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The world is seeing a large deficit in employable workforce. An employable workforce is developed with appropriate combination of academic and practical skills. Practical skills are better developed with industry intervention rather than in classrooms. Changing trends of economic activity have steadily changed the business thought. The purpose of this paper is to assess the role of industry in developing employability by studying employability from the value chain and “Demand-Supply” of workforce models. The scope is limited to Indian context. This paper is a part of the research on factors influencing employability in India.

Literature review, expert interviews and authors’ own experiences and understanding.

It has been found that most of the countries in the world are facing a shortage of skilled and employable workforce. We examined various literature content and studied specific instances in the Industry. The study has shown that in the cases where industry has been actively involved in identifying training needs, the supply of manpower has been adequate. So, it is found that industry's role in employability is crucial and impacts on other macro policies for human development.

As this paper is a part of a larger study on “Factors impacting employability in India,” it is of paramount importance to Indian researchers, students and policy makers. The paper and the research are oriented to identifying causes to the problem of employability, so that systemic changes can be identified.

This paper is based on large amount of literature that is existing in various sources. All the literature has been thoroughly read and assimilated. Suitable references have cited and others have been acknowledged. Most importantly this is an original work of the authors and their views.

The current study intends to synthesise the prior studies on employability skills among work-ready professionals in higher education through bibliometric and network visualisation tools. This study also identifies the gaps in the existing literature that still need to be filled and maps the course for future investigation.

The current study examined research papers on employability skills among work-ready professionals in higher education to evaluate global patterns and the top authors, institutions, journals, and nations contributing to this field. The authors analysed eight hundred eighty-five papers from the Scopus database between 1982 and 2023 for the study. Open-source bibliometric tools like Biblioshiny were used in the study to examine the body of literature and to spot new directions for future research.

The study’s findings indicate that since 2008, researchers, academics, and policymakers have paid more attention to employability skills among work-ready professionals, and 2019 is the year seeing the highest no. of publications. Across the globe, 2077 authors contributed to the articles, papers, and journals published in the particular domain. Regarding location, the United Kingdom is the world’s most productive nation, with 342 articles produced. Similarly, Australia, India, and Malaysia are the leading nations that have contributed to the field. Both keywords significantly contribute to scientific knowledge.

The gaps in this study will serve as a reference point for researchers conducting future studies in this field. Additionally, the result of this analysis offers a roadmap for higher education to enhance graduate employability by embedding necessary skills into them.

There has not been a bibliometric analysis concerning employability skills among Work-ready professionals in the existing literature; hence, this article is innovative. This study is the first attempt at integrating the concept. The study also gives an overview of potential directions for future research in this discipline.

Tourism and hospitality is one of the fastest growing segments of the services industry in India, and there is tremendous need and opportunity for young, educated and qualified professionals. Academics and employers agree that there is an increasing gap between the soft skills that companies expect from their entry-level employees and the skills that these young people possess. To bridge this gap, industry leaders and researchers indicate the need for more soft skills training. The purpose of this paper is to identify soft skills competencies that are required for a diverse group of entry-level employees and then to identify gaps by exploring the hospitality programme and internships.

The research is analytical in nature and draws on a literature review and a questionnaire as a survey tool for stakeholders. The research had separate questionnaires for employers, students and faculty members of the Vedatya Institute, educator for the service industry. The research is focused on entry-level employees – students who had graduated from Vedatya Institute in the past five years. The employers are primarily general managers and human resource managers of five-star hotels who have recruited and been part of campus interviews.

The research analysed soft or employability skills for the hospitality industry, and it provided valuable insights from employers and perceptions of graduates in attainment of those skills during their degree programme. The study highlighted the significant role of internship in developing soft skills.

The paper recommends practical solutions for educators and organizations that can be applied. The research synthesized current thinking on required soft skills for young entry-level employees and explores the soft skills gap in the context of a growing soft skills training market with recommendation for stakeholders.

The research sought to address the real life problem impacting the hospitality industry in India using inputs from the literature, graduates and employers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in an Indian context, especially in the light of the “skilling India” mission initiated by the government. The aim here is to understand the dynamics of CSR initiatives and how they can be a catalyst for the training of skilled labour in support of the Indian hospitality industry.

The research is exploratory in nature and is primarily based on qualitative data. Semi-structured interviews were conducted for data collection. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to draw out insights as to how practitioners in corporate entities experience the role and potential of CSR initiatives in the context of the “skilling India” mission initiated by the Government of India. Also, secondary data, such as academic, institutional and trade literature, were studied.

