Tünde PATTAY-PALÁNKAI & Chidimma Ngozi OKAFOR & Beatrix SÉLLEI
One of the core tasks of higher education is to prepare students for the world of work, and that preparation extends beyond the transfer of technical knowledge. Academic programs differ not only in the knowledge they convey but also in the perspectives, values, and career expectations they encourage. The experiences students accumulate during their studies, together with the professional socialization associated with belonging to a particular academic community, may influence how they interpret workplace environments, organizational values, and employment conditions (Malin, 2022). Based on this, a degree program is not only a curriculum but also an environment where students begin to form a sense of professional identity and develop expectations regarding their future careers. This formative role is often overlooked when workplace preferences are treated solely as individual choices. Work-related values and expectations may also be associated with the educational and disciplinary environments in which they are developed. While a substantial body of research has examined what Generation Z expects from work, considerably less attention has been paid to how different academic fields and educational contexts may be reflected in those expectations. The present study addresses this gap by examining whether workplace expectations differ across fields of study and, if so, what these differences may reveal about the role of higher education in shaping work-related values and professional identities.
The present cohort of students transitioning from higher education to the labour market largely belongs to Generation Z, a group frequently described as placing importance on the meaning, ethics, and lifestyle implications of work in addition to material rewards. Previous studies suggest that, alongside traditional concerns such as salary and career advancement, members of this generation attach considerable importance to meaningful work, organizational purpose, sustainability, flexibility, and work–life balance. The disciplinary culture, professional identity, and labour market context associated with Business and Economics programmes differ from those associated with Technical Sciences programmes, and these differences may be reflected in distinct patterns of workplace expectations. Business and Economics education is often linked to competitiveness, efficiency, performance, and organizational success (Shebanin & Kormyshkin, 2019), whereas Technical Sciences education is more frequently associated with innovation, technological development, problem-solving, and sustainability-related challenges. Consequently, students enrolled in these programmes may develop different perspectives regarding organizational values, the purpose of work, and the factors that influence employment decisions.
Understanding these differences is important for both higher education institutions and employers. Universities are increasingly expected to prepare students not only with disciplinary knowledge but also with the skills, values, and expectations necessary for successful labour market integration. At the same time, employers face growing challenges in attracting and retaining Generation Z employees. Identifying how workplace expectations vary across academic fields may support curriculum development, career guidance initiatives, and university–industry cooperation, while also helping employers better understand the priorities of future graduates. From an educational perspective, examining these differences may also contribute to a better understanding of how disciplinary cultures and learning environments shape students' career-related value systems.
This paper investigates how students perceive the importance of organizational purpose and related values when choosing an employer and whether these perceptions differ between Business and Economics students and Technical Sciences students. More specifically, the study examines four dimensions of workplace expectations: (1) the importance of organizational purpose in employer choice, (2) motivation derived from identifying with an organizational mission, (3) preferences regarding sustainability and financial rewards, and (4) preferences regarding organizational purpose and workplace flexibility. Drawing on the literature on purpose, organizational values, and professional identity development, the study examines how workplace expectations are associated with students’ educational backgrounds and disciplinary contexts. Rather than treating workplace preferences exclusively as individual attitudes, the study approaches them as outcomes that may be associated with educational experiences and disciplinary socialization processes. By comparing students from two distinct academic fields, the study seeks to contribute to the growing literature on higher education, professional identity formation, and workplace values among Generation Z. The paper first reviews higher education as a value-shaping environment and the relevant literature on purpose, organizational purpose, and Generation Z workplace expectations. It then presents the empirical findings and discusses their implications for curriculum development, career guidance, and university–industry cooperation. These two disciplinary areas were selected because they represent educational environments characterized by substantially different professional cultures, labour-market pathways, and value orientations.
Within the Hungarian higher education context, increasing attention has been devoted to graduate employability and the alignment between educational outcomes and labour-market expectations.
Universities are commonly described in terms of what they teach, but their influence on students extends well beyond the formal curriculum. Through exposure to new perspectives, expanded social networks, and opportunities to pursue personally meaningful interests, higher education provides an environment in which students can explore and develop a sense of purpose (Malin, 2022). In addition to acquiring knowledge and competencies, students encounter new value systems, professional norms, and ways of understanding the world that may influence how they perceive work, organizations, and future career opportunities.
