the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in the Global South to access finances, and the integration of digital technologies is considered instrumental not only in reinforcing the traditional system but also in transforming the entrepreneurial prospects for these women.

This teaching activity is aimed at postgraduate students in Master of Management and Master of Business Administration programmes. It can also be used for short executive courses, specialised PhD seminars and advanced bachelor programmes. This case study could be taught in the field of entrepreneurship in areas related to technology, gender, women entrepreneurship and financing in the context of the Global South.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to test the impact of selected characteristics of jobseekers on employers’ decisions regarding potential hires (direct and probabilistic signals). The main focus of the study is to test the impact of jobseekers’ participation in selected active labour market programmes on employers’ hiring decisions for three positions: unskilled worker, skilled worker and administrative employee. Other characteristics tested include age, gender, presence of children in the household, state of health, experience of short- and long-term unemployment and indebtedness.

This study analyses data from a representative survey of employers with five or more employees in the Czech Republic. The survey was conducted in December 2020 using stratified random sampling, combining online questionnaires and personal interviews. The study includes 1,040 employers and uses the factorial survey experiment (FSE) design.

The results of the FSE suggest that the perceived positive impact of completing one of the activation programmes depends on the position for which the candidate is being recruited. While for the unskilled job category, the completion of any of the tested schemes (training, subsidised jobs or public works) had a positive effect; for the skilled job category, only the training and subsidised jobs schemes had a positive effect; and for the administrative job category, public works programme even had a negative effect.

A somewhat limiting factor in the context of this study seems to be the definitions of the positions tested (unskilled and skilled workers and administrative staff). The decision-making of the respondents was somewhat restricted by such broadly defined categories. Typically, studies with FSE designs have a focus on a specific sector of the economy, which allows for a better definition of the positions or jobs under test. The relationship between position and the impact of individual characteristics is clearly a matter for further research.

The results of the study confirm that completion of the activation programme, as well as other candidate characteristics, constitute differentiating signals for employers that influence their hiring decisions. At the same time, there is evidence that the training programme and the subsidised jobs programme are effective in terms of increasing participants’ chances of employment.

The demand side should be included in the evaluation of activation policies. The design of the FSE provides an appropriate way to test the impact of activation measures on the decision-making of employers.

Despite the growing interest in the field of supply chain sustainability (SCS), little exploration of new theories exists. Therefore, this paper aims to introduce practice theories to SCS studies through a practice turn.

This is a conceptual paper in nature. Hence, based on theoretical arguments, the authors elaborate on how the practice turn can arise in the SCS field.

The theoretical elaboration is rooted in the understanding that sustainability is not limited to the materiality of environmental and social issues, as often observed. Instead, there is a need to include immaterial, emotional and intangible elements to better comprehend SCS practice. The authors argue that a continuum exists for a practice turn, including practice-based view, practice-based studies and critical practice theory.

The authors provide a research agenda with a comprehensive perspective of understanding the application and implications of practice theories to SCS.

The practice turn in SCS studies can support managers to better understand their practices not only through recognizing explicit activities but also mainly by reflecting on hidden elements that affect their performance.

SCS studies can better engage with grand challenges through a practice turn, which helps increase its contribution to solving social problems.

Unlike previous literature, the paper elaborates on how practice theories are powerful in supporting both scholars and practitioners in moving away from an extremely economic focus to genuinely embrace sustainability practice. In doing so, the practice turn appears as an important phase for SCS field maturity.

The purpose of this paper is to use Bourdieu’s Theory of Capital–Field–Habitus to explore how refugees, asylum seekers and migrants accumulate and mobilise social, cultural, symbolic and economic capital to find meaningful work in the Australian construction industry.

The paper reports the results of a survey of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who have either successfully or unsuccessfully searched for employment in the Australian construction industry.

The findings dispel widely held negative stereotypes of about this group by describing a highly capable workforce which could address significant skills shortages in the industry, while concurrently diversifying the workforce. However, it is found that refugees, asylum seekers and migrants face considerable barriers to finding meaningful employment in the construction industry. In circumventing these barriers, education institutions, charities and community-based organisations play an especially important role, alongside friends and family networks. They do this by helping refugees, asylum seekers and migrants accumulate and deploy the necessary capital to secure meaningful work in the construction industry. Disappointingly, it is also found that the construction industry does little to help facilitate capital accumulation and deployment for this group, despite the urgent need to address diversity and critical skills shortages.

Employing Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Capital–Field–Habitus, the findings make a number of new theoretical and practical contributions to the limited body of international research relating to the employment of refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers in the construction. The results are important because meaningful employment is widely accepted to be the single most factor in the successful integration of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants into a host society and the construction industry represents an important source of potential employment for them.

This paper aims to offer insight into how strategies within the accounting profession, which has been becoming more global, might be changed by the recent outbreak of the Second Cold War between the West and the Rest of the World.

We explore the strategies of those who called themselves “Confucian accountants” in China, a country which has recently discouraged its state-owned enterprises from using the services of the Big 4. We do this by employing qualitative research methods, including reflexive photo interviews, in which Big-4 accountants, recognised as the most Westernised accounting actors in China, and Confucian accountants are asked to take and explain photographs representing their professional lives. Bourdieu’s notions of “economy of practices” and “vision-of-division strategy” are drawn upon to understand who the Confucian accountants are and what they do strategically in their pursuit of a higher revenue stream and improved social standing in the Chinese social space.

The homegrown Confucian accountants share cultural-cognitive characteristics with neighbouring social actors, such as their clients and government officials, who have been inculcated with Confucianism and the state’s cultural confidence policy in pursuit of a “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics”. Those accountants try to enhance their social standing and revenue stream by strategically demonstrating their difference from Big-4 accountants. For this purpose, they wear Confucian clothes, have Confucian props in their office, employ Confucian phrases in their everyday conversations, use Confucian business cards and construct and maintain guanxi with government officials and clients.

This paper is the first attempt to explore Confucian accountants’ strategies for increasing their revenue and social standing at the start of the Second Cold War.

Sustainability is viewed as an encompassing perspective, as endorsed by the international policy context, driven by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We aim to examine how women entrepreneurs transform capitals to pursue sustainability, and to generate policy insights for sustainability actions through tourism entrepreneurship.

Applying qualitative approach, we have generated empirical evidence drawing on 37 qualitative interviews carried out in Turkey, whereby boundaries between traditional patriarchal forces and progressive movements in gender relations are blurred.

We have generated insights into how women entrepreneurs develop their sustainability practice by transforming their available economic, cultural, social and symbolic capitals in interpreting the macro-field and by developing navigation strategies to pursue sustainability. This transformative process demonstrates how gender roles were performed and negotiated in serving for sustainability pillars.

In this paper, we demonstrate the nature and instrumentality of sustainable tourism entrepreneurship through a gender lens in addressing some of these SDG-driven challenges.

We advance the scholarly and policy debates by bringing gender issues to the forefront, discussing sustainable tourism initiatives from the viewpoint of entrepreneurs and various members of local community and stakeholder in a developing country context where women’s solidarity becomes crucial.