Employer engagement practices of UK business schools and departments: an empirical investigation

Abstract

A survey of managers in charge of employer engagement activities in UK business schools and departments was completed to ascertain: (1) the employer engagement methods that were most commonly used by institutions; (2) business school managers' attitudes towards employers' involvement in course design; and (3) the respondents' perceptions of the benefits and problems connected with employer engagement programmes. Possible antecedents of the extent of a business school or department's engagement with employers were examined together with the link between the extent of engagement and the actual level of employment of a university's business graduates. Hypothesised determinants of the extent of employer engagement included top management's predilections towards employability matters, a business school's ‘organisational distance’ from the corporate world, financial circumstances, and the size and age of the institution. A model to explain the extent of a business school or department's employer engagement was constructed and tested. It emerged that managerial predilections and a university's financial situation exerted especially powerful effects on the extent of engagement.

Keywords:

• graduate employability
• curriculum design
• university–business relationships
• business‐facing universities