Beyond disciplinary knowledge acquisition, contemporary higher education is increasingly expected to support students' personal, professional, and career development. Student development theories emphasize that higher education influences not only cognitive growth but also the formation of values, aspirations, and future-oriented identities. Astin's (1993) theory of student involvement suggests that the quality and intensity of students' engagement with the university environment significantly shape developmental outcomes. Similarly, Tinto (1993) argues that students' academic and social integration within higher education institutions contributes not only to persistence and retention but also to the development of aspirations, identities, and future professional trajectories.
The concept of graduate employability has also become a central concern within higher education. Employability extends beyond obtaining employment and includes the development of knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, and self-awareness that enable graduates to navigate increasingly complex labour market environments (Yorke, 2006). From this perspective, workplace expectations may be understood not merely as personal preferences but as outcomes of broader developmental and educational processes occurring during university studies.
A substantial part of this developmental process takes place through academic and professional socialization. Alongside formal learning experiences, students gradually absorb the norms, assumptions, expectations, and ways of thinking that characterize their academic communities. This process helps explain why graduates of different programs often leave university with different orientations toward work, not merely different skills (Weidman, Twale, & Stein, 2001).
Building on this idea, Becher and Trowler (2001) describe academic disciplines as distinct communities with their own values, conventions, and ways of relating knowledge to practice. Through participation in these disciplinary cultures, students gradually develop particular understandings of professional success, organizational responsibility, and the purpose of work itself. Consequently, workplace expectations may reflect not only individual preferences but also the educational and disciplinary environments in which those preferences have developed.
This perspective is particularly relevant when comparing students from different academic fields. If higher education contributes to the formation of professional identities, workplace values, and career expectations, differences observed between disciplinary groups may provide valuable insights into the role of educational environments in shaping future graduates' orientations toward work.
Purpose has been defined as an aspect of psychological well-being marked by a sense of directedness in life and the presence of aims and objectives for living (Ryff & Keyes, 1995). Malin (2022) treated purpose as a multi-layered construct and distinguished three dimensions whose extent and content vary from person to person: the significant goal someone hopes to achieve, the motivation that comes from sources beyond the self, and the steps the person takes to fulfil that goal. From this perspective, people are not simply high or low in purpose. Each individual has a distinct purpose profile that combines the content of their intentions, the reasons behind them, and the effort they put into pursuing them. This individual-centred focus matters here because it implies that the way purpose is expressed in workplace expectations may also differ in patterned ways across groups of students.
From the position of positive psychology, which studies human strengths and well-being to understand the adaptive and satisfying sides of behaviour (Compton & Hoffman, 2020), a sense of purpose in life is treated as a major asset for health and well-being (Windsor et al., 2015). Research has repeatedly linked a sense of purpose with positive affect, resilience, and motivation (Hill et al., 2010; Sharma, Kim, & Bernal-Arevalo, 2021; Windsor et al., 2015). Among university students, a sense of purpose predicts degree commitment, institutional commitment, and academic identity, and is related to real progress toward a degree, as measured by grade point average, academic standing, and first-year retention (Yukhymenko-Lescroart & Sharma, 2023). It has also been tied to resilience and persistence among college students during periods of disruption (Sharma & Yukhymenko-Lescroart, 2022).
Yukhymenko-Lescroart (2024) described purpose orientations along three dimensions that capture what people are oriented toward as they pursue their goals: career-focused, self-growth-oriented, and others growth-oriented. For students, a career-focused orientation aligns closely with finishing their studies, as dedication to study is the route through which longer-term career goals are reached. These orientations matter for the present argument because they foreshadow the values that students may carry into the workplace. A career-focused orientation may stress advancement and security, a self-growth orientation may stress learning and flexibility, and an others’ growth orientation may stress social responsibility and contribution, the last of which maps onto sustainability and purpose-driven employer missions.
Based on the literature discussed above, we move from purpose as an individual resource to organizational purpose and values through which an organization explains why it exists and what it contributes beyond profit. For students entering the labour market, organizational purpose works as a signal that can attract or repel prospective employees; the degree to which a clear and compelling purpose influences employer choice is itself a measure of how far purpose-related values have been internalized. Motivation and engagement tend to be higher when employees identify with the mission of the organization they join. This study treats both the perceived influence of organizational purpose and the motivation drawn from identifying with a company’s mission as observable expressions of that alignment, and it reads the strength of these responses as partly a product of what students have learned to value during their studies.