The paper discusses the immense but untapped potential that CSR measures hold for “skilling India”. It also explores the prevailing gap and the possible measures to be taken to meet the requirement for skilled labour now and in the future.

The paper integrates CSR possibilities with the government’s mission to improve the skills-deficit problem. The findings of the paper reveal significant aspects of CSR initiatives and adds value through corporate initiatives, in turn bridging the gap and addressing the critical need for skilled labour in the Indian hospitality industry.

This paper aims to analyze Northern Manitoba employers' indexes of employability skills that influence the UCN (University College of the North) students' employability in indigenous contexts.

This study constructs the employability skills into six indexes from employers' perspective: reading comprehension, numeracy, technology, soft skills, job searching skills and indigenous cultural awareness. Mixed methods have been applied to this research: survey data are used for empirical analysis of the six indexes of employability skills; secondary sources of similar studies together with functional theory in education as a framework is adopted to explore the breadth and depth of employability skills requested by employers; indexing analysis is adopted to validate the necessity of developing such skills in indigenous contexts in Northern Manitoba.

The correlation analyses and mean values show that employers in Northern Manitoba take the six indexes as influential factors of students' employability. As such, the study indicates that Northern Manitoba employers consider employability in indigenous contexts as a combination of basic skills, professional requirements, soft skills and cultural awareness. The employers' attested employability is in line with the concept of the technical-function theory, which requires education to meet the demand for updated job skills due to a technological change. Moreover, Northern Manitoba employers' emphasis on indigenous cultural awareness as employability skills rationalizes the necessity to integrate indigenous cultural contents into programs and curriculums in UCN and post-secondary institutes with similar attributes. It confirms that indigenous cultural awareness is required by employers in Northern Manitoba populated with indigenous communities. The research findings suggest that the functional theory of education might help UCN and similar institutions globally to offer programs that will reduce employment inequality.

This research is conducted among the employers in Northern Manitoba, and the indexes and their factors are designed to evaluate UCN students' employability in general.

The outcomes of this paper can be applied as a parameter for upgrading educational strategies to integrate essential and professional employability skills such as reading comprehension, numeracy, technology, soft skills and job searching skills with indigenous cultural components into UCN curriculums and programs. It can be applied to other post-secondary institutes with similar attributes to enhance their students' employability. Furthermore, the research findings can be used as a guideline for UCN to tailor their programs for the job market locally and as references for post-secondary institutions with similar student compositions globally.

This paper provides empirical evidence from the employers' viewpoint to support the necessity of integrating essential and professional employability skills with indigenous cultural awareness into the curriculums and programs of UCN, a post-secondary institution in indigenous populated Northern Manitoba. Furthermore, it is also attested that employers consider indigenous cultural awareness as an influential factor of students' employability in indigenous contexts.

The purpose of the study was to understand the learnings of adults (who are undergraduates, post graduates or working professionals) who volunteered to be the mentors to make a difference in the life of the adolescents who are from underprivileged backgrounds.

The authors conducted their study in a not for profit organization (NPO) which has a unique mentoring program called Dronocharya Ekalavya (DNE) mentoring program in Hyderabad, India. The authors conducted telephonic interviews with 15 mentors using a semi‐structured questionnaire and also administered an online survey to 59 respondents. Since the study is a qualitative research, results cannot be generalisable.

The findings of the study conclude that mentors do learn from the mentoring program organized by NPO. Mentors learnt soft skills such as interpersonal skills, leadership skills, etc. Also they learnt to build rapport and trust. The study highlighted the changes in behaviors of mentors such as self‐realisation, and change in attitude.

Social desirability effect might have impacted the results but all efforts have been invested in carefully handling the data. A possible longitudinal study can focus on comparing learning outcomes of mentors at the beginning of the mentoring program with learning outcomes of mentors at the end of the mentoring program. Future research could focus on how and what do they learn from each other by expanding the study to many organizations.

There is no empirical research conducted to study the benefits gained by mentors through mentoring program, especially referencing to youth mentoring. This study will help organizations (both NGO and other businesses) understand the benefits of mentoring to the mentors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether soft skill requirements found in employer job postings (advertisements) within different roles of business are similar to the soft skills practically needed in the workplace and the perception of faculties at schools of business in Bangladesh.

A two-phased study was administered. Phase 1 involved reviewing the latest relevant literature and hundreds of job advertisements; and in phase 2, questionnaires were administered to elicit responses from executives and faculty members from different universities in Bangladesh. Judgment sampling and the snowball technique were used to develop the sample of 84 respondents with a response rate of 56 percent. In total, 15 soft skills were used to develop the instrument. Descriptive statistics and a Kruskal–Wallis test were performed to analyze the collected data, where factors that retained α at or below 0.05, a family-wise Bonferroni adjustment (Mann–Whitney U test) was applied.

