Factors Influencing on Career Choice of Management and Commerce Undergraduates in National Universities in Sri Lanka

Selecting one’s career wisely and rightly is a core factor for performance, individual satisfaction and societal wellbeing. Identifying what determines career choice among undergraduates can have many a benefit. This study, therefore, aims at exploring the influence of various factors on career choice decision among management and commerce undergraduates in national universities in Sri Lanka. The existing literature in this regard, within the study context, is skeletal, and that this study, having explained about the socio-demographical composition of management and commerce undergraduates, achieved three research objectives; to assess the level of career choice among Sri Lankan national university management and commerce undergraduates; to identify the priorities of factors affecting career choices; and thirdly, to assess the influence of such career choice factors on level of career choices among Management and Commerce undergraduates in the national universities in Sri Lanka. This study designed as a postpositivist study, taking all national universities that have commerce and management streams as the population while using systematic random sampling. Data were collected using self reported questionnaire from 371 final year management and commerce, undergraduates in six Sri Lankan national universities. Correlation and regression analysis were used in analyzing data. Survey results revealed that personal factors and Job-related factors are the most influential factors on determining graduates’


Introduction
Career is a sequence of attitudes and behaviors associated with the series of job and work related activities over a person's life time. career choice plays an important role for a person's individual development, organizational development and economical development of a country. Javis (2011) recommends the correct career choice, is a reason for individual development and Parson (1909), believed the correct career choice is a reason for employee's efficiency and reducing employer's cost. Ajufo (2013) also explained the career choice helps to reduce youth unemployment and it helps to develop the social and economical situation of a country.

Graduate Employment Situation in Sri Lanka
'Employment' is a key yardstick to measure the economic health of a country. According to ''Department of Census and Statistics' (First quarter, 2020), national unemployment rate of Sri Lanka is 5.7% with a total unemployment among GCE (A/L) and above GCE level educated population of 10.1 %. Among the youth (age 15-24 years), the unemployment rate is 23.3%, according to the Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey (Alwis, January, 2020) 1 . Further, average overall unemployment ratio of universities is 54% (Singam, 2017). This graduate unemployment problem leads many economic and social issues. A study done by Ratnayake, Jayamanne, Perera and Ramyadevapriya (2011) showed that 416 out of 2,112 graduates had long term job search for more than one year. The employment 9status by discipline is give in table one below.

Management and Commerce Graduates' Unemployment Situation in Sri Lanka
There are fifteen state universities, established in Sri Lanka, and only thirteen universities, including Open University of Sri Lanka, currently offer around seventy-two bachelor's degrees of management and commerce related subjects where the management and commerce undergraduates become the second highest number of undergraduates' population in Sri Lankan national universities. (University Grant Commission -Sri Lanka, 2015). Management and commerce graduates show significant high level of unemployment. Singam (2017) highlighted that the Faculties of Arts and Management, having a higher rate of graduates' unemployment as 76% and 36% respectively, whereas Medicine and Engineering accounted only for 10% and 7% in 2012. Singam (2017) further claimed that Sri Lankan universities, are far behind, compared with developed and even in some developing countries.

Statement of Problem
It was shown that the unemployment among graduates in Sri Lanka and management and commerce undergraduates in Sri Lanka is considerably high. Alwis (January, 2020); Singam (2017);Ratnayake, et. al. (2011) (Keerthisinghe and Wijethunga, 2019;Galhena and Rathnayake, 2011;Vikneshwaran and Balasundaram, 2013;Tennakoon, Vidanapathirana and Sutharan, 2005). However, such studies have not covered a lager sample, extended to cover management and commernce undergraduates of all national universities in Sri Lanka. Additionally, the factor-list, selected to explain career choice is not exhausted enough. Based on such limitations, the research gap of this study was identified as the lack of studies in assessing enough factors that explain career choices among management and commerce graduates of national universities in Sri Lanka. Therefore, the research problem of this study was: what are the factors, influencing on career choices of management and commerce undergraduates in the Sri Lankan National Universities?

