Students’ attitude to job performance: Intercultural study

Abstract

Knowledge and skills of future employees should be constantly developed in order to be in line with changes, information flow, and new technologies. High unemployment rates of youth lead us to look for reasons and means to change this situation. However, university teachers in the entire world deal with students who do not care or who do not want to work every day. Therefore, this paper aims to present the results of intercultural study evaluating students’ attitudes to job performance. The research design is based on Blanchard and Thacker’s (2004) Human Performance model, which includes three main factors, namely i) Motivation, ii) Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes, and iii) Environment. The study provides insights on how students evaluate their skills, motivation and environment factors influencing their future performance in Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Turkey, Iran, Portugal and Estonia. Totally 1355 respondents participated in the poll. The results confirm that students evaluate their task related skills, which are the most important for employers as the weakest. Basic and growth needs are the most important, and specific environment influences students more according to the study. In addition, cultural differnces among respective countries were highlighted. This survey can be useful for university teachers working with international groups in order to improve students’ viewpoint on human performance at work within national and international context, and for employers to understand better new employees coming to work after graduation from universities. © 2016, Kauno Technologijos Universitetas. All rights reserved.