The group now entering the labour market is often portrayed as ranking meaning, ethics, and quality of life alongside material reward very highly. Four dimensions are particularly relevant in this context. The first is organizational purpose itself, where the extent to which a clear mission shapes employer choice and workplace motivation. The second is sustainability and social responsibility, which is the expectation that an employer should act responsibly toward society and the environment. The third is flexibility, understood as the ability to shape one’s own working conditions, which has become a prominent expectation in contemporary work settings. The fourth is financial security, a practical concern with pay and stability that continues to anchor career decisions. A central question is how students weigh these dimensions against one another when they cannot all be satisfied at once, for example, sustainability against salary or purpose against flexibility. Generation Z is commonly defined as those born between 1995 and 2010 (Steigervald, 2020), and it is this group that we address this.
Field of study is a plausible area of variation in workplace expectations because disciplines cultivate distinct professional identities and point students toward different parts of the labor market. The argument is not simply that the two groups differ, but that their educational environments help produce these differences. Business Economics programs are closely tied to commercial, profit-oriented settings in which financial performance and market logic are prominent, and a curriculum built around competitiveness and organizational success may foster a comparatively pragmatic measurement of salary and security. Technical sciences programs, by contrast, are often connected to applying problem-solving skills and to sectors in which sustainability, innovation, and societal contribution are increasingly treated as core challenges, which may encourage greater openness to purpose and sustainability-related roles. Disciplinary socialization offers a way of understanding this, such that as students are drawn into the norms and concerns of their field (Becher & Trowler, 2001; Weidman et al., 2001), they absorb a sense of what work is for, and that sense is reflected in what they later expect from an employer. These contrasting contexts motivate the central comparison of the study and the expectation that the two groups will differ in how they measure purpose and sustainability against certain concerns, even as flexibility and financial security remain important to both.
Research on workplace preferences has long focused on financial incentives, especially salary and advancement. More recently, attention has shifted toward non-financial factors such as meaningful work, organizational purpose, sustainability, and flexibility, which appear to play a growing part in the employment decisions of Generation Z. Much less is known about how these values and expectations differ across students in different fields of higher-education. Because academic programs expose students to distinct professional cultures, value systems, and career pathways, it is reasonable to assume that students from different disciplines evaluate workplace characteristics differently.
The study therefore, explores how these differences can be observed between Business Economics students and Technical Sciences students based on the importance they attach to organizational purpose, sustainability, workplace flexibility, and financial considerations, and to interpret those differences considering the educational environments that may have shaped them. Three research questions guided this inquiry:
RQ1. Are there differences between Business and Economics students and Technical Sciences students in the perceived importance of organizational purpose for employer choice and work motivation?
RQ2. Do Business and Economics students and Technical Sciences students differ in their preferences when faced with trade-offs between sustainability-related values and financial considerations?
RQ3. Are there differences between the two groups in the relative importance assigned to organizational purpose and workplace flexibility?
The study is based on a questionnaire survey conducted among Hungarian higher education students. Data were collected through an online questionnaire between August and September 2025. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. Ethical approval for the research was granted by the Unified Psychological Research Ethics Committee. All procedures complied with the requirements regarding informed consent, anonymity, confidentiality, and data protection.
Following data cleaning, the final sample consisted of 709 valid responses. All respondents belonged to Generation Z, defined in this study as individuals born between 1995 and 2010 (Steigervald, 2020), and were enrolled in Hungarian higher education institutions at the time of data collection, either in full-time or part-time study programmes. As all participants were actively engaged in higher education, the sample provides an appropriate context for examining how workplace expectations emerge during the transition from education to employment.
Higher education represents a particularly important stage in the development of professional identities, career aspirations, and work-related values. Students are exposed not only to disciplinary knowledge but also to professional norms, expectations, and value systems associated with their chosen fields of study. Consequently, university students provide a relevant population for investigating how educational environments may be associated with differences in workplace expectations. The main characteristics of the sample are presented in Figure 1. The final dataset consisted of 709 respondents, with a relatively balanced gender distribution (53% female and 47% male). Regarding field of study, Business and Economics students represented the largest subgroup (74%), followed by students from Technical Sciences (19%), while respondents from other academic fields accounted for 7% of the sample. The vast majority of participants were enrolled in full-time programmes (97%), indicating that the findings primarily reflect the workplace expectations of students actively participating in campus-based higher education. Consequently, the results may provide useful insights for higher education institutions seeking to understand and support the career expectations and value orientations of students during their studies.
