Introduction

In recent years the concept of employability has received significant attention from higher education policymakers and academics alike. The term ‘employability’ is typically used to denote the capacity of graduates to secure employment opportunities in an ever-changing working context (European Commission, 2016; Minocha et al., 2018; Peeters et al., 2019; Tomlinson, 2010). However, the concept remains one that is indeterminate, given the way in which different authors ground it in a variety of models and conceptual frameworks (Römgens et al., 2020). Most of these frameworks associate employability with both personal skills development and contextual factors related to finding and keeping a job (Forrier et al., 2009). Personal skills are primarily taken to refer to generic work-related competencies, such as those outlined by Römgens et al. (2020): disciplinary knowledge, transferable generic skills, emotional regulation, career development skills, self-management and self-efficacy (p. 2598). Contextual factors, meanwhile, refer to changing professional circumstances and work conditions to ensure present and future employment opportunities (Peeters et al., 2019).

The European Commission (2016) contended that higher education institutions (HEIs) should provide education programmes that develop personal skills to help graduates secure employment. The Dearing Report (NCIHE, 1997), meanwhile, argued nearly three decades ago that higher education plays a crucial role in fostering graduate employability for the global competitiveness of a nation’s economy. As a result of such formulations of policy, HEIs have been pressured into providing education programmes that promote generic skills development required by the labour market over more personal experiences, enabling people to flourish on their own terms (Lundgren-Resenterra & Kahn, 2019). Alongside this, though, there is a clear tendency for HEIs to suggest that individual skills are goods that possess an ongoing market value, with graduates able to secure future work opportunities as a result of having previously engaged in a programme of education. Such a view is based on the long-standing notion from human capital theory that the performativity of employees is increased as their generic skills improve (Becker, 1975). Tomlinson et al. (2021), indeed, acknowledged the impact of both human and social capital on successful employment outcomes. They referred to human capital as the personal skills developed during higher education studies and their transference to work. Social capital, meanwhile, was taken to be a resource that stems from one’s social relations and networks, a resource that enables a graduate to mobilise their human capital within a labour market—at least if they are sufficiently adaptable. Despite the recognition that employability articulates with complex social processes, however, social capital is understood by Tomlinson et al. (2021) to pertain primarily to individual and functional aspects of work relations, failing to connect to a collective dimension more fully.

What this overall policy agenda fails to recognise sufficiently clearly, however, is that employability significantly depends on the concerns and agency of graduates, and on whether or not such concerns give rise to concrete projects and ongoing practices (Archer, 2000). It remains the case that students need to prepare for jobs that are yet to be invented, jobs which will require skills and competencies that are still to be determined (Römgens et al., 2020). What this means is that graduates are likely in due course to need to pursue further learning projects in order to achieve desired forms of employment on an ongoing basis. Furthermore, a dominant focus on individual skills development securing future employment prospects disregards and distorts the collective purposes connected with employment (Kahn & Lundgren-Resenterra, 2021). Indeed, as Ashforth et al. (2008) argued, what makes work a collective endeavour are the everyday organisational practices based on shared concerns that strengthen common values, beliefs and goal achievement, thereby linking persons to their enterprises. They defined a ‘collective’ as an entity of any scale that is constituted by people, whether a group, department, organisation or something similar. Sayer (2007), meanwhile, has argued that scope to flourish while at work is closely linked to the extent that one is dependent on others, for instance given our need for respect from others and mutual recognition.

Unfortunately, a range of serious issues arise where marketisation colonises an endeavour such as that of higher education. Fraser (2014) contended that the world is facing a severe and complex crisis, in which the biosphere is being destroyed, social cooperation is languishing and the global economy is based on paper values. The origins of this crisis are identified in this analysis by Fraser as arising from a commodification of nature, culture and money. Sandel (2012) similarly has argued that society as a whole has become marketised, rather than just economies, with higher education included within this marketised society. Even work itself, however, is closely affected by marketisation. In downplaying both agential and collective purposes associated with employment, higher education thus undercuts the possibilities for both society as a whole and for individual graduates to thrive. A significant shift will be required in policy frameworks that are dominant globally if these challenges are to be addressed.

