Improving employability through stakeholders in european higher education: the case of Spain

Abstract

We distinguish four employability strategies and test with a database of 230 Spanish university centers how different stakeholders try to influence them. Academic employability seems to be the main goal of university governors, as they emphasize curricula improvements to introduce practical contents. By contrast, and probably because of their interest in specialized teaching associated with their own research, professors prioritize as an alternative the development of interpersonal management skills and sharing of alumni experiences. Other stakeholders with greater market orientation have a comparatively marginal impact. Reform proposals therefore aim to rebalance the influence of stakeholders, though not necessarily by means of structural reforms in decision-making bodies. In fact, by differentiating several employability strategies, we have observed that governance reforms may generate overly optimistic expectations, as stakeholders may support only a subset of strategies, which may not even be the most important ones.