Job preferences of international science and engineering students: a discrete-choice experiment

Purpose - The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of the cultural backgrounds of foreign science and engineering (S&E) students on their preference for various attributes of their future job. Design/methodology/approach - We use a unique discrete-choice experiment fielded among M.Sc students of the two largest Dutch technical universities. Building on Hofstede's (2001) national culture dimensions, we estimate mixed rank-ordered logit regressions that relate international students' cultural distance to the Netherlands to their preferences for job autonomy and teamwork in their future jobs.
Findings - We find that students who come from cultures characterized by a higher power distance and lower individualism have a lower preference for jobs with higher levels of autonomy, whereas those from cultures characterized by higher masculinity have a lower preference for jobs requiring working in teams. Practical implications - Our findings challenge the HR practices of high-tech companies, which production processes require high degrees of worker autonomy and teamwork, aiming to mitigate their severe skill shortages by recruiting foreign S&E graduates with different cultural backgrounds. These companies should improve their attractiveness to applicants from cultures characterized by high power distance, low individualism and/or high masculinity by offering compensating wage incentives or emphasizing their supervision and training to bridge cultural distances in the workplace and the career opportunities they offer new hires.
Social implications - Implementing courses aiming to develop teamwork skills as well as workshops that enable students to work equitably in diverse teams in engineering studies could also be a tool to reduce barriers to teamwork for international students as well as other underrepresented groups. Originality/value - The paper is the first study that shows the different job preferences of foreign S&E students related to their cultural backgrounds.