We can highlight what is at stake here by considering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were set by the United Nations member states in order to eradicate poverty and address climate change (United Nations General Assembly, 2015). Steele and Rickards (2021) argued that to address the global challenges linked to the SDG agenda, HEIs should promote integrative action that generates transformational change. They suggested, by contrast, however, given competing interpretations of the SDGs, that there is a danger that these goals might be colonised for individual and national competitiveness for economic growth. Indeed, this might seem to be likely to occur given that the very idea of development is deeply rooted in the Western ways of thinking and norms of governance. What remains evident, though, is that the conception of employability that is implicitly present within the SDGs discourse relates most directly to the human capital that Tomlinson et al. (2021) identified, whether global citizenship, critical thinking, problem-solving competencies, literacy, numeracy, and business and technology skills. It is hard to see how HEIs will be able to convert themselves into civic universities that co-produce the common good with communities, workplaces and other institutions, as Steele and Rickards (2021) have argued, if employability itself is not reconsidered in terms of a collective dimension, in order to enable production and consumption practices that are sustainable.

There is clearly a need for analyses that consider how higher education can provide learning that enables graduates to make contributions to organisations and collectives of all kinds, contributions which have the flourishing of society in mind rather than just the economic rewards that are available to individuals through complying with labour market demands. Collective action is needed to impact on effective responses to the coronavirus pandemic and to intergovernmental discussions on climate change, for instance, in coming to agreements and road maps for taking things forward in a timely and satisfactory fashion. There is a great deal at stake for society in handling both graduate employability and work on a collective level.

This chapter thus seeks to treat the collective basis for employability in close detail. It looks to rethink graduate employability in relation to key social concerns for society at large, concerns that have been downplayed in the existing discourse on graduate employability. The research design used in this chapter can best be described as conceptual analysis (Gilson & Goldberg, 2015), one that offers an original synthesis of existing theoretical and empirical studies in order to address the chapter’s key concerns. This chapter develops recent critical realist theorising on the concept of employability by Kahn and Lundgren-Resenterra (2021), in order to understand the benefits of a collective approach to employability that takes into account a place for agency. The discussion draws on theoretical resources developed by the critical realist paradigm. It makes use of the realist social theory of Archer (1995, 2000), theory which highlights the interplay between social structures and human agency for social restructuring; an interplay in which collective identity plays an important role. Critical realism relies on the idea that reality is layered, and what knowledge we have about it is acquired by identifying the causal mechanisms that lead to given effects, at least where such mechanisms are understood as tendencies and not as constant conjunctions between events (Bhaskar, 1993). More specifically, there is scope for the morphogenetic framework of Archer (1995) to generate explanatory answers to the conceptualisation of employability by incorporating references to the interplay between social structures and human agency. Social structures are essential since all human interrelations are context-dependent. Moreover, no action can be realised independently from context and a clear prospect for action. Meanwhile, human agency is activity-bound, because without human agents engaging in purposeful actions to change the structural status quo, there is no form of social restructuring (Archer, 2021).

The argument offered in this chapter concludes by focusing on ways that universities can encourage learning that promotes collective values over more economic ones in the workplace, thereby enhancing the emancipation of the larger society above the advantages within markets that can accrue to corporates and individuals. In order to understand how higher education can contribute to a widening of the scope of degree programmes that are currently framed by economic growth, however, we need first to explore and understand the causal tendencies that condition employability. If universities are to retain a social mission within society in the face of intense market pressures that prioritise the economic contributions of graduates, then a reframing of graduate employability is required.

Conceptualising Employability as a Capacity for Collective Agency

Fleetwood (2011) argued that a labour market is a set of socio-economic phenomena upon which agents act in order to pursue needs that are related to work. He further considered social structures as a key aspect of these phenomena, arguing that social structures are constituted as “latticeworks of internal relations between entities that may enable and constrain (but not determine) the plans and actions of agents who reproduce and/or transform these relations” (Fleetwood, 2017, p. 96). For instance, one key latticework of social relations for a labour market is that between employers and employees, or between employees with different organisational roles. This definition of a labour market paves the way for a corresponding definition of employability, one in which agency has a key place. Kahn and Lundgren-Resenterra (2021, p. 541) thus defined graduate employability “as the capacity of a graduate to act as an agent within the workplace”. Clearly, one needs to exercise agency if one is to gain employment or thrive while at work.

The connection between employability and agency is a powerful one, connecting as it does to an extensive body of relevant theorising. Agency, here, is specifically understood in the sense expounded by Archer (2000), in which it is taken to refer to that process by which agents prioritise concerns, take forward projects and establish ongoing practices, a process that is directly supported by reflexivity. Reflexivity is itself a conscious activity that entails mental deliberation on one’s own social placing (Archer, 2000). Such reflexivity can support the individual self-awareness of a graduate about their own needs and interests, enhancing thus their agential power to make informed choices about their work and personal lives, as Higgs and Cloutman (2019) argued. In this model, it is the exercise of reflexivity that mediates the influence of social structures upon agency. It should be noted in Archer’s model of agency that the knowledge, skills and attitudes that someone possesses as an individual are relevant to one’s capacity to move forward the different aspects of this process, but that it is reflexivity which determines the direction that is taken by agency. One’s identity is then specifically seen by Archer (2000) in terms of the configuration taken by one’s concerns, as we shall explore further in due course.

A focus on agency within employability stands out from the dominant discourse. Nonetheless, existing empirical research offers clear support for the value of this focus, particularly in several recent studies that have seen a role for agency in relation to employability. Indeed, an exclusive focus on personal capital in framing employability can provide a misleading view of what matters to employers. Handley (2018) found that a set of graduate employers were, when recruiting, primarily interested in the extent to which graduates were ready to become a particular sort of person, and who were willing to learn what was required, work hard and take directions that suited the needs of the organisation. Graduate employers were seen to be far less interested in the kinds of generic capabilities and skills that are prioritised in the employability discourse at large, or that are promoted by bodies such as the Confederation of British Industry. The graduate recruiters considered in this study by Handley were looking for graduates who would be positioned to exercise agency in support of organisational agendas.

Furthermore, the study by Tholen (2015), for instance, looked at the experience of 60 final-year students across two universities, one in Great Britain and one in the Netherlands, in relation to finding work within the labour market. The study demonstrated that a key aspect of employability is the capacity to establish a reflexive space within which to make sense of the competition entailed in securing work. The nature of this reflexive space is thus important to consider when seeking to understand the way in which agency affects one’s employability. Archer (2003) identified several characteristic modes of reflexivity. For instance, meta-reflexivity is characterised by a concern to advance social ideals, with the pursuit of those ideals as much a focus for mental deliberation as the ideals themselves. Individuals for whom communicative reflexivity predominates, meanwhile, are those whose concerns are shaped on the basis of conversations with friends and relations. Indeed, the study by Okay-Somerville and Scholarios (2017) that surveyed 293 recent graduates in the UK found that guidance-seeking from others and networking strategies were a key aspect of what makes a graduate employable. Autonomous reflexivity, meanwhile, was identified by Archer (2003) as mental deliberation that is undertaken without reference to conversation with others, in which significant attention is given to performativity. This mode of reflexivity aligns with configurations of concerns that are focused around maximising economic rewards connected to employment.

When employability is framed primarily in terms of the personal capital that one brings to a market, though, the default position is to assume that the pursuit of economic self-interest (and thus autonomous reflexivity) dominates the perspectives of those seeking work. It is possible, though, for other modes of reflexivity to take centre stage in relation to one’s working life, as empirical studies conducted by Archer (2000, 2003) have demonstrated. A recognition that different modes of reflexivity are possible thus supports a consideration of the way that employability relates to emancipation, which refers to a liberation from the influence of undesired structural mechanisms (Hartwig, 2007). The capacity of an agent to have a say in their future work life matters a great deal, however, beyond narrow economic interests (McArthur, 2011). Archer (2003), meanwhile, referred to primary agents as those people who are able to progress their own individual concerns, but who lack any say in the reshaping of social contexts. When acting within the setting of a workplace collective, for instance, primary agents would be expected to take forward projects and practices that comply with the institutional logic(s) in play, where an institutional logic is understood to mean a shared frame of reference (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008), one that influences the agency of individuals (Delbridge & Edwards, 2013). For Elder-Vass (2010), buying into an institutional logic is essential in standardising work practices. However, for Delbridge and Edwards (2013), standardised work practices are not considered routinised work; people still have the capacity for reflexivity to decide how to act upon such norms, thereby avoiding conflation between institutional logic and human agency.

Archer (2003), furthermore, used the term ‘corporate agent’ to refer to a group of people who frame new collective interests and pursue those interests in an organised fashion through a shared pursuit of projects and practices that seek to shift the status quo. This framing and pursuit of collective interests is supported by collective reflexivity, that is by the (individual) mental deliberations that the subjects share with each other (Archer, 2013). Corporate agency can be directed towards the economic self-interest of given individuals or groupings within organisations, but it can also be focused on promoting the well-being of others (Gorski, 2017; Smith, 2010). This mode of reflexivity, indeed, entails social relations that are characterised by a reciprocity that allows for a sharing of concerns. If one takes the collective dimension to work seriously, as discussed above, it makes sense to extend the focus from agency alone in any definition of employability, to include specific attention to collective considerations. Kahn and Lundgren-Resenterra (2021, p. 541) thus went on in their study to define graduate employability more fully “as the capacity of a graduate to act as an agent within the workplace in ways that contribute to the maintenance and elaboration of collectives”. On this model, the exercise of primary agency supports the maintenance of collectives, while the practice of corporate agency leads to the elaboration of collectives. While one can evidently elaborate collectives in different directions, there is a clear need to devise new ways collectively to respond to environmental degradation, as Poteete and Ostrom (2004) have argued.

Finally, it is important to appreciate that understanding employability through agency enables one to consider how structural constraints affect employment. Kahn and Lundgren-Resenterra (2021) were clear that the capacity of a graduate to act as an agent within the workplace remains subject to the usual constraints and enablements that influence both primary and corporate agency. Indeed, the definition of a labour market cited above enables one to take into account a comprehensive consideration of the constraints and enablements that influence employability. Given that individuals are constrained and enabled in different ways, they are hierarchically positioned in relation to each other when seeking employment (Brown et al., 2003). For instance, one can identify latticeworks of relations between people that relate to gender, race, class and so on. Characteristics such as age, gender, social class, disability and ethnicity do affect how individuals are positioned in the labour market (Siivonen & Isopahkala-Bouret, 2016). Employability not only depends on fulfilling the requirements of a specific job, but also on how one stands relative to others within a hierarchy of job seekers. Cashian (2017), indeed, contended that higher education has a lesser influence on graduate employability than causal tendencies operating from social contexts that influence how graduates’ agency can unfold. The students in the study by Bradley et al. (2013), however, expected a significant amount of assistance from their universities, in looking to convert their academic credentials into employment, rather than seeing career openings as something that depended, in the first instance, on their own agency—as if constraints and enablements were primarily what determined whether or not one would gain employment after a university degree. While recognising a positional dimension, though, Archer’s model highlights how it is always necessary to prioritise concerns, pursue projects and embed practices, even if the exercise of agency is constrained and enabled by the social and cultural structures operating within one’s context. A positioning in relation to social and cultural structures does not negate the value in considering the lived experience of graduates in relation to these structures, and nor does it negate the scope for agency in relation to work that remains.

In overall terms, this analysis opens up the capacity to connect to issues that relate to human emancipation. Leading perspectives on graduate employability entertain the idea of a constant conjunction between the development of human capital and employment outcomes (McQuaid & Lindsay, 2005). An emphasis on skills development to comply with market demands, however, inevitably describes higher education in restricted terms. Indeed, the human capital and skills discourse concerning employability tends to restrict it to mere market arguments, thereby emphasising the influence of the political and economic dimension to higher education policy. Tomlinson (2017) argued that HEIs are closely influenced by such a dimension, investing in programmes that maximise graduates’ economic potential for the employment market. What stands out here is that HEIs defend a discourse around employability which emphasises that the more skills with economic utility the graduates gain, the more economic resources they have to secure employment. Meanwhile, understanding graduate employability in terms of agency enables one to consider graduate employability in light of the causal tendencies in play that either constrain or enable the way that agents in a labour market pursue needs that are related to work. Agency is clearly affected by structural constraints and enablements, thereby impacting how people can secure, maintain or contribute actively to work to influence values that matter to society at large.

Collective Identity Underpins Agency Within Workplaces

The centrality that is given in the above argument to agency indicates that a key role is present for the concerns of graduates themselves, concerns that, according to Archer (2003), are a key aspect of one’s identity. Archer (2003) saw one’s personal identity as formed by the configuration of one’s ultimate concerns. These are those concerns about which one cares above all else, and they lead to an associated set of commitments. Archer (2013), furthermore, identified collective reflexivity as a process that emerges from individuals who engage in social relations to deliberate together on how to tackle specific concerns in their own desired way. Archer was clear that this need not involve the separate parties actually ‘thinking the same thing’, and that those involved in the relation acknowledge (and reflexively deliberate upon) the value to them that arises from their relations together. Collective identity arises when uncertainty is involved, triggering then concerns and interests, which when shared in a critical way with others can enhance corporate agency. Students can feel doubts arise when having to choose among educational programmes to ensure future employment. Making choices involves, however, developing students’ self-awareness about their needs and interests to increase their agential power for emancipation. Lacey (1997) argued that it takes increased agency for students to understand the impact of social structures on their educational choices. However, he noted that individuals have little or no power over the reshaping of social structures to enhance their agency. For him, it is through corporate agency triggered by shared values and concerns that empowerment occurs. Likewise, Smith et al. (2018) argued that students’ agency is co-constructed through shared social relations and reflexive deliberations about their future selves and not through skills development or specific learning programmes to ensure human capital. Burke et al. (2017) also suggested that students’ agency can be enhanced through a collective reflexivity that questions how to approach the current employment market.