As the study focuses on students who are currently participating in higher education and preparing to enter the labour market, the findings offer insights into the expectations and value orientations of future graduates at a particularly important stage of career development. Although the distribution across fields of study was not even, both Business and Economics and Technical Sciences were represented by sufficiently large groups to allow meaningful statistical comparisons.
Measures
The analysis focuses on four dimensions of workplace expectations that are frequently discussed in the literature on Generation Z and career preferences. These dimensions were selected because they represent key workplace values frequently associated with Generation Z and are closely linked to contemporary discussions on organizational purpose, sustainability, and career decision-making. First, respondents evaluated the extent to which a clear and inspiring organizational purpose influences their choice of employer. Second, they indicated whether they would be more motivated if they could identify with the mission of their employer. Third, respondents expressed their preferences when faced with a trade-off between sustainability-related values and higher financial compensation. Finally, they were asked to choose between organizational purpose and workplace flexibility as competing workplace characteristics.
Data Analysis
Data were analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the characteristics of the sample and the distribution of responses. To examine differences between Business and Economics students and Technical Sciences students, cross-tabulation analyses and Pearson's chi-square tests were performed for categorical variables. Cramer's V was calculated to assess the strength of significant associations. For the Likert-scale measure examining the influence of organizational purpose on employer choice, independent-samples t-tests were conducted to compare group means. For all analyses, statistical significance was evaluated at the 5% significance level (p < .05).
The analysis focused on identifying differences in workplace values and expectations across disciplinary groups rather than establishing causal relationships between educational experiences and workplace preferences. The findings were interpreted as reflecting associations between educational contexts and workplace expectations, thereby contributing to a better understanding of the relationship between higher education and the development of work-related values. It should be noted that the study does not directly measure disciplinary socialization processes, professional identity development, or specific educational experiences. Consequently, interpretations concerning the influence of educational environments should be understood as theoretically informed explanations rather than empirically verified causal mechanisms. The findings therefore provide evidence of associations between educational contexts and workplace values, while the underlying developmental processes require further investigation.
Results
This section presents the results of the comparative analyses between Business and Economics students and Technical Sciences students. The findings are organized around the three research questions and the four dimensions of workplace expectations examined in the study.
The first research question examined whether Business and Economics students and Technical Sciences students differ in the importance they attach to organizational purpose when choosing an employer. An independent-samples t-test revealed a statistically significant difference between the two groups regarding the influence of organizational purpose on employer choice, t(654) = -1.995, p = .046. Students from Technical Sciences reported a slightly stronger influence of organizational purpose than students from Business and Economics (M = 4.33, SD = 1.40). However, the effect size was small (Cohen's d = 0.19), suggesting that the difference, while statistically significant, was modest in practical terms.
A significant association was also found between field of study and motivation derived from identifying with an organizational mission (χ² = 20.17, df = 4, p < .001, Cramer's V = .119). Business and Economics students were somewhat more likely to report that they would be more motivated if they could identify with their employer's mission (77.9%) than Technical Sciences students (72.7%). Conversely, Technical Sciences students were more likely to indicate that organizational purpose would not increase their motivation (15.2% vs. 7.8%). The strength of the association was weak.
Taken together, the findings provide only partial support for the assumption that Technical Sciences students are more purpose-oriented than Business and Economics students. While Technical Sciences students reported a slightly stronger influence of organizational purpose on employer choice, Business and Economics students were somewhat more likely to indicate that identification with an organizational mission would increase their work motivation. These results suggest that different aspects of organizational purpose may be interpreted differently across disciplinary groups, highlighting the potential role of educational contexts in shaping how purpose is understood and expressed.
The second research question examined whether Business and Economics students and Technical Sciences students differ in their preferences when choosing between a socially responsible and sustainable employer and an employer offering higher financial compensation.
A statistically significant association was found between field of study and these preferences (χ² = 43.31, df = 6, p < .001). The strength of the association was weak to moderate (Cramer's V = .175).
