Enabling Educators to Foster Creativity and Perceived Employability: The Role of Serious Leisure

Introduction

National policies have continued to promote the employability of graduates as a critical metric of university performance, whereby educators in Higher Education Institutions are tasked with producing graduates who can meet the needs of organizations (Jackson & Bridgstock, 2019). Rothwell and Arnold (2007) define employability as “the individual’s ability to keep the job one has, or to get the job one desires” (p. 25). Nonetheless, Perceived Employability (PE) is profoundly important from a career perspective. It determines how an individual acts in certain situations like job search and job performance, impacting organizations via talent acquisition and retention, productivity, and profit (Twenge et al., 2010).

The term PE is defined as ‘the individual’s perception of his or her possibilities of obtaining and maintaining employment’ (Vanhercke et al., 2014, p. 594). However, the needs of organizations continue to evolve, and the new vicissitudes of work are such that boundaries between our work and personal lives are becoming increasingly blurred (Wang et al., 2020). To meet the needs of organizations and experience career sustainability, individuals require personal growth opportunities and the ability to derive happiness from various lifelong learning experiences. Graduates entering the labor market thus need to be able to balance work and leisure time for career sustainability (De Vos et al., 2020).

One suggested avenue for personal growth and happiness outcomes is participation in Serious Leisure (Kim et al., 2015). Stebbins (1992) defines Serious Leisure (SL) as:

The ‘Seriousness’ component of SL embodies perseverance, durable benefits, identification with activity, unique ethos, significant personal efforts, and career progression (Stebbins, 1982). The ‘Leisure’ component of SL covers three dimensions: amateur, volunteer, and hobbyist. Amateurs serve the public the best they can, are guided by excellence standards, and may or may not receive remuneration for their service (Stebbins, 1980). Volunteers are altruistic persons who perform the task delegated to them and whose interest in engaging in the activity is self-driven (Stebbins, 1982). Hobbyists choose to participate in an activity without a professional counterpart, whereby their participation is driven by enjoyment of the activity rather than an obligation to undertake it (Stebbins, 1980).

To date, scholars have examined various leisure activities through the lens of seriousness, including lawn bowling (Heuser, 2005), and quilting (Stalp, 2006). The leisure activities that embody seriousness make SL unique from other short-term leisure activities like casual leisure and project-based leisure (Veal, 2017). Thus, SL enthusiasts are more obliged to engage in leisure activities that bring them durable benefits. The vocational behavior literature continues to be dominated by studies seeking to improve graduates' PE and subsequent employability outcomes (Donald et al., 2018). For example, enabling students to develop human capital, providing career counsellors to offer career advice, and encouraging students to take ownership of their careers (Donald et al., 2019).

Moreover, participation in extracurricular activities enhanced the employability of university students in Australia (Jackson & Bridgstock, 2021). Yet, the potential benefits of engaging in SL have not been sufficiently explored in the context of preparing graduates for the university-to-work transition (Nimmi & Donald, 2022). Specifically, how innovation via Creativity can be enhanced by engaging in SL and the impacts this has for educators, careers advisors, universities, graduates, and organizations.