Abstract
This chapter looks at the role graduates play in the mobilization of human resources. A distinction is drawn between graduates’ mobilization of their own capabilities and their role in mobilizing the capacities of others working in the same organization. The chapter starts with an analysis of the mobilization of graduates’ own capacities during higher education, in terms of study hours, effort and extracurricular experiences. Attention is subsequently paid to an analysis of the development of competences which are thought to be particularly relevant to mobilizing human resources, and the features of higher education that contribute especially to this. After this, several indicators are described that are thought to be relevant to mobilization of one’s own and/or others’ capacities at work, and the effects of competences, higher education characteristics and experiences, and work and organization characteristics on such mobilization are estimated.
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- 1.
Both of these indicators are measured on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 “not at all” to 5 “to a very high extent”. Figures 5.1 and 5.2 present the percentage of answers 4 or 5.
- 2.
It should be noted that the number of months says nothing about the amount of time spent each month on the activity in question. It is likely that some activities, particularly experience abroad and internships, are more or less full-time activities, while others, particularly voluntary positions, may involve no more than a few hours each month.
- 3.
It must be remarked at the outset that we cannot establish with any certainty the causal link involved. Nonetheless, in some cases it seems at least plausible that the feature in question promotes motivation and effort.
- 4.
- 5.
This holds for both mothers and fathers.
- 6.
Work placements (which are included in study hours) even have a positive effect on the overall hours of study.
- 7.
Since there is no international standard definition of full-time work, any cut-off point we choose will be somewhat arbitrary. We adopt a conservative definition of full-time work. Based on the assumption that a standard working day is no more than eight hours, anybody working 33 h or more per week will be working for more than the equivalent of four standard days. We define this for our purposes as a full-time working week.
- 8.
Answer 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (to a very high extent) to the question “To what extent are your knowledge and skills utilized in your current work?”
- 9.
To avoid cluttering things, the percentage of graduates who assess others’ work quality is not shown. The overall pattern for this indicators is similar to that for supervision.
- 10.
Because the analyses are conducted for separate sub-groups, some of which are much smaller than others, we include results that are significant only at the 5% level as well as results that are significant at 1% level.
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Allen, J. (2011). Mobilization of Human Resources. In: Allen, J., van der Velden, R. (eds) The Flexible Professional in the Knowledge Society. Higher Education Dynamics, vol 35. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1353-6_6
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