IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v10y2018i4p1014-d138702.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Opening the Black-Box in Lifelong E-Learning for Employability: A Framework for a Socio-Technical E-Learning Employability System of Measurement (STELEM)

Author

Listed:
  • Juan-Francisco Martínez-Cerdá

    (Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, 08035 Barcelona, Spain)

  • Joan Torrent-Sellens

    (Faculty of Economics and Business Studies, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, 08035 Barcelona, Spain)

  • Inés González-González

    (Faculty of Business and Communication, Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, 26006 Logroño, Spain)

  • Pilar Ficapal-Cusí

    (Faculty of Economics and Business Studies, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, 08035 Barcelona, Spain)

Abstract

Human beings must develop many skills to cope with the large amount of challenges that currently exist in the world: media empowerment for an active and democratic citizenship, knowledge acquisition and conversion for lifelong and life-wide learning, 21st century skills for matching demand and supply in labor markets, and dispositional employability for unpredictable future career success. One of the tools for achieving these is online education, in which students have the chance to manage their own time, content, and goals. Thus, this paper analyzes these issues from the perspective of skills gained through e-learning and validates the Socio-Technical E-learning Employability System of Measurement (STELEM) framework. The research was carried out with former students of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Exploratory and confirmatory factorial analyses validate several consistent and reliable scales in two areas: (i) employability, based on educational social capital, media empowerment, knowledge acquisition, knowledge conversion, literacy, digitalness, collaboration, resilience, proactivity, identity, openness, motivation, organizational culture, and employment security; and (ii) socio-technical systems existing in this open online university, based on its information and communications technology (ICT), learning tasks, as well as student-centered and organizational approaches. The research provides two new psychometrical scales that are useful for the evaluation, monitoring, and assessment of relationships and influences between socio-technical e-learning organizations and employability skills development, and proposes a set of indicators related to human and social capital, valid in employability contexts.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan-Francisco Martínez-Cerdá & Joan Torrent-Sellens & Inés González-González & Pilar Ficapal-Cusí, 2018. "Opening the Black-Box in Lifelong E-Learning for Employability: A Framework for a Socio-Technical E-Learning Employability System of Measurement (STELEM)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-27, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:4:p:1014-:d:138702
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1014/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1014/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruce Kogut & Udo Zander, 1992. "Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(3), pages 383-397, August.
    2. Francisco Lupiañez & Cristiano Codagnone & Rosa Dalet, 2015. "ICT for the employability and integration of immigrants in the European Union: Results from a survey in three Member States," JRC Research Reports JRC93960, Joint Research Centre.
    3. Leuven, Edwin & Oosterbeek, Hessel, 2011. "Overeducation and Mismatch in the Labor Market," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 283-326, Elsevier.
    4. Ronald W. McQuaid & Colin Lindsay, 2005. "The Concept of Employability," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(2), pages 197-219, February.
    5. Joan Torrent-Sellens, 2015. "Knowledge Products and Network Externalities: Implications for the Business Strategy," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 6(1), pages 138-156, March.
    6. Sophie Hennekam, 2015. "Employability of older workers in the Netherlands: antecedents and consequences," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 36(6), pages 931-946, September.
    7. Margaret Stevens, 2003. "Earnings Functions, Specific Human Capital, and Job Matching: Tenure Bias Is Negative," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(4), pages 783-806, October.
    8. Cletus C. Coughlin & Adam M. Zaretsky, 1995. "An introduction to the theory and estimation of a job-search model," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Jan, pages 53-65.
    9. Juan C. Botero & Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2004. "The Regulation of Labor," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1339-1382.
    10. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1979. "Job Matching and the Theory of Turnover," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 972-990, October.
    11. Maria de Hoyos & Anne Green & Sally-Anne Barnes & Heike Behle & Beate Baldauf & David Owen, 2013. "Literature Review on Employability, Inclusion and ICT, Part 2: ICT and Employability," JRC Research Reports JRC78601, Joint Research Centre.
    12. Ikujiro Nonaka, 1994. "A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 5(1), pages 14-37, February.
    13. Erwan Quintin & John J. Stevens, 2003. "Firm specific human capital vs. job matching: a new test," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-33, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    14. Neal, Derek, 1999. "The Complexity of Job Mobility among Young Men," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 237-261, April.
    15. Christian Dudel & María A. López Gómez & Fernando G. Benavides & Mikko Myrskylä, 2016. "A lost generation? The financial crisis and the length of working life in Spain," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2016-010, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    16. Sanders, Mark, 2013. "Skill Bias In An Endogenous Growth Model: Evaluating The Case For Market Size And Acceleration Effects," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 802-829, June.
    17. Bengt-ake Lundvall & Bjorn Johnson, 1994. "The Learning Economy," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 23-42.
