ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
Malaysia has produced thousands of university graduates since the introduction of various institutions of higher education providers. Realizing the importance of equipping graduates with specific skills required by the industry, this study aims to examine the relationship between graduate attributes, the outcome of volunteering and graduate employability among university students who have volunteer experience in Meeting, Incentive, Conference and Exhibition (MICE) events. MICE event has emerged as a key sector of the Malaysian Tourism industry, and this has given some impetus to the need for tertiary educated event managers and an evaluation of the educational curriculum. The relationships are measured based on skills possessed by graduates during their volunteering participation in MICE events. The data used in this study is obtained from 1Malaysia Youth Volunteers (iM4U), and 350 questionnaires were returned. The methodology used in the study was questionnaires that were uploaded online and distributed manually. Descriptive and multiple regression analyses were used to analyze the data. This analysis seeks to find the relationships between graduate attributes, the outcome of volunteering and graduate employability. The findings showed that graduate characteristics significantly influenced the graduate employability and there is a significant relationship between the outcome of volunteering and employability among MICE events’ volunteers. The results contributed to practical implications to MICE event industry that the volunteer programs are essential to the event success. The study is crucial as it helps to identify the level of skills developed by graduates during the volunteering experience, the enhancement of the educational experience and graduate’s performance in the job market.
Baruch, Y., and Holtom, B. C. (2008). Survey response rate levels and trends in organizational research. Human Relations, 61(8), 1139-1160.
Boden, R., and Nedeva, M. (2010). Employing discourse: Universities and graduate ‘employability’. Journal of Education Policy, 25(1), 37–54.
Cheary, M. (2018). Types of employment contracts. Retrieved from https://www.reed.co.ul/career-advice-of-employment-contracts/
Christensen, C. M. and Eyring, H. J. (2012). The Innovative University: Changing The DNA of Higher Education, ed: EDUCAUSE, pp. 47-53.
Clarke, C. L., (2008, July). Novelty and diversity in information retrieval evaluation. In Proceedings of the 31st annual international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval (pp. 659-666). ACM.
Clary, E. G., & Snyder, M. (1999). The motivations to volunteer: Theoretical and practical considerations. Current directions in psychological science, 8(5), 156-159.
Clary, E. G., Snyder, M., Ridge, R. D., Copeland, J., Stukas, A. A., Haugen, J., & Miene, P. (1998). Understanding and assessing the motivations of volunteers: a functional approach. Journal of personality and social psychology, 74(6), 1516.
Clary, E.G. and Rhodes, J.E. (2006). Mobilizing Adults for Positive Youth Development: Strategies for Closing the Gap between Beliefs and Behaviors. Springer Science, New York, NY.
Cornelis, I., Van Hiel, A., and De Cremer, D. (2013). Volunteer work in youth organizations: predicting distinct aspects of volunteering behavior from self?and other?oriented motives. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43(2), 456-466.
Department of Statistic Malaysia. (2013). Labor force survey report Malaysia 2012. Retrieved on 24th February, 2014 from http://www.statistics.gov.my/portal/download_Labour/files/labour_force/ Labour_Force_Survey_Report_Malaysia_2012.pdf
Ferns, S., and Moore, K. (2012). Assessing student outcome in fieldwork placements: An overview of current practice. Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 13(4), 207– 224.
Field, A. (2009). Discovering Statistics Using SPSS. 3rd Edition, Sage Publications Ltd., London. Retrieved fromhttp://www.scirp.org/(S(351jmbntvnsjt1aadkposzje))/reference/ReferencesPapers.aspx?ReferenceID=1866193
Hamzah, S. R. A., Suandi, T., Shah, J. A., and Ismail, I. A., (2016). Understanding the reasons for Malaysian youth participation in volunteering activities. Athens Journal of Social Sciences, 3(1), 39-51.
Holmes, D. (2013). A functional approach to the study of implicit cognition: The IRAP and the REC model. In Advances in relational frame theory & contextual behavioural science: Research & applications (pp. 97-126). CONTEXT PRESS.
Kruger, B. M. (2015). The Impact of the Maintenance Management System: A Case Study of the PetrosaGtl Refinery. South African Journal of Industrial Engineering, 180.
Mardhiyyah Sahri, Khairudin Murad, Asmidar Alias, & Mohd Dasuqkhi Mohd Sirajuddin. (2013). Empowering Youth Volunteerism: The Importance and Global Motivating Factors. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 3 (7). Doi:10.5901/jesr.2013.v3n7p502
Mason, G., Williams, G. and Cranmer, S. (2006), Employability Skills Initiatives in Higher Education: What Effects do they have on Graduate Labour Outcome? National Institute of Economic and Social Research, London. Available at: http://www.niesr.ac.uk/pdf/061006_91251.pdf.
Mason, P. & Cheyne, J. (2000) Residents’ attitudes to proposed tourism development. Annals of Tourism Research, 27(2), 391-411.
Ministry of Education Malaysia. (2013). Malaysia education policy. Retrieved from http://www.moe.gov.my/userfiles/file/BUKU%20DASAR.pdf
Ministry of Youth & Sports Malaysia. (2013). RM100 juta mantapkan aktiviti kesukarelawan. Retrieved from http://www.kbs.gov.my/1m4u_v2/index.php
Mustaffa, S. M. A. (2015). Voluntourism in Malaysia: a study of intimacy in the 'do-good' industry. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/H/Downloads/01whole%20(1).pdf
MyCEB (2014). Malaysia Business Event Wee
In-Text Citation: (Wee, Mohamed, Aminudin, & Saidin, 2018)
To Cite this Article: Wee, H., Mohamed, N. A., Aminudin, N., & Saidin, N. (2018). Graduate Attributes, Outcomes of Volunteering and Graduate Employability: The Case of Mice Event Volunteers. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(15), 315–330.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode