Are Our Students Ready to Become Successful Employees? A Comparative Analysis of Seven Countries

Abstract

The article focuses on students’ attitudes towards their future job performance in relation to becoming successful employees. The level of employee success was measured using the attitudes toward future work performance of students from seven countries (Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Turkey, Iran, Portugal and Estonia) through their assessment of skills, skill developing methods, motivation and environmental factors. A total of 1,355 students participated in the survey. In this study, the data analysis was performed using statistical methods including descriptive methods, comparison of means and Cronbach’s alpha. Results of the study show that skills and especially training methods influence students’ motivation to work more effectively regardless of the salary received. The results also demonstrate that most students regard basic and people-related skills as the most important factors, but cultural differences were also noticed. Lithuanian, Polish and Iranian participants ranked one-to-one training methods as having the most impact on their development, while Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish students preferred group training methods. Moreover, in comparison to the students from other countries, the Spanish participants considered environmental factors to be extremely important.