Exploring job preferences of business and economics students from Colombia, Ecuador and Spain: a discrete choice experiment

Purpose - This study analyses the future job characteristics that are preferred by economics and business administration students in three specific regions of Spain, Colombia and Ecuador, and estimates their willingness to accept each. Design/methodology/approach - A discrete choice experiment (DCE) is carried out in these three regions. The econometric approach is based on the Random Parameter Logit model, which accounts for both the observed and unobserved heterogeneity by the use of socio-demographic variables and correlated random parameters. Findings - The main conclusions indicate that the most important job characteristic for students in all three countries is the long-term career prospects at the company, while a permanent contract is one of the least important job attributes. Regarding the more specific conclusions related to each country, the Ecuadorian students seem to have a higher preference for training opportunities, given the strong relationship between the level of education and the job category. The Spanish students seem to value their commuting time more highly than the South American students. Originality/value - To authors’ best knowledge, this is the first DCE-based study of economics and business administration students’ preferences for future jobs that has been conducted simultaneously in three countries on two different continents. Furthermore, this study presents fresh cross-country data that allow authors to compare student choices between South American and European countries. As a result, by focusing on the DCE approach, this study estimated the monetary amount that students from each country are willing to accept for each of the analysed job characteristics. Thus, this research fills a vacuum in the literature on student job preferences between three Latin speaking countries.