Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Prabhavathi, P. (2013) said that employability skills are typically considered essential
qualification for many job positions and hence become necessary for an individual's
employment success at just about any level within a business environment. "A set of
achievements, understandings and personal attributes that make individuals more likely to
gain employment and to be successful in their chosen occupations". Peter Knight &
Mantz Yorke (HEFCE/DfES ESECT group). Evers et al. (1998) stated that "there is a
need for a fundamental shift toward an emphasis on general skills in education" (p. 12)
because "the skills most in demand are least in supply" (p. 16). Dunne and Rawlins
(2000) stated that students often undervalue the need to possess transferable skills.
Instead, they deem that mastery of disciplinary content is more important than
transferable skills to employers. However, employers desire graduates who can think on
their feet and determine ways to accomplish tasks. Schmidt (1999) stated that graduates
entering the workplace must "solve complex, multidisciplinary problems, work
successfully in teams, exhibit effective oral and written communication skills, and
practice good interpersonal skills" (p. 31). Billing (2003) stated that the employability
skills most desired by employers were those that were transferable to a variety of
situations; specifically the skills of "problem-solving, communication, teamwork, and
critical thinking..." (p. 335). Hofstrand (1996) and Robinson (2000) stated that
transferable, employability skills are considered very basic and generic in nature and
should assist every person entering the workforce. On the other hand, Tetreault (1997)

argued that employability skills are lacking in the workplace because people are not
prepared prior to entering the workforce. Employers blame higher education institutions
for not preparing graduates for work beyond the classroom. Regardless of who is at fault,
graduates must possess the employability skills demanded of industry to acquire and
retain jobs (Tetreault, 1997). Therefore, higher education institutions should exert more
effort in preparing graduates in their employability skills. In the Philippines, the labor
force expanded by 4.6% from about 37 million in January 2009 to about 39 million the
following year. Likewise, the labor force participation rate increased by 1.2% (from its
previous rate of 63.3%). Employed individuals reached around 36 million in January
2010, rising by about 5% compared to a year ago. Employment in industry and service
sectors increased by 9.6% and 7.5%, respectively. Bulk of the increase in employment in
these two sectors was attributed to construction and wholesale and retail trade. In
contrast, employment in agricultural sector went down by 0.4% according to
(Occupational Rehabilitation Policy and Practice in the Philippines: Initiatives and
Challenges - ProQuest, n.d.).
Operations Management is known in the university as one of the best major in
business administration. Throughout the years, it is one of the most numbered students
whom enrolled in the said curriculum. The operations management program provides
students with competence and skills needed as managers in manufacturing and service
oriented businesses. If focuses in managing the processes to produce and distribute
products and services. (USLS Undergraduate, Catalogue, 2014)
Yearly there are almost 200 Operations Management graduates. The researchers
wanted to know if where they are now and the achievements they attained. Also, if the

training of the university can really help them in their work. As well as the researchers
wanted to determine the skills needed in the field of Operations Management.
In University of Saint La Salle-Bacolod, Operations Management major is popular in
the College in Business and Accountancy. Yearly the number of graduates is increasing
due to the demand in the industry. The researcher wanted to find out the opportunities
provided by the said course.
Since majority of Business Administration students are Operations Management
majors, the researchers wanted to know what the future really is after taking up the said
course. In addition, the researchers wanted to evaluate the trainings acquired of the
Operations Management students from University of Saint La Salle.

Statement of the Problem

This study is conducted to determine the employability of Operations Management
graduates of the University of Saint La Salle batch 2010,2011,2012,2013 and 2014.
Specifically this study aims to answer the following questions:
1. What is the socio-economic profile of the operations management graduates?
a) Age
b) Sex
c) Residence
d) Civil Status
e) GPA
f)

Year Graduated

g) Occupation
h) Monthly Salary
i)

Business Industry

2. What is the participants career path?

3. What are the career-related challenges faced by the Operations Management
graduates?
a) Co-workers
b) Managers
c) Supervisors
d) CEO
4. What recommendations are needed to help improve the Operations Management
curriculum?