Research objectives
In order to answer the said research problem three major research objectives have been set; (1) to assess

Literature Review
A 'Career' is an individual's journey through learning, work, and other aspects of life. There are number of ways to define a career and the term is used in a variety of manner. According to Supper (1999), career is a combination and sequence of roles played by a person during the course of a life time. Further, he defined this role including those as child, student, citizen, worker, homemaker, spouse, parent, pensioner, etc. 'Choice' is an act of choosing between two or more possibilities (Oxford Dictionary Definition). Therefore, career choice can be stated as selecting a type of occupation or profession. Hiebert (1998) stated that choosing a career is perhaps second only to choose of mate in terms of the pervasiveness of the impact on one's life. Guay, Senecal, Gauthier and Fernet (2009) highlighted that too often, career choice and planning has been ineffectual because it was based upon an effort to match intellectual ability and interest with an occupation without considering other important variables. 'Career choice guidance and counseling' began in the western world more than 100 years ago. The theories evolved in the area of career choice have been practicing in the USA and internationally. It began in the years of Parson (1908) as a 'Trait and factor approach' in the early 20 th century, and it slowly began to become a rather mature discipline today in the 21 st century with a strong theoretical and empirical base.
There is sufficient amount of studies, done, on the factors to career choice and career choice. Such work is cited in the proceeding sections.

Demographic Factors to Career Choice
Many researchers identified some demographical factors, influencing on students' career choices. Sierles et. al. (2003) conducted a study and identified two main reasons influencing on student career choices; (a) intrinsic factors and (b) cultural factors and nationality trends. Foley, Guarneri and Kelly (2008) identified that racial and ethnic difference play a significant role in influencing on student career choices. Kiolbassa et. al. (2011) identified female workers chose to spend more time with their children and spouse. According to Ibrahim et. al. (2014), male students are more concerned with career prestige than females. But Miller (2012) argued that gender difference is not showing a direct impact on students' career choices. Mishkina, Wangrowiczb, Dorib, and Dori (2016) suggested women are significantly more influenced than men by others. According to Ko, Lp and Applegate (2010), employment status also significantly influences on career choices. Isso (2008) and Baller et. al. (2013) identified previous working experiences also significantly influence on undergraduates' career choices.

Personal Career Choice Factors
There are critical personal factors, influencing career choice such as aptitude, skills, personality, the level of responsibility that suits him/her interests and needs (Francis, 2011). Agarwala (2008), Eddy et. al. (2008, and Galhena (2011) found that skills and competencies and educational background play a critical role in influencing on selection of students' career. Robertsom, Smeets, Benhow, and Lubinski (2010) Agarwala (2008), and Galhena (2011) suggested family and peer groups influence on undergraduates' career choices though, Ogowewo (2010) has suggested that no significant influence of family factors on students' career choice. According to Ibrahim et. al. (2014) there is no influence from peer groups on students' career choices. Gibbon, Borders, Wiles, Stephan, and Davis, (2006); and Patten and McMahon (2014) found internet and media significantly influence on students' career choice decision. However, no studies can be found that media and internet impact on undergraduates' career choices within the study context.

Job Related Factors
Money, in terms of salary at work has been identified as the most important factor on African-Americans' career choices, while enjoyable nature of career becomes another important aspect, according to Gibson, Boeders, Wiles, Stephan, and Davis (2006). Galhena and Ratnayaka (2011) found that financial and non-financial factors influence on students' career choices. Opportunity of overseas placement has also been valued as another significant reason for career choice (Tyagi et. al., 2012). Sheikh et. al. (2012) also mentioned that overseas migration opportunity is one of the significant determinations of Pakistani medical undergraduates' career choices. No empirical study has been conducted in Sri Lanka to assess how migration opportunities influence as a job-related factor on management and commerce undergraduates' career choices. Thampoe (2016) suggested that salary, interesting job, job security, and educational opportunities are major critical influencers on career decisions of management students of northeastern university in Sri Lanka. Alexitch and Page (1997) found that less than one-third of students reported having received information related to career preparation and opportunities from their high school guidance counselors influenced their career choices. Tennakoon, Vidanapathirana and Sutharan (2005) identified interesting lectures and seminars, successful examinations, practical and laboratory-based trainings, problembased learning sessions and assignments, and students' seminars as influencing on medical undergraduates' career choices. Within the study context concerned, no such study could be found as evidence for studies on how university related factors influence management and commerce undergraduates' career choices. Within, the study context, such studies have not been carried out.

