Value orientations in the career of management students

Abstract

The study in a modern university has a major potential for starting a career. Young people have the opportunity not only to learn their future profession, but also to penetrate into its meanings, realize to what extent it meets their personal values, goals and needs, and evaluate its attractive and undesirable aspects. Our article seeks to identify the relationship between students’ value orientations in the field of future career and the main educational activities that develop the necessary professional competencies. We specifically focus on the learning activity and the project-based activity, which constitute two main types of activity and involve the majority of students. The study was conducted in 2023–24 and involved 121 4 th -year students of the Faculty of Management of the Higher School of Economics (Nizhny Novgorod Campus). It was found that management students have different perceptions of the value of the learning and project-based activities. Management students are more focused on the values of ‘social partnership’ and ‘resilience’ in both learning activity and project-based activity, while the values of ‘belonging’ and ‘cooperation’ are perceived to have greater significance in learning activities, and the value of ‘innovative activity’, in project-project activities. The values associated with academic and functional knowledge are perceived by students at low and intermediate levels. Correlation analysis showed a low level of correlation between students’ value orientations in learning and project-based activities and their value orientations in the field of career (according to E. Shane’s theory of ‘career anchors’). Students practically do not associate the value of participating in various learning activities with building their career. Those students who have a pronounced career orientation ‘management’ recognize the value of learning activities.