5. What departmental activities contribute to graduates career-preparedness?

a) Educational Fieldtrip
b) Seminars and Trainings
c) DMI Night
d) General Assembly
e) Team Building
f)

Outreach Program

6. Is there a significant difference in the employability of the graduates and the

following variables of the study?
g) Sex
h) GPA
i)

Year Graduated

j)

Residence

7. What departmental activities contribute to graduates career preparedness?

a) Fieldtrip
b) Business
c) DMI night
d) General Assembly
e) Forum
f)

Seminars

Hypothesis
There is no significant difference in the employability of the graduates and the
following variables of the study?

a) Sex
b) GPA
c) Year Graduated
d) Residence
There is no significant relationship between employability and the following
departmental activities.
a) Fieldtrip
b) Business
c) DMI night
d) General Assembly
e) Forum
f)

Seminars

Significance of the Study

This study is beneficial to:
Commission on Higher Education- it will benefit CHED for it will improve supervising
the programs that will be implemented in different schools that have Operations
Management major.
University of Saint La Salle- This study will benefit the University for the attainment of
the graduates will be the proud of the institution.
University College Administration- This study will help the University College
Administration for they will know how successful their graduates became.
Operations Management Department- This study will help to improve the trainings
and lessons provided to the students.

Operations Management Students- This study is for the students to know what will be
the possible jobs of Operations Management graduates as well as they will apply what
they learn in the four walls of the classroom.
Researchers- This study will give insights as well as understanding in our chosen major
and if the researchers are on the right track.
Future Researchers- This study will be serve as a basis for further research.

Theoretical Framework
Parson's Theory
The most common way advocated by careers advisers is Parson's theory: in
which you analyze your skills, values , interests and personality and then match
these up to jobs which use these. You'll find a lot of help on doing it this way in
the pages in this section of our web site (see the menu on the left)
There is also a program called Prospects Planner that will help you to choose
your perfect graduate job (take that with a pinch of salt of course, but it is quite
good!)
This method works well in times of economic boom, but less so in recessions
when your choice is more constrained.
The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
The MBTI is not strictly a theory of career choice, it's more a way of discovering
your personality type which is divided in to 16 different type combinations
composed of the following dichotomies (a posh word for opposites).
Extraversion (E) and Introversion (I) Sensing (S) and Intuition (N) Thinking (T)
and Feeling (F) Judgment (J) and Perception (P)
http://www.ukessays.com/essays/employment/theory-of-employability.php

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
The concept employability, known since the beginning of the last century, has been
re-established as an important thesis of the European working life in the last 10 years.
The thesis of employability has a potential and a regulating effect on the modern
working life, its actors and the way it functions in terms of economic and social
consequences on macro- and micro level. Therefore it is important to further develop
theories of the thesis of employability and to collect empirically based knowledge about
its social, cultural and economic effects. Research on employability needs a theoretical
perspective and to be grounded on empirical data. We need to reflect on four theoretical
perspectives, which lead to various understandings of the thesis of employability. These
are: (1) Human Capital theory perspective, (2) Institutional theory perspective, (3)
Critical theory perspective, and (4) Actor Theory perspective. All four perspectives can
be argued as being relevant based on empirical data. Furthermore, we have not found out
which perspective seems to be the best of them related to the empirical data. Evidently,
more than one perspective can be relevant. The Human Capital Theory perspective
According to the Human Capital Theory co-workers knowledge and competencies are
the most valuable assets of the organization (Becker, 1964). Staff training drives ought to
be regarded as investments and ought to be carried out to the extent that these contribute
to organizational effectiveness and increased economic profit (Flamholtz and Lacey,
1981). An important problem has been that the employer does not own the co-workers
knowledge and they can finish before the employer has taken advantage of the
investment in human capital (Jackson and Schuler, 1999). One solution of this problem
in order to create loyalty and commitment has been to offer the employees security of

employment and possibilities to be promoted. This psychological contract (Baruch,

2001) between the employer and the employee was common in big American companies
until the 80s. The following restructuring of organizations led to cut down of staff had
the consequence that the psychological contract was partly dissolved and the loyalty of
the co-workers and their commitment was evidently diminished (Capelli, 1999).
According to the human capital theory, in periods of strong pressures of change and
competitiveness, it is possible to expect that new formal and informal contract will be
established between the employer and the employee in order to secure profitability of the
human investments. If the thesis of employability has gain a foothold in the Swedish
working life, then there has been a displacement towards more time-limited and market
adjusted employment contracts and staff training. ARJ/ST 20070709 7 From the
economic perspective, which includes human capital theory, there is a common
assumption that markets are functioning optimal if there is a high flow between
occupations and employees. In such situations, the employers can get human
competencies to the lowest prices, and the employees can get positions at the employers
who pay the best salaries. From the individuals perspective, a changing labour market is
on the one hand a threat and on the other hand an opportunity. It is positive for the
individual, if his or hers competence does not become locked inside an organization,
isolated from existing potential employers and work opportunities. In a changing labour
market, the risk is greater too loose the job or be replaced by those who have better
competence alternatively have lower claim on salary. From a traditional economic
perspective, it is common to be positive to the thesis of employability, when changing
markets or maybe more effective markets, result in higher competition and higher

