Competency development in business graduates: An industry-driven approach for examining the alignment of undergraduate business education with industry requirements

The paper proposes a conceptual framework and industry-driven approach to measure required competencies of business graduates. The suggested approach was designed and tested within a project implemented in Austria, the UK, Slovenia and Romania. Evidence from this multi-country study of employers and business graduates suggests that it is possible to investigate industry requirements with a cluster of eight key generic competencies. Competencies were selected following a detailed analysis of academic literature and 39 semi-structured qualitative interviews. A survey was conducted with 900 business graduates and employers in four European countries. The survey confirmed that the eight key competencies selected were both valuable for business graduates' current job performance as well as relevant for future career development. Survey results showed that employers were not very confident in the level of capability of business graduates in the eight competencies investigated in this study. Results are consistent with other empirical evidence concerned with graduates' level of key generic skills and highlight the need to strengthen competency development within undergraduate business education. Implications for future research and curriculum improvement are discussed.