University-workplace alignment in an East Asian entrepreneurial economy: Perceptions from Hong Kong young graduates of international liberal arts degree

The increasingly entrepreneurial economies and dynamic workplaces pose challenges and opportunities for higher education worldwide. Escalating demand for innovation and the need to adapt to the global milieu are the significant qualitative transformations taking place in the workplace. It is argued that overspecialisation in higher education had already given hard lessons to many developed economic systems (Asian Development Bank, 2012). What are vitally wanted in the dynamic workplace are human talents with entrepreneurial orientation and the calibres of being innovative, risk taking, communicative and responsive. On account of the different perceptions of core competencies between higher education and the business sector (Oh & Lee, 2010), it is imperative for higher education to have its curriculum designed with a workplace-informed perspective. On one hand, this can enhance the graduates' employability (notwithstanding expanded number of university graduates in labour markets due to increased/democratic access to higher education). On the other hand, it can develop the 'external efficiency' (Salmi, 2009) of an academic institution. This research employs the methodology of case studies approach purposing for analytic generalisation (Yin, 1994) about the knowledge-workplace dynamics. By conducting 30 qualitative interviews with graduates with liberal arts degree offered through international programmes/off shore campus in Hong Kong, this research probed the lived experience and subjectivities of how the graduates fare in this East Asian entrepreneurial economy and shed light on the alignment of undergraduate education and the changing workplace.