Comparing Promotability Outlooks: Industry Professionals vs. MBA Student Perspectives

Abstract

In career advancement research, understanding the nuanced perceptions of promotability is crucial for both Industry Professionals and MBA students aspiring to navigate the professional landscape. The result of this study delves into the methodological nuances of comparing promotability perceptions between these two distinct cohorts, employing the permutation methods as a robust and effective technique, which confirmed the result of the T-test and Cohens d. The permutations method, a nonparametric approach, excels in situations where traditional parametric methods fall short, especially when dealing with small sample sizes and non-normal distributions. There were 31 students and 27 organizations involved in the study. The High Potential Employees (HiPos) is the theoretical framework used to examine the gap between the rating of Industry professionals and MBA students' self-rating. The researcher is interested in identifying the indicators with the widest gap. Learning agility and leadership spirit were the top two indicators with the most extensive positive difference, while turnover intention was the only indicator with a negative difference. Notably, turnover intention and job engagement were the two indicators with a significant statistical difference in rating between MBA students and Industry Professionals. Also, job engagement depicts the highest Cohen's d size comparison. The result of this study unravels the intricacies of the perceived promotability of MBA students based on their self-rating and the industry professionals' perceptions.