pressure to do rationalisations, which are supposed to result in more effective production

and economic growth. It is quite likely to suppose that this kind of argumentation of
employability is a central aspect of the policies of European labour market and European
Higher Education. The Institutional theory perspective Institutional theory perspective
investigates and explains norms and patterns of behaviour from various grounds of
explanations like rational choices and financial effectiveness (DiMaggio and Powell,
1991). Imitation is pointed out as a mean to achieve legitimacy and popularity. For
instance, successful companies and organizations which can shape and design norms
have been imitated by various organizations, because they want to stand out as equally
modern and successful. Such ideals are more like modes of organising companies than
effective companies from a financial point of view. Research based on institutional
theory indicates that on the one hand these mode of organising has existed, and on the
other hand there have existed stable patterns of actions and modes of thinking, which
has been taken for granted. In other words, the continuously changing work life can be
seen as a slowly moving and developing institution (Tengblad, 2003). However, the
institutional theory approach is relevant to apply in complex and symbol loaded
occasions. Organizations seem to adjust ritually to external demands and if these
demands are disturb core activities in the organization, then the core activities are shut
off from these external demands. This form of shut off, de-coupling, leads to
discrepancies between what the organization states it is doing and what it actually does,
what Brunsson (1985) called organizational hypocrisy. From the institutional theory
perspective, research on employability indicates differences of meaning of the
employability concept, when research from US and Europe has been compared. EUs

labour market policy is an attempt to vitalise the European labour market through
achieving better balance between competition and solidarity, between effectiveness and
equality, and between flexibility and safety (Jacobsen, 2004). This means that EU is
trying to compromise between market oriented policy and a well fare oriented labour
market policy. The thesis of employability has been variously applied among EUs
member states. Faurbck (2004) found for instance great differences between Sweden
and Denmark. ARJ/ST 20070709 8 From the institutional theory perspective, it is not
surprising that the relation between rhetoric and practise is weak. The rhetoric of
employability can in certain cases serves the aim of legitimising more than the financial
aim, for instance to indicate for the surrounding world that EUs institutions have the
ability to take actions, even though it sometimes is more talk than action (Brunsson and
Olsen, 1993). Svensson (2004) characterises the life-long-learning discourse as being
strong but the practice is weak. Maybe, this also applies for the thesis of employability,
but in that case it has to be based on empirical data. The critical theory perspective From
the critical theory perspective, research has called attention to the fact that the thesis of
employability signifies a shift of power, which is a disadvantage for the employees. They
are expected to take the risk for employers investments. If the investments are not
successful, even though these investments have been done because they seemed to be
profitable from the employers perspective, the risk has to taken by the employees. From
a critical theory perspective, to apply risk taking in this way, can be regarded as
manipulation of the individuals as subjects (Garsten and Jacobsen, 2004; du Gay, 1996).
To emphasise that the individual is responsible for its own employability is a
manipulative action from the researchers perspective. The consequence is that the

individuals become easy to control because they start to be self steering due to the
intentions of those in power (Garsten and Jacobsen, 2004). The change of the European
work policy, from full employment to full employability, means that the priority to
define the problem as well as the responsibility, are displaced from politicians and
employers to the individuals (Brown et al., 2001; Jacobsen, 2004). Jessop (1994) argues
that this is a shift from a social welfare state to a competitive workfare state, in which the
social need of the citizens are subordinated questions about how to strengthen the
structural competitiveness. Related analysis of the development of the work life
emphasise that a new kind of work life is growing and spreading; the new work life is
characterised by flexibility, growing demands on the individuals ability to take
responsibility and to have a deep and broad competence (Magnusson and Ottosson,
2003). According to researchers who apply a critical theory perspective, there is a risk
that individuals can get a feeling that they can form the destiny and therefore seem to be
badly prepared to handle the misfortune (Allvin et al., 1998). Docherty and Huzzard
(1998) have pointed out that since the thesis of employability addresses employees as
individuals, who have a personal responsibility, the solidarity of the established labour
unions can be challenged. Sennett (1998) asserts, in his heavy critic against the thesis of
employability, that lack of security of employment and frequent changes of employers
may cause dissolution of the character of the employees. There are many researchers
who point out the negative consequences of the thesis of employability for instance by
making the individuals responsible for handling their employability and making them
responsible for the risk of being unable to take that responsibility. The actor theory
perspective The actor theory perspective is grounded in social constructivism, which