    18. Anne Green & Maria de Hoyos & Sally-Anne Barnes & David Owen & Beate Baldauf & Heike Behle, 2013. "Literature Review on Employability, Inclusion and ICT, Part 1: The Concept of employability, with a specific focus on Young people, older workers and migrants," JRC Research Reports JRC75518, Joint Research Centre.
    19. Giuseppe Folloni & Giorgio Vittadini, 2010. "Human Capital Measurement: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 248-279, April.
    20. Rosseel, Yves, 2012. "lavaan: An R Package for Structural Equation Modeling," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 48(i02).
    21. Beaulieua, Lionel J. & Israel, Glenn D. & Hartless, Glen & Dyk, Patricia, 2001. "For whom does the school bell toll?: Multi-contextual presence of social capital and student educational achievement," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 121-127, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sylwia Wiśniewska & Kamil Wiśniewski & Robert Szydło, 2021. "The Relationship between Organizational Learning at the Individual Level and Perceived Employability: A Model-Based Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-17, July.
    2. Omar Habets & Beatrice Van der Heijden & Omar Ramzy & Jol Stoffers & Pascale Peters, 2021. "Employable through Social Media: An Intervention Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-17, May.
    3. Naim Ahmad & Noorulhasan Naveed Quadri & Mohamed Rafik N. Qureshi & Mohammad Mahtab Alam, 2018. "Relationship Modeling of Critical Success Factors for Enhancing Sustainability and Performance in E-Learning," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-16, December.
    4. Manuela Rozalia Gabor & Petruța Blaga & Cosmin Matis, 2019. "Supporting Employability by a Skills Assessment Innovative Tool—Sustainable Transnational Insights from Employers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-18, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heejin Kim & B. Sebastian Reiche & Anne-Wil Harzing, 2022. "How does successive inpatriation contribute to subsidiary capability building and subsidiary evolution? An organizational knowledge creation perspective," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(7), pages 1394-1419, September.
    2. Maite Blázquez & Santiago Budr�a, 2012. "Overeducation dynamics and personality," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 260-283, March.
    3. Soufiane Mezzourh & Walid A Nakara, 2009. "Governance and innovation : A Knowledge-based approach [La gouvernance de l'innovation : une approche par la connaissance]," Post-Print halshs-01955966, HAL.
    4. Maurizio Zollo, 1998. "Strategies or Routines ? Knowledge Codification, Path-Dependence and the Evolution of Post-Acquisition Integration Practices in the U.S. Banking Industry," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 97-10, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    5. Yildiz, H. Emre & Murtic, Adis & Zander, Udo, 2024. "Re-conceptualizing absorptive capacity: The importance of teams as a meso-level context," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    6. Gaviria-Marin, Magaly & Merigó, José M. & Baier-Fuentes, Hugo, 2019. "Knowledge management: A global examination based on bibliometric analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 194-220.
    7. Domadenik, Polona & Far?nik, Daša & Pastore, Francesco, 2013. "Horizontal Mismatch in the Labour Market of Graduates: The Role of Signalling," IZA Discussion Papers 7527, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Ahammad, Mohammad Faisal & Tarba, Shlomo Yedidia & Liu, Yipeng & Glaister, Keith W., 2016. "Knowledge transfer and cross-border acquisition performance: The impact of cultural distance and employee retention," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 66-75.
    9. Demiralp, Berna, 2011. "Occupational self-selection in a labor market with moral hazard," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 497-519, May.
    10. Marte C.W. Solheim & Ron Boschma & Sverre Herstad, 2018. "Related variety, unrelated variety and the novelty content of firm innovation in urban and non-urban locations," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1836, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Oct 2018.
    11. Pettus, Michael L. & Kor, Yasemin Y. & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2007. "A Theory of Change in Turbulent Environments: The Sequencing of Dynamic Capabilities Following Industry Deregulation," Working Papers 07-0100, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    12. Chi H. Truong, 2014. "A Two Factor Model for Water Prices and Its Implications for Evaluating Real Options and Other Water Price Derivatives," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 62(1), pages 23-45, March.
    13. Mouna Mrad & Slaheddine Hallara, 2014. "The Relationship Between the Board of Directors and the Performance/Value Creation in a Context of Privatization: The Case of French Companies," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 83-108, March.
    14. Pedros Silos & Eric Smith, 2015. "Human Capital Portfolios," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(3), pages 635-652, July.
    15. Bergin, Adele, 2009. "Job Mobility in Ireland," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 40(1), pages 15-47.
    16. Ghadah Lafi Alharbi & Monira Essa Aloud, 2024. "The effects of knowledge management processes on service sector performance: evidence from Saudi Arabia," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-19, December.
    17. Zsolt Csáfordi & László Lőrincz & Balázs Lengyel & Károly Miklós Kiss, 2020. "Productivity spillovers through labor flows: productivity gap, multinational experience and industry relatedness," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 86-121, February.
    18. Mohajan, Haradhan, 2016. "Sharing of Tacit Knowledge in Organizations: A Review," MPRA Paper 82958, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Jun 2016.
    19. Aspen Gorry, 2016. "Experience and worker flows," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(1), pages 225-255, March.
    20. Eike Emrich & Christian Pierdzioch, 2016. "Volunteering, Match Quality, and Internet Use," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 136(2), pages 199-226.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:4:p:1014-:d:138702. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.