Job expectations of Chinese college students: re-examining gender differences

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine current gender differences in job expectations among Chinese college students, how current job expectations across gender differ from an earlier study, and how they might impact organizational practices such as recruitment and retention. Design/methodology/approach - Using Manhardt's 25-item measure of job expectations, this study asked Chinese college students to rate the importance of various job characteristics on a five-point Likert scale (5 = very important to 1 = very unimportant). Male and female responses were compared for 430 college students. Findings - Results of the current study found that males and females differed in their ratings on 23 of 25 items, with females rating all 23 of these items to be of higher importance. These findings differ significantly from an earlier study so they are compared and discussed. Research limitations/implications - This paper is limited in that it focusses solely on college students and only examines gender as a basis for comparison. Future studies should examine employees and consider other factors such as Chinese ethnicity as a basis for comparison. Practical implications - Organizations may choose to change/improve aspects of certain jobs to more closely align with job candidates' interests and/or choose to differently implement tools such as realistic job previews in order to improve retention. Social implications - This paper provides an updated status on gender differences in job expectations of China's soon-to-be emerging workforce. Findings provide organizations with insight on how to develop human resource tools to hold on to talent. Originality/value - This paper advances on previous work by drawing on a much larger sample and by utilizing a structured forward-translation, back-translation process for its survey.