Methodology
The study was designed as a postpositivist study, selecting career choice as dependent variable and factors to career choice (personal factorsIV-1, social and technological factors -IV-2, Job related factors-IV-3, university related factors-IV-4) as independent variable. Based on the literature review, researchers derived the following mentioned conceptual framework for the current study. This study was done testing the null hypothesis, related to objective three.

H1 (0):
There is no influence of personal factors and career choices of management and commerce undergraduates in national universities in Sri Lanka.

H2 (0):
There is no influence of social and technical factors and career choices of management and commerce undergraduates in national universities in Sri Lanka.

H3 (0):
There is no influence of job related factors and career choices of management and commerce undergraduates in national universities in Sri Lanka.

H4 (0):
There is no influence of university related factors and career choices of management and commerce undergraduates in national universities in Sri Lanka Researchers selected the final year management and commerce undergraduates as the population, assuming that students have identified and selected their future career paths. According to UGC (2015) reports, final year management and commerce student enrollment is 4,486 in 13 state universities in Sri Lanka. The researchers used the formula provided by Yamane (1967), to calculate the sample size. According to this formula the required number of respondents is 367. Researchers provided 380 questions among the selected sample by using multistage random sampling method. This sampling method specially recommended for a larger sample which is scattered over large geographical area. In the first stage, the researchers selected six national universities randomly and in second stage randomly selected 380 final year commerce and management undergraduates.
Out of 380 questionnaires nine questionnaires had not properly filled, therefore researcher selected 371 questionnaires in the continuation of the study. The selected sample has been given in Table -02. For the pilot study, the questionnaire was distributed among 23 management and commerce final year undergraduates in the University of Colombo Sri Lanka for the validity and reliability measurements. The internal consistency reliability on the 'Cronbach's alpha coefficient is calculated as measure of reliability of the questionnaire. Cronbach's alpha for DV is 0.892, for IV-2 is 0.850, for IV-3 is 0.852 and for IV-4 is 0.838. All these values are greater than 0.7 and Cronbach's alpha value for IV-1 is 0.687 which is closer to 0.7 range. Therefore, researcher decided to continue the research with this questionnaire without any amendments.

