Organisational capital and graduate employability: A serial mediation analysis of human and personal-social capital

Abstract

We explored three resource capitals related to employability (human, personal-social, and organisational) to explain graduate work entry prospects in a developing country setting. Our study sample consisted of 743 final year university students in Ghana and Kenya. Less than half (n = 305) attended an international university in China (females = 37.05%; mean age = 28.89 years, SD = 3.06 years), while 443 attended local universities in Ghana and Kenya (females = 33.12%; mean age = 25.68 years, SD= 2.27 years). Following a serial mediation regression analysis based on 10 000 bootstrap samples at 95% CI, results indicate that organisational capital directly influences graduates’ employability. Human and personal-social capital partially mediates the relationship between organisational capital and graduate employability; increasing employability prospects. The findings suggest that organisational capital, including the prestige of degree- awarding institutions in addition to human capital and personal-social capital, explains graduate employability. We conclude that graduate qualification, institutional affiliation, and the social capital benefit from those affiliations is associated with employability.

Keywords:

• graduate employability
• organisational capital
• overseas degree
• personal-social capital
• unemployment

Acknowledgement

This research is supported by the research projects of the Ministry of Education of China, project number 17YJA630088 and 16YJA630057