Search results

Education for Sustainable Development and graduate employability are key agendas within Higher Education, and career-related events provide a context that caters to both simultaneously. There is a need for greater integration of academic department and career service teams in developing event management that systematically considers the potential to raise awareness of sustainability-related careers. This can maximise student personal and professional growth through sustainability-related career events, which simultaneously benefit the student through shaping personal and professional ‘purpose’, society through impact on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and university impact-related measures. By approaching events as a source of empowering students to become aware of, and actively seek out careers in which they can have a positive impact on people and planet, universities can provide a pipeline of sustainability ‘actioners and transformers’. This chapter illuminates the potential actions between career service teams and academic departments in developing information-related events about sustainability-related careers. It extends a popular employability framework to sustainability, presented with an illustrative case in a UK study context aligned with the sustainability ‘Thinker, Actioner and Transformer’ typology. An analysis of career service information enables clear recommendations to be provided on how academic teams, career and other operational services might coordinate approaches. It is proposed that the ultimate commitment of growth in transformation might well be to nurture students as activists for change, presented through the topical analysis of ‘fossil-free’ career events. This is very much a starting point, and it is hoped that the chapter provides an opening for further discussion.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) employees constitute one of the largest, but least studied, minority groups in the workforce. This article examines what we know, and what we need to know, about the career and workplace experiences of this understudied population. The construct of sexual identity is defined, followed by a review of the research on sexual orientation in the workplace. Then an analysis of the differences between LGB employees and other stigmatized groups is presented. Three unique challenges facing LGB employees are identified, and conceptual models are developed that explain underlying processes. Finally, career theories are critically analyzed, and an identity-based longitudinal theory of LGB careers is presented.

The accounting profession has consistently called for educators to assist in developing accounting students' skills beyond technical knowledge. As a result, our institution has emphasized professional skills such as oral and written communication, teamwork, research, and time management alongside technical content. Yet, our students have had difficulty making the transition from school to work, that is, from backpack to briefcase. Specifically, they lacked a sense of professional identity and an awareness of the accounting profession's roles in business and society. To address this issue, we created a professional development program to transform students from uninformed freshmen to graduates who understand what it means to be an accounting professional. The chapter describes activities that encourage the development of a sense of professional purpose. Limited assessment of the innovation suggests increased student enthusiasm for the major as well as improved perceptions of professional success. The chapter also suggests means by which other accounting programs might reevaluate and revise their own activities to assist students as they transition to accounting professionals.

Functionality of generating human capital of educated workers and citizens is core to higher education. This chapter explores the long-term relationship for the academy to support the needs for advanced degree and certificate programs, executive education, career preparation, and lifelong service opportunities focused on companies and their needs.

In this study, I examined the psychosocial factors of habitus and cultural capital, that rural African American students employ to persist and enroll in college after high school. The purpose of this quantitative inquiry was to gain insights from a rural, Title I, and predominantly African American high school and its influence on students' postsecondary education and how educational preparation programs can provide support to create more equitable outcomes through programs and practice in K-12 settings similar to the school studied. This study used the Survey of Attitudes and Belief (Nora, 2004) to determine the significance of the relationships between the habitus (a student's values and belief systems as developed through one's circumstances or socialized dispositions) and cultural capital (a student's accumulated resources with respect to college, factors that influence college choice). The survey was administered to 184 students at a rural, predominantly African American high school in the south eastern part of the United States. Of the 184 participants, 45% (n = 82) identified as African American and were used in the statistical analysis performed in this chapter. The statistical analysis conducted in this chapter included descriptive analysis, correlation, and multiple linear regression. I found that rural, African American students need additional precollegiate experiences, guidance around colleges and careers, and leadership opportunities.

Within the literature of global mindset there has been much discussion of antecedents. Few attempts have been made, however, to analyze the outcomes of a global mindset. Our chapter undertakes a thematic analysis of global mindset antecedents and outcomes in the 1994–2013 literature. Adopting an inductive approach and borrowing methods from international business and managerial cognition studies, we map, assess, and categorize 42 empirical and 10 theoretical studies thematically. We focus on the antecedents and outcomes at individual, group, and organizational levels. We conceptualize corporate global mindset as a multidimensional construct that incorporates global mindset at the individual level and is dependent on a robust communications infrastructure strategy for its cultivation throughout the organization. Our study categorizes antecedents and outcomes by level and identifies the gaps in global mindset outcomes and firm performance for future researchers to address.