Business and Economics students were more likely to prioritize financial considerations, with 49.0% indicating that salary-related factors were more important than sustainability-related considerations. Among Technical Sciences students, this proportion was lower (37.9%). Conversely, Technical Sciences students were more than twice as likely to choose a sustainable and socially responsible employer (15.9%) than Business and Economics students (6.5%). At the same time, a considerable proportion of respondents in both groups indicated that sustainability and financial compensation were equally important (42.7% among Business and Economics students and 44.7% among Technical Sciences students). Only a small minority reported that neither factor would influence their decision.
These findings indicate that Technical Sciences students demonstrate greater openness toward sustainability-related considerations, whereas Business and Economics students place greater emphasis on financial rewards when evaluating potential employers.
The third research question examined whether Business and Economics students and Technical Sciences students differ in the relative importance they assign to organizational purpose and workplace flexibility.
A statistically significant association was found between field of study and preferences regarding organizational purpose and workplace flexibility (χ² = 22.18, df = 6, p = .001). The strength of the association was weak (Cramer's V = .125).
Business and Economics students were considerably more likely to prioritize workplace flexibility, with 59.0% selecting this option compared to 43.2% of Technical Sciences students. In contrast, Technical Sciences students were more than twice as likely to prioritize organizational purpose (22.7%) than Business and Economics students (9.4%). Similar proportions of respondents in both groups indicated that organizational purpose and workplace flexibility were equally important (29.4% and 30.3%, respectively).
These findings suggest that Technical Sciences students place relatively greater emphasis on organizational purpose when evaluating potential employers, whereas Business and Economics students tend to assign greater importance to workplace flexibility.
Overall, the findings reveal both common and discipline-specific workplace expectations among Generation Z students. While flexibility and financial security remained important across both groups, differences emerged regarding the relative importance of organizational purpose and sustainability. These patterns suggest that workplace values may be associated with students' disciplinary backgrounds and educational contexts.
The comparison in this study should not be understood simply as a contrast between two groups of students, but rather as an opportunity to explore how educational environments may contribute to the development of work-related values. If Technical Sciences students show comparatively greater openness toward organizational purpose and sustainability, and Business and Economics students place somewhat greater weight on financial considerations, the more interesting question is why this happens. The finding above is in tandem and rooted in academic socialization and disciplinary culture rather than in individual temperament alone (Becher & Trowler, 2001; Malin, 2022).
The findings may reflect differences in disciplinary cultures and professional socialization processes operating within higher education environments. Technical Sciences education increasingly frames technological development in relation to societal and environmental challenges. Students are taught to view energy, infrastructure, and design problems as bound up with questions of responsibility and long-term consequences. It would be surprising if this framing left no mark on how they think about their employers. A graduate accustomed to treating sustainability as a technical and ethical problem may expect an employer to take the same questions seriously. Business and Economics education, with its emphasis on competitiveness, efficiency, and organizational performance, offers a different vocabulary for thinking about work, one in which financial soundness and market position are foregrounded. A comparatively pragmatic weighting of salary and security among these students is consistent with the values their programs tend to reinforce.
At the same time, the findings suggest that organizational purpose should not be interpreted as a simple characteristic that is either present or absent within a disciplinary group. The results related to organizational purpose were more nuanced. Technical Sciences students reported a stronger influence of organizational purpose on employer choice and were more likely to prioritize purpose over workplace flexibility. However, Business and Economics students were somewhat more likely to report that identifying with an organizational mission would increase their work motivation. This suggests that organizational purpose may be expressed differently across educational contexts. For some students, purpose appears primarily as a motivational resource, whereas for others it is reflected more strongly in concrete employment preferences and career-related trade-offs.
Reading the results in this way changes their meaning. Rather than treating a stronger preference for purpose as a fixed trait of technical sciences students, we can treat it as partly a product of their education, and therefore as something that universities can influence. The same logic applies to the dimensions on which the two groups resemble each other. The fact that flexibility and financial security matter to both suggests that some expectations belong to the generation rather than the discipline. These are the concerns Generation Z brings to the labor market regardless of field (Steigervald, 2020), forming a common foundation upon which more discipline-specific values are built. The stronger sustainability orientation observed among Technical Sciences students further supports this interpretation, suggesting that educational environments may shape not only technical competencies but also broader value preferences related to social and environmental responsibility.
