Great Expectations? Enterprises Expectations About Graduate Education in the Field of Management: Evidence From Slovenia

Zusammenfassung

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As a response to the emerging trend of greater enrolment in graduate programmes in Slovenia, this paper assesses the role of higher education (i.e. specifically in the management field) in Slovenian enterprises. The research includes representatives from 80 enterprises and 160 graduate students. It is believed that knowledge and other individual's capabilities obtained in the process of formal education are utilized in companies. However, the opposing belief among students that enterprises do not seek candidates with graduate degrees emphasizes the importance of a deeper investigation of the subject. Research data show that graduate education can be seen not only as an advantage but also as a disadvantage.

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Auszug

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Great Expectations? Enterprises Expectations About Graduate Education in the Field of Management: Evidence From Slovenia

1. Introduction

The emerging knowledge-driven society is changing the requirements and demands regarding formal education and capabilities on the labour market. Knowledge is becoming an increasingly important factor in the accumulation of value. Its presence is crucial in the struggle for economic growth, productivity and competition at micro as well as macro level. Adam Smith emphasized that the improvement of workers' skills was a fundamental source of economic progress whereas John Stuart Mill regarded education as an important investment in society (Eliasson 2000).

The knowledge economy, which introduces knowledge as the dominant factor of production, has created a leading social group known as "knowledge-workers", who are above all skilled, independent, hard working and ambitious. Such people occupy the managerial positions in enterprises at all levels. They trade their knowledge, expertise and skill. In other words, they are people with sought-after capabilities (Brown/Hesketh 2004; Drucker 1993).

Managers possess knowledge, which is a part of capabilities, and if they enrich it with creativity, this ensures a competitive advantage that is sustained so as to fulfil a company's objectives. The speed of development is accelerating and, to achieve the desired efficiency, one will have to adapt to the increasing number of changes even faster by applying old and new competences. Enterprises demand workers with even more skills and knowledge, or they will not be able to keep pace with ever faster changes (Delors et al. 1996). If the success of a national economy is increasingly dependent on knowledge, it is of crucial importance to explore the role of education and knowledge in greater detail. This paper focuses on knowledge acquired in the formal process of education, and the subject addressed is narrowed down to graduate education at the master's level in the field of management. As a response to greater enrolment in graduate programmes, we wish to assess the expectations regarding graduate education in Slovenian enterprises. Therefore, the intention is to explore how students in graduate programmes in the field of ma...

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