Doctoral students from Chinese prestigious universities who wish to work in the government sector

Perceptions and mechanisms

Bibliographic Data

ID21592473
AuthorsYue Yin (0009-0002-5364-7089, School of Marxism Sun Yat‐sen University Guangzhou China), Huirui Zhang (0009-0005-6971-5818, Faculty of Education The Open University of China Beijing China, corresponding author), Yue Tan (0000-0002-5198-9547, Institute of Education Tsinghua University Beijing China)
Year2024
Volume78
Issue2
Pages436-457
Publication date2024-04-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHigher Education Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0951-5224 • E-ISSN: 1468-2273
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/hequ.12494
OpenAlexW4391033688
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited49

This paper addresses the perceptions and mechanisms of doctoral student job decisions regarding the pursuit of careers in the government sector in China. Through the lens of social cognitive career theory (SCCT), we analysed 30 semi‐structured interviews that had been conducted with doctoral students from two prestigious Chinese universities who wish to work as civil servants. This study describes doctoral students' understanding of careers in government employment from the perspectives of work content, promotion channels and professional norms. The mechanisms influencing student career choices include personal goals, self‐efficacy, outcome expectations and environment. The clear goal of political ambition and work–life balance directly drives doctoral students to choose government institutions for employment. The diploma signal of doctoral degree itself and academic training give doctoral students a high sense of self‐efficacy, which is necessary for their choice of employment in the government. Occupational safety, occupational benefits and occupational value constitute the expectations of positive outcomes providing doctoral students with good feedback. In the current environment, the labour market situation and the impetus of universities combine to form a push force and the preferential recruitment policies of the state form a pull force, which jointly promote doctoral students to make decisions to work in government sector. In this paper, the fact that the Chinese government introduced the ‘special selected graduates’ scheme for doctoral students from prestigious universities in hope of recruiting intellectual elites to improve the quality of civil servants and the modernization level of social governance. Universities encourage PhD graduates to enter the government, hoping that this would enhance their social influence and reputation, thereby safeguarding their status as prestigious universities. From an institutional perspective, the process of doctoral students becoming civil servants can be said to be a form of cooperation between the government and universities

Higher education · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Sociology · Doctoral Education Challenges and Solutions · Engineering · Mental Health and Patient Involvement · Psychology · Social Work Education and Practice

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