From the perspective of higher education, these findings are particularly relevant because they indicate that workplace values are not entirely independent from the educational contexts in which students develop their professional identities. Universities do not merely transfer disciplinary knowledge; they also provide frameworks through which students interpret work, organizational values, and career opportunities. Consequently, higher education institutions may play an important role in fostering reflection on sustainability, organizational purpose, and the broader social implications of professional work.
The work on purpose orientations implies that students differ in whether they are oriented primarily toward career, self-growth, or contribution to others (Yukhymenko-Lescroart, 2024), and that these orientations take shape during university years. If a sense of purpose supports degree commitment and persistence (Yukhymenko-Lescroart & Sharma, 2023), and if disciplinary environments channel that purpose in particular directions, then the workplace expectations students hold at graduation are the visible end of a longer process that began when they entered their programs. These findings suggest that the role of higher education extends beyond knowledge transmission and may also involve the development of workplace values, purpose orientations, and professional identities that influence students' future career expectations.
The findings suggest that workplace values should be considered not only labour-market outcomes but also educational outcomes emerging during students' participation in higher education. If workplace values are shaped in part by educational environments, then universities are not bystanders to the patterns observed in this study. They are among the forces that produce them, which means the findings carry valid implications for how higher education institutions prepare students for the labor market.
The first concern is curriculum design. If Technical Sciences programs cultivate openness to sustainability and purpose largely because those themes are built into the curriculum, then Business and Economics programs could do something similar by giving more room to questions of organizational purpose, ethics, and social responsibility. The aim would not be to dilute the financial and analytical strengths of the field but to broaden the vocabulary students use when they think about what an organization stands for. Embedding purpose and sustainability-related content across both kinds of programs would help align graduates in the labor market, where these expectations are becoming standard rather than exceptional.
The second focuses on career guidance and counselling. Students leave university with different orientations toward work, and generic advice most of the time serves them poorly. Career services that recognize the developmental and disciplinary roots of these orientations can help students articulate what they want from an employer, including the weight they place on purpose, sustainability, flexibility, and security. Purpose-oriented career counselling, which encourages students to connect their personal sense of meaning with concrete employment choices, fits naturally with the evidence that purpose supports both well-being and resilience (Sharma & Yukhymenko-Lescroart, 2022; Yukhymenko-Lescroart & Sharma, 2023). The findings of the present study also suggest that organizational purpose may not be expressed in the same way across disciplinary contexts. While some students appear to value purpose primarily as a source of motivation, others express purpose-related orientations through sustainability preferences or their willingness to prioritize organizational purpose in employment-related trade-offs. Consequently, educational initiatives aimed at fostering purpose should recognize that purpose may take different forms across academic fields rather than assuming a single, uniform orientation.
The third concern is employability and the relationship between universities and employers. Graduates who are motivated by identifying with a mission are an asset to organizations that take purpose seriously. The results indicate that purpose remains an important consideration for students across both disciplinary groups, although its relative importance differs depending on the employment decision being considered. Employers seeking to attract Generation Z graduates may therefore benefit from communicating not only organizational goals and social impact but also how these values are reflected in everyday work practices, flexibility arrangements, and career opportunities. Universities can strengthen this match through closer cooperation with industry, placements, and projects that expose students to purpose-driven organizations, and by helping employers understand what this generation of graduates is looking for. The idea is not to manage expectations downward but to prepare both sides for a labour market in which meaning and responsibility increasingly sit alongside pay and stability.
Finally, the shared concerns of the two groups deserve their own attention. Because flexibility and financial security matter across fields, institutions, and employers alike would do well to treat them as baseline expectations rather than perks. For universities, this means being honest with students about working conditions and helping them realistically weigh trade-offs. For employers, this means recognizing that flexibility and security are now part of what makes any role attractive to early career graduates.
The findings raise the question of whether purpose development should be considered an explicit educational objective within higher education programmes. If workplace values and career expectations are partly shaped during university years, institutions may have a role not only in preparing students for employment but also in supporting reflection on the meaning and social impact of professional work.
This study sets out to understand why Business and Economics students and Technical Sciences students differ in what they expect from future employers, and to examine those differences through the role of higher education in shaping work-related values. There are expectations the two groups share, flexibility and financial security among them, which seem to belong to Generation Z. Above, there are discipline-specific tendencies, with Technical Sciences students comparatively more drawn to purpose and sustainability, and Business and Economics students comparatively more focused on financial considerations. