Employability
Ideology, Policy, and Practice
Published on 8. September 2025
Book
Hardback
248 pages
978-1-83708-105-9 (ISBN)
Description
Employability has become an increasingly widespread concept both in management and policy, but its meaning remains somewhat enigmatic and ambiguous. This volume offers a much-needed critical analysis of the ideology, practices, and policies of employability, reflecting significant transformations in the world of work and the individualizing experience of contemporary labour markets. This volume draws on a wide range of empirical studies to examine how discourses of employability have impacted both individuals and institutions.
Employability is often framed as an attribute of a person whereby individuals are lauded as "employable" or dismissed as "unemployable." This language and logic of employability has spawned all kinds of myopic supply-side labour market policies coinciding with and giving fuel to neoliberal emphases on individual responsibility and commodification. The chapters in this volume employ diverse theoretical perspectives on the impact of employability across different empirical settings, including higher education, vocational training, and state policymaking, in the UK, US, Australia, Germany, and Brazil.
Arguing that employability has an elusive character that renders it in dire need of sustained, critical analysis, Employability provides a much-needed framework for thinking about the enigma of employability and for critically reappraising its consequences.
Employability is often framed as an attribute of a person whereby individuals are lauded as "employable" or dismissed as "unemployable." This language and logic of employability has spawned all kinds of myopic supply-side labour market policies coinciding with and giving fuel to neoliberal emphases on individual responsibility and commodification. The chapters in this volume employ diverse theoretical perspectives on the impact of employability across different empirical settings, including higher education, vocational training, and state policymaking, in the UK, US, Australia, Germany, and Brazil.
Arguing that employability has an elusive character that renders it in dire need of sustained, critical analysis, Employability provides a much-needed framework for thinking about the enigma of employability and for critically reappraising its consequences.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Bingley
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 232 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
480 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-83708-105-9 (9781837081059)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Gretchen Purser is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, USA.
Rick Delbridge is Professor of Organizational Analysis at Cardiff Business School and Co-Convenor of the Centre for Innovation Policy Research, Cardiff University, UK.
Markus Helfen is Professor of Strategy and Leadership in Non-Profit-Organisations and Trade Unions at the University of Labour, Frankfurt (Main), Germany.
Andreas Pekarek is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Rick Delbridge is Professor of Organizational Analysis at Cardiff Business School and Co-Convenor of the Centre for Innovation Policy Research, Cardiff University, UK.
Markus Helfen is Professor of Strategy and Leadership in Non-Profit-Organisations and Trade Unions at the University of Labour, Frankfurt (Main), Germany.
Andreas Pekarek is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Content
Chapter 1. The Enigma of Employability; Gretchen Purser, Rick Delbridge, Markus Helfen, and Andreas Pekarek
Chapter 2. Building Employability in a Neoliberal World: Intern Perceptions, Expectations and Experiences of their Unpaid Internships; Tilly South
Chapter 3. 'The Best Laid Plans': Reflexivity, Employability and Early Employment Outcomes When Graduating in a Pandemic; Scott A. Hurrell, Pauline Anderson, Daria Luchinskaya, Dora Scholarios, and Belgin Okay-Somerville
Chapter 4. Employability, Automation and the Future of Work in the U.S. and U.K.: An Occupational Analysis; Phillip Brown and Gerbrand Tholen
Chapter 5. Employability in Digital Times: How Instrumental Reason Contributes to the Conversion of Vocational Education; Manuel Nicklich
Chapter 6. Decolonising Career and Employability within Higher Education: Lessons from the Field of Health and Social Care; Ricky Gee, Amy Morrell, and Adam Barnard
Chapter 7. Evaluating Employability: Understanding the Impact of Third Sector Interventions through the Lens of Social Value; Christine Anne Reilly
Chapter 8. An Essay on the Work of Recommodification and the Contradictions of Class Discipline; Ian Greer
Chapter 9. Marx, Marketization and Transforming Work - On Ian Greer and Charles Umney's Marketization: How Capitalist Exchange Disciplines Workers and Subverts Democracy; Michael Reed
Spotlight on Ethnography
Chapter 10. From the Ruins of a Precarious World of Work: Entrepreneurial Ambitions in Young Brazilian Workers' Experiences; Gabriel Ulbricht Ferreira
Chapter 2. Building Employability in a Neoliberal World: Intern Perceptions, Expectations and Experiences of their Unpaid Internships; Tilly South
Chapter 3. 'The Best Laid Plans': Reflexivity, Employability and Early Employment Outcomes When Graduating in a Pandemic; Scott A. Hurrell, Pauline Anderson, Daria Luchinskaya, Dora Scholarios, and Belgin Okay-Somerville
Chapter 4. Employability, Automation and the Future of Work in the U.S. and U.K.: An Occupational Analysis; Phillip Brown and Gerbrand Tholen
Chapter 5. Employability in Digital Times: How Instrumental Reason Contributes to the Conversion of Vocational Education; Manuel Nicklich
Chapter 6. Decolonising Career and Employability within Higher Education: Lessons from the Field of Health and Social Care; Ricky Gee, Amy Morrell, and Adam Barnard
Chapter 7. Evaluating Employability: Understanding the Impact of Third Sector Interventions through the Lens of Social Value; Christine Anne Reilly
Chapter 8. An Essay on the Work of Recommodification and the Contradictions of Class Discipline; Ian Greer
Chapter 9. Marx, Marketization and Transforming Work - On Ian Greer and Charles Umney's Marketization: How Capitalist Exchange Disciplines Workers and Subverts Democracy; Michael Reed
Spotlight on Ethnography
Chapter 10. From the Ruins of a Precarious World of Work: Entrepreneurial Ambitions in Young Brazilian Workers' Experiences; Gabriel Ulbricht Ferreira