Personal Values, Social Capital, and Higher Education Student Career Decidedness: A New 'Protean'-Informed Model

This study investigates the role of personal values as motivational antecedents for understanding higher education (HE) student career decidedness among university business school (UBS) students. We propose a new "protean"-informed HE student career decidedness model for theorizing how both personal values and social capital mediators ("student social capital"; "personal, social and enterprise skills"; "access to resources") help in the student-centric and self-directed processes of career decision-making. A mixed-methods study combines a (stage 1) survey of 308 UBS students from 5 (UK) UBS, with results from (stage 2) 4 student focus groups, and (stage 3) 2 staff-student interactive seminars. From an employability perspective, arguably, the ultimate responsibility for becoming a "protean graduate" rests with each UBS student, while the obligation of HE staff is to effectively facilitate and nurture all possible personal growth and skills development opportunities.