It is possible, indeed, to see collective identity as constituted by those ultimate concerns that one shares with others, concerns that are acted upon together for some form of mutual advancement. It is argued that this provides the basis for the sense of connection that Polletta and Jasper (2001) refer to as collective identity. While the term collective identity is one that we advance in relation to collective reflexivity in this chapter itself, Archer (2013) herself used the term ‘solidarity’ to refer to care, trust and other relational goods that result from mutual service. Indeed, Kramer et al. (2014) argued that group identification is closely linked to cooperation. According to Thornton and Ocasio (2008), collective identity constitutes a key mechanism that influences an institutional logic. Järvenpää and Länsiluoto (2016), for instance, saw ways in which collective identity closely affected the use of an environmental performance measurement system within an international company. A profit and costs orientation remained an integral aspect of the focus and drive of management at the company, with decision-making framed by this orientation. This was seen to constitute a key aspect of an institutional logic of profit maximisation. The introduction of a new system to measure the company’s environmental performance, even though it was potentially contradictory to an emphasis on profitability, was nonetheless integrated into the institutional logic in play.

Furthermore, according to Archer (2013), collective identity emerges from a process of engaging in social relations with others that are directed towards shared concerns. Collective identity is then closely related to the social relations that one maintains with others. Finn (2017), indeed, argued that graduates give priority to their most intimate relationships when making decisions about their working lives. The analysis by Grasso et al. (2021) would suggest, at least in some contexts, that there are fewer open opportunities now present after the coronavirus pandemic that are not dependent on family connections. The analysis of Sayer (2007), meanwhile, offers a central place for social relations within the workplace in framing work that is dignified. For instance, he highlighted ways in which inequities and power differentials between individuals mean that it is easier for some rather than others to uphold their dignity in working settings. There is evident scope for a latticework of relations between employers and employees to closely affect the concerns that are prioritised, given the power differentials in such a latticework. While it is possible to regard social relations such as those between employers and employees as a resource that can be drawn upon by an individual, that is as a form of capital (Cunningham, 2002), such a conceptual move downplays the relevance of both agency and identity. One’s social relations constitute a key element of both who one is and what it means to engage in work. Graduate trajectories within the labour market are thus closely influenced by those collectives to which graduates are attached.

This is not to suggest, though, that any collective will ever be present in a pure form, given the way in which power differentials, and inequities linked to those differentials, are always present, as Fraser (2014) argued. The reframing of workplace agency based on the pursuit of collective agendas to trigger organisational elaboration has its caveats. Institutional logics maintain conformity within an organisation (Flam, 2010). Moreover, not all actors retain the same influence, power and motivation to encourage organisational change by challenging existing corporate regulations and norms (Garud et al., 2007). Nevertheless, corporate agency is essential to shift from organisational interests supporting economic rewards towards more collective social goods that have the flourishing of the larger society at heart. Stakeholder theory, indeed, supports such a viewpoint by enhancing corporate social responsibility encompassing the larger community and stakeholders (Bird et al., 2007). Emancipatory agency is thus possible, but the conditions for structural change are nonetheless extensive, as Lacey (1997) has argued.

Practical Implications for Universities and Employers

There are a range of practical implications that emerge from this study for both universities and employers. If graduates are to experience dignified forms of work and if society is to find ways forward to address key global challenges, then it will be essential for relevant parties to take close account of the agential and collective dimension to employability.

