Summary
Research suggests that students are likely to seek out employment opportunities within large organizations first and often view small businesses as a second choice (Teo & Poon, 1994; Moy & Lee, 2002). The purpose of this paper was to compare U.S. undergraduate business students' perceptions towards employment with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and multinational corporations (MNCs) and to determine if academic major, gender, or personality influenced these perceptions. The results indicated that accounting, finance, and marketing students preferred employment with MNCs, while the primary employment choice for management students was SMEs. In addition, males preferred employment with SMEs and females favored MNCs. No significant relationships were found between personality dimensions and employment preference. Findings did, however, indicate that several of job factors were significantly related to gender.
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Extract
Business Students' Perceptions of Employment in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Versus Multinational Corporations: Investigating the Moderating Effects of Academic Major, Gender, and Personality
INTRODUCTION
Recent research by the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy shows that more than 99 percent of all current employers are classified as small businesses, and they employ 51 percent of private-sector workers (SBA Office of Advocacy, May 2002). The Small Business Administration defines a small business as one with fewer than 500 employees. However, approximately 90 percent of these businesses employ less than 20 people, and around half have fewer than 5 employees (Perry, 2001).Even though the number of small businesses operating the U.S. is much greater than that of large corporations, the majority of college students prefer to accept employment with a large firm upon graduation (Hollingsworth, Klatt & Zimmerer, 1974; Teo & Poon, 1994; Moy & Lee, 2002). The ability to attract key personnel is necessary in order to become a successful business of any size. The preference of college graduates to work for a large business over a small business is an obstacle that small businesses must be able to overcome in order to succeed.Whil...See the full content of this document
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