Data Analysis
Data analysis plan is given in table 03. After removing the outliers, the mean values of DV was 3.77 and there was a 5% trimmed mean value of 3.81. The researcher used the descriptive statistical tools such as frequencies and percentages to measure the respondent's level of career choices. 152 respondents were having a higher level of career choice, 187, the majority of respondents were having a moderate level of career choice and only 18 were having a low level of career choice. It means 42.6% of respondents of Sri Lankan national university management and commerce undergraduates were having a strong idea about their career choices, 52.5%, the majority were having a moderate idea about their career choices and only 4.9% undergraduates having low idea about their future career choices. After removing the extreme outliers, the mean value of IV-1 was 3.60 and 5% trimmed mean value was 3.62. Mean value of IV-2 was 3.60 and 5% trimmed mean value was 3.62. After removing the outliers, mean value of 'IV-3' was 3.88 and 5% trimmed mean value was 3.93. Mean value of 'IV-4' was 3.81 and 5% trimmed mean value is 3.85. According to the output generated by SPSS 22.0 the residuals were homoscedastic and no heteroscedasticity problem. VIF was greater than 10, hens no Multicollinearity was reported. Durbin Watson value' was 2.114, it means residuals are independent and no autocorrelation problem in the residuals.
Researcher used 'correlation' to identify the relationship between DV and IV's. The highest relationship shows between 'career choice 'and 'personal factors', reporting a correlation value of r =0.468. The secondly highest relationship was shown between career choices and 'Job related factors', having a correlation value of r= 0.454. The relationship between career choices and 'university related factors' also showed a positive correlation of r = 0.323. The relationship between career choices and 'social and technical factors' shows the lowest correlation value which is r = 0.192. This means that 'personal factors', explaining 46.8% of the variation, 'job related factors' explaining 45.4% of the variation, 'university related factors' explaining 32.3% of the variation, and 'social and technical factors' explaining 19.2% of the variation in career choice of commerce and management undergraduates in Sri Lanka's national universities.
All IV's had been positively correlated with DV (Table-04). Researchers identified four sub factors under 'IV-1', three sub factors under 'IV-2', three sub factors under 'IV-3', and four sub factors under 'IV-4' (see Table -     It's also identified standardized beta of 'personal factors' (β=.332, p=.000) has a higher influence on management and commerce undergraduates' career choices among selected four factors.
As given in table 08, factors such as 'skills, competencies and abilities, educational background, interests and life style' influenced on Sri Lankan national university management and commerce undergraduates' career choices. 'Family background and peer groups' were not significantly influencing on career choices, but 'internet and mass media; significantly influencing on career choices. 'Career enjoying' and 'non-financial benefits' were also significantly influencing, but according to this study, 'financial benefits' not showing a significant influence on career choices. 'Lectures and seminars' and 'practical training opportunities' were significantly   Eddy et. al. (2008) and Galhena (2011) found that skills and competencies, and educational backgrounds had been the key factors that influence on selecting students' career choices. Researchers also found the same in this study. Additionally, researchers identified 'life style' and 'interests' are influencing on management and commerce undergraduates' career choices, confirming this same finding, made by the studies done by Robertsom, Smeets, Benhow and Lubinski (2010) and Ogowewo (2010). Researchers also identified 'personal factors' as the most influencing factor on this undergraduates' career choices. Agarwala (2008)  identified 'family background' and 'peer groups' significantly influence on undergraduates' career choices, however, Baller et. al. (2013) showed that social factors such as family and peer groups did not influence on students' career choices. By this study also, researchers confirmed that 'family background' and 'peer groups' did not influence on Sri Lankan management and commerce undergraduates' career choices. Additionally, researchers found 'media, social media and websites' significantly influenced on management and commerce undergraduates' career choices showing the similar results to the work of Gibbon, Borders, Wiles, Stephan, and Davis, (2006) and Patten and McMahon (2014). Gibbon, Borders, Wiles, Stephan, and Davis (2006) and Galhena and Ratnayaka (2011) respectively found that enjoying career' and 'financial and non-financial factors' influence significantly on student's career choices. Researchers also identified that 'enjoying career' and 'non-financial benefits' such as 'job prestige, career availability, promotional and educational opportunities, and migration opportunities' significantly influence on management and commerce undergraduates' career choices. However, it was found by the researchers that financial benefits' do not significantly influence on career choices. According to this study 'job related factors' were the second highest influencing factor on career choices. This study contributed to fill an identified research gap, by understanding the factors affecting the career choice decision of the selected target population. Further based on the conclusions, the researchers highlighted implications that majority of students with moderate level of their career understating, find it difficult to establish soon after their graduation in a rightly matching career. Therefore, it is recommended to launch career awareness programs by the universities as a part of their curriculum or and as external activities, outside to the curriculum to enhance high level of career awareness by the students. Even this career guidance activities can be promoted at school level. Mostly influential career factors to career choice decision are personal factors and that, students will select their personally valuing careers irrespective of the selection of careers that have high demand in the labour market or prioritized under the economic progressing agenda. This may lead to a mismatch between career opportunities, available and graduates' career preferences, resulting plausible further, high unemployment ratio. Therefore, it is recommended to create right career awareness through universities as part of the curriculum or external activities to outside curriculum about most exiting career opportunities, available by impacting on the power of graduates' personal factors in selecting a career. So that, students can be motivated to opt to a career that is available and prorated in the career rather always waiting for their preferred career. overall, this study identifies a high level of implications in university curricular on students' career development activities and that, it is recommended, in overall, to strengthen and give priority over students' career planning and career management activities within curricular and empower the career guidance unit to play a critical role to capitalize on students' competency development missions, launched by the universities to align students' personal career choices with country's demanded careers by eliminating possible mismatches and ultimately the reducing the high rate of unemployment among graduates now Sri Lanka Experiences.