implies that the individual and the collective actors are predetermined re-producers of
the socially ARJ/ST 20070709 9 constructed reality (Berger and Luckmann, 1966).
This approach presumes that neither economy as a driving force, institutional norm
systems, nor political power structures, define the identity of the individuals, but these
forces exert important influence on the individuals reflexive and subjective ways of
creating their identity (Ingelhart, 1997; Lindgren et al., 2000). From a social
constructivists perspective, it is of great importance to study the individuals action and
frame of reference, which guides their behaviour and actions (Silverman, 1970). Taking
this perspective as a point of departure, we can argue that it is important to describe how
employees remain employed in different areas of the work force market, how they
experience their commitments, and what obligations rest on them and on the employers
(Capelli, 1999; psychological contracts). Such survey can contribute with valuable
knowledge about the meaning and content of employability in the Swedish working life.
That knowledge can be used to assess the effects of existing political ambitions
concerning the higher education and the work life, in which employability is a key
concept. An educational and political strategy of life-long-learning must affect a great
number of employees in order to be effective on a national level. From an actor theory
perspective it is interesting to study responses and strategies from employees or nonresponses and non-strategies, which can exist if the thesis of employability is unknown
by the employees or if they choose to disclaim from the thesis. For instance, responses
and strategies are the employees preparedness to change employments, profession and
housing estate, and to take responsibility for its learning and to adjust to change of the
organization and how to perform the work, as well as responsibility for its health

insurance and financial security, if it is demanded. In the critical theory perspective, the
individuals are distrusted, and they are not regarded as able to create their own destiny.
In the actor theory perspective, the individual is able to examine his or her surrounding
world and to find frames of reference for acting, which are rational and make sense from
the individuals context and the individuals perspective. Consequently, this perspective
has an emancipatoric dimension, which means that it is possible for the individual to
take responsibility for its own employability and to develop knowledge and skills, which
are demanded for a successful professional life. Accordingly, the perspective diminishes
the individuals dependence of the employer and social safety nets. The thesis of
employability has already a corollary concept, the flexicurity, suggested by EU
Commission as a concept for the new labour policy, a development and of the Lisbon
Strategy, now aggressed as the European Employment Strategy (EU Commission, 2006;
Arnegrd Hansen, 2007). Flexicurity means briefly: 1. New means to enhance the
flexibility of the EU labour market in order to improve contracts and mobility for
various groups of workers. 2. New legal actions, labour legislations, to develop new
forms of employment contracts. 3. New educational strategies to invest in life-longlearning especially for adult learners. 4. New and varying forms of social security
measures in the labour market. ARJ/ST 20070709

Definition of Terms
Employability
In this study, conceptually, employability refers to a set of achievements skills,
understandings and personal attributes that make graduates more likely to gain
employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves,
the workforce, the community and the economy Professor Mantz Yorke (2004)
'Employability in Higher Education: what it is - what it is not', Higher Education
Academy/ESECT
In this study, operationally, employability is the desire of the researchers to know the
employment status of operations management graduates.
Employment
In this study, conceptually, employment refers to the state of being employed or
having a job. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/employment) An occupation by which a
person earns a living; work; business.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/employment)
In this study, operationally, employment refers to the respondent who has a job or a
work.
Graduates
In this study, conceptually graduates refers to, a person who has received a degree
or diploma on completing a course of study, as in a university, college, or school
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/graduate
In this study, operationally, graduates refers to the former student of University of St.
La Salle who took up Operations Management single major.

Industry
In this study, conceptually, industry refers to any general activity or commercial
enterprise that can be isolated from others, such as the tourist industry or the
entertainment industry. http://www.businessdictionary.com
In this study, operationally, industry refers to the type of business or organization
where Operations Management graduates engaged in.
Operations Management
In this study, conceptually, Operations management refers to the administration of
business practices to create the highest level of efficiency possible within an organization.
Operations management is concerned with converting materials and labor into goods and
services as efficiently as possible to maximize the profit of an organization.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/operations-management.asp
In this study, operationally, Operations Manangement refers to the major course
offered by the College of Business and Accountancy department of University of Saint La
Salle..
Residence
In this study, conceptually, residence refers to a persons home; the place where
someone lives.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/residence
In this study, operationally, residence refers to the hometown where the respondents
lives or came from.

Scope
This study tends to cover the graduates of Operations Management single majors
from the time it has its first graduates. The researchers wanted to determine the current
status of the Operations Management graduates. Their fist industry they engaged in. The
participants career path. The researchers also wanted to know if departmental activities
contribute to graduates career preparedness. In addition, the researchers wanted to
determine the significant difference between the employability of the graduates and the
variables in the socio-economic profile. The survey will be conducted through online
using Google forms.