All the mentioned soft skills are found to be desirable by the recruiters and faculties also agreed with them. However, there exist disparities on the perceived importance of four soft skills among faculties and recruiters, and a gap was found between the business curriculum and industry expectations from fresh-out business graduates.

This study could be a basis for future studies and would help business education institutions guide their students to master the skills, and to develop and prepare them for real life battle in the job market. Moreover, the study indicates the gap between executives’ expectations from the graduates and the institutional teaching provided by higher education institutions (for business majors), which would help practitioners reform their business curriculum to better ensure employability for their business graduates. Moreover, the study opens an avenue for further research in this field for implementing training programs for attaining the most desired soft skills among higher education institutions.

African women religious have inherited both the cultural and historical concepts of leadership. To understand what motivates them in their service to the poor and to appreciate their need for leadership skills as opposed to proficiency in specific areas of service (nursing, teaching, and counseling), the authors provide a backdrop in the historical and cultural development of African nations.

This chapter presents a theoretical and evidence-based investigation of the contribution that national educational systems make to the development of and transition to a knowledge economy in the Arabian Gulf, generally, and Saudi Arabia, specifically. The challenges to creating an Arabian Gulf knowledge economy are twofold. One is a functional and structural challenge of developing a knowledge economy-oriented mass education system. The other is a cultural and contextual challenge of aligning Arabian Gulf expectations, traditions, and norms with institutionalized expectations for knowledge economies. The knowledge economy development challenge that is specific to national versus non-national Gulf populations, information and communication technology (ICT), and formal mass education systems is highlighted. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role that national innovation systems play in knowledge economy development in the Arabian Gulf countries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the expectations and reality perspectives accrued in a preliminary management course and understand if they impart and embed real-world skills and develop work readiness.

Primary data collected for the research were qualitative. A total of six focus groups were conducted with a total of 52 students enrolled at a large metropolitan university in Australia. NViVO was used to code and analyse the data.

The study found that at the commencement of university studies, the expectations were simple like, making new friends, getting around the campus and settling well into the university culture, which over time extended to getting a part-time job, securing internships, memberships of associations, desire to participate in exchange programs and get work-ready by the close of the first year. The research outcomes show that those who held a part-time job while studying demonstrated a better understanding of the preliminary management subject matter taught in class and obtained better grades. Primarily, the preliminary management course did not specifically impart work-ready skills and it would be fitting to embed employability skills in the management curriculum from the commencement of their programs in the first year.

Qualitative research is used to comprehend a research problem from the outlook perspectives of the local population it involves. The limitations of this methodology includes no objectively verifiable result, adept interviewing skills for interviewers, slow and time consuming during interviewing process and intensive category process also as qualitative inquiry is normally open-ended, the participants have more control over the content of the data collected.

The lack of skill mismatch and graduates who are not work-ready incurs significant economic and social costs. A number of policy implications emerge due to university-labour market links and skills mismatches and the impact on students and the labour market. The rise in unemployment and the skills mismatch seen after the economic crisis requires immediate attention. Job creation is crucial but so is the need to develop graduate with appropriate matching skills and qualities to do the job. Mandatory internships, apprenticeships and on-the-job training for university students would help. Governments can provide financial incentives and subsidies to organisations providing the above services and working cooperatively with the universities to get students work-ready. Universities must raise the educational requirements over time as jobs become more complex. Universities can build communities of practice with the assistance of this scheme to enable students to interact with the industry professionals. An additional year of vocational training could be recommended for the graduating students. This would help the young graduates to get work-related skills. Wheelahan et al. (2015) state that building better links between education and work can help provide a more rational approach to vocational development. They propose the use of vocational streams and productive capabilities in the education system and labour market to achieve this.

This requires a combined effort from all stakeholders. A systematic approach needs to be adopted. First, the gap between the knowledge provided by the universities and the skills required by the employers need to be reduced. Second, the employers and the universities should keep a watch on the labour market and develop strategies to meet the dynamic requirements of the labour market collaboratively. Third, career guidance will help inform students make a career choice to match the labour market opportunities. This should be a part of the policy agenda for responding to the lack of work-ready graduates in the labour market.

Learning and teaching activities must include industry interface and engagement right from the first year at university. The main findings from this research indicated the need for better understanding of first-year students’ expectations. The two significant student expectations that emerged were “need for collaborations” and “industry interface”.