Measuring work-related learning mindsets for graduate employment and employability in the context of protean careers

Abstract

Faced with a highly dynamic future of work, employees and pre-workforce students increasingly need different learning mindsets for both employment and employability in an era of protean careers. Using data from two samples of Singaporean undergraduates, we develop self-report measures of Continuous Learning for Upgrading and Employability (CLUE) and Learning as a Means for Employment (LAME). We find that CLUE correlates with protean/boundaryless career attitudes, lifelong learning, perceived employability, career-focused work orientation, and a growth implicit theory of working, while LAME correlates with low-organizational mobility preference, job-focused work orientation and a destiny implicit theory of working. Management research and practice implications of this research are discussed in view of increasing policy-level concerns with (and overlaps between) traditional boundaries of education and employment.