In relation to universities, the study by Tholen (2015) suggested that the self-awareness of students in the UK around the extent to which one needs to exercise agency in order to secure work was relatively underdeveloped, in that students tended to believe that their trajectories in the labour market were primarily decided for them by external forces. There would thus be value in following the suggestion of Burke et al. (2017) that students and graduates should be assisted to engage in reflexive deliberation about their attempts to navigate their activity within the graduate labour market. Likewise, Smith et al. (2018) claim that graduates engaging in reflexive deliberations about what learning programmes to pursue foster their emancipation for employability by taking their own interests into account. A further way forward would be for higher education to integrate collectives into programmes of learning in deliberate fashion, to enable graduates to become attenuated to the nature of those value-sets and institutional logics that are promoted in workplaces, as Kahn and Lundgren-Resenterra (2021) also argued. This could entail offering students the opportunity to engage in learning activities that promote shared interests and concerns over narrowly conceived economic agendas (Farrow & Moe, 2019). Such analysis implies that higher education programmes should prioritise social connections with others during graduate studies to develop and sustain collective agency that is durable over the entire length of a degree programme (Kahn, 2017). Lundgren-Resenterra and Kahn (2019) argued that the social relations supported by the students constituted a key influence on the ability to engage in collective reflexivity. Furthermore, universities could build on students’ existing prospects to contribute to collectives beyond their current studies, whether linked to student unions, extracurriculuar activity or anything similar (Kahn & Lundgren-Resenterra, 2021). Indeed, supplementary student activities were reported to exercise a powerful impact on graduates through connectivity (Greenbank, 2009). Such insights could inform the way in which teaching as well as learning is informed. For instance, Carrillo and Flores (2020) reported how contextualised teaching and learning practices based on shared aspirations fostered a collaborative and collective approach to teaching, shifting practice to enhance student learning and well-being.

Employers, meanwhile, are more likely to be interested in implications of this analysis that relate to core organisational interests, given that employability itself is a secondary concern in such a setting. The practical implications for employers thus depend in significant part on making connections to key considerations that shape organisational effectiveness, with more tentative suggestions thus indicated here. For instance, Luederitz et al.’s (2021) longitudinal case study on two small craft breweries, one situated in Canada and the other in Germany, showed that integrating external environments into the workplace developed collective agency triggering jointly owned actions, thereby enhancing emergent sustainability processes for social and economic reward. They suggested that shared support enables people to debate and reflect together, allowing common aspirations to become collective intentions challenging existing organisational structures. Likewise, Coyte et al.’s (2012) research on knowledge resource management in an Australian small business highlighted how collective reflexivity is essential to support new ideas for organisational restructuring and redirection. Nonetheless, there would be scope for human resource professionals in organisations to take agency more directly, in preference to such notions as ‘talent’ (Nilsson & Ellström, 2012).

Conclusions

The analysis offered in this chapter provides insights into ways in which graduates navigate trajectories through labour markets. While markets are evidently competitive, it has effectively been argued that the notion of agency offers a more fundamental basis on which to identify trajectories than competition, especially when one takes collective considerations into account. It is primarily through the exercise of agency that graduates make sense of, and interact with, the world of work. Furthermore, the work identity of graduates has been as closely linked in the above analysis to the basis for agency within workplace settings, given the role that concerns play in agency according to Archer (2003). It is the exercise of agency that is constitutive of one’s identity within a labour market.

Acknowledging that collective aspects are significant for work, we need to understand how higher education can sustain a collective approach towards employability to orient students’ future work lives in a way that decolonises education programmes from the undue influences of labour markets. Indeed, when associating higher education with employment opportunities dictated by a labour market, we reinforce market values and power relations over more inclusive cultural expressions (Harsin, 2018), thereby constraining students’ capacity for critical reflection around their own needs and interests (Cooper, 2019). Such a narrow view on higher education impacts how students perceive the structural powers exercised by corporations that prefer economic growth over human emancipation (McArthur, 2011). Rather, it is important to recognise that graduate outcomes are dependent in significant part on the concerns and agency of graduates, and the extent to which those concerns give rise to concrete projects and ongoing practices on their own part.

What has been offered in this chapter is not simply a critique of dominant, marketised notions of graduate employability, but rather an original conceptualisation of employability that opens up new ways to advance human emancipation—one in which work is seen more as an emancipatory pursuit than as a marketised practice. Indeed, to highlight the value of a focus on collective reflexivity, Archer (2013) argued that “the orientation of all members of the social order to the common good qua relational good” is a powerful notion in that it does not downplay the well-being of anyone, unlike utilitarian and impersonal analyses that focus on goods that are absolute within their market settings. Rather, one sees ways in which reciprocity is central to social relations, a quality that Donati (2011) highlighted as distinctively human.

The account offered in this chapter around the identity of graduates shifts the debate around employability in higher education away from a passive notion of employability as the capacity of an individual to be given work by an employer to one focused on the maintenance and elaboration of collectives. Such a view of work enables one to respond directly to key challenges, to challenges that are faced at a societal level. It is evident that the current approach to markets within education and society undercuts its own long-term basis, given the limitations of a marketised response to global challenges. Wider horizons are required if HEIs are to respond effectively to current societal challenges.