The impact of social capital on international career intention

The new economy has caused a significant change in the global workforce. In the competitive labor market, where graduates hurry to find work, questions arise about the career plans of graduates. In order to cope with this economic change in the labor market, students need to be informed about how to proceed. This study was carried out in order to understand the international career expectations of the students and to determine the factors influential in this decision. The aim of this quantitative study was to examine the impact of social capital associated with contextual variables in social cognitive career theory on the international career intention of undergraduate students at Sakarya University Business School. These contextual variables were determined as family, peer, faculty, community social capitals, but it was decided that self-efficacy should be considered as an intermediary variable. The model was tested on students of five department in Sakarya University Business School. In particular, the reason why this faculty is chosen is that one of the departments is the International Trade Department. Within the framework of the research methodology, literature review was undertaken and the conceptual model was derived. Then, 6 hypotheses were chosen to be tested against it. For the purposes of this validation, a survey was conducted, within which 497 of the total 3613 registered students took part. The hypothesis was analyzed by using SPSS 20 program. The results of the study showed that peer, family and community social capital affect the international career intention of the participants indirectly through self-efficacy. In addition, the study also revealed that there is a significant difference between male and female students' international career intentions. Male students seem to be more willing to follow an international career path. One of the striking results of the study is that faculty staff (both administrative and academic) are not effective in international career intention. The results of the study can be used by the increasing career offices and outsourced career specialists at universities. It is also used as a human resources data for policy makers in Turkey.