Graduate employability is now typically conceptualised in terms of the extent to which the capacities of individual students match the available employment opportunities. As a result, higher education is increasingly seen as an investment in a project of the self for economic reward. This theoretical study draws on critical realist perspectives to problematise existing understandings of employability. It explores a collective perspective on work, analysing the institutional, social and reflexive basis for agency in workplaces. This exploration supports a conceptualisation in which graduate employability is understood 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. It is argued that were higher education to treat collectives as an integral aspect of learning, then workplaces could be aligned more directly towards values that matter to society.

中文翻译：

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作为工作场所代理能力的就业能力：集体工作观对高等教育的影响

毕业生就业能力现在通常根据个别学生的能力与可用就业机会相匹配的程度来概念化。因此，高等教育越来越被视为对自我项目的投资，以获得经济回报。这项理论研究利用批判现实主义的观点来质疑现有对就业能力的理解。它探索了工作的集体视角，分析了工作场所代理的制度、社会和反思基础。这种探索支持一种概念化，其中毕业生就业能力被理解为毕业生在工作场所内以有助于维护和完善集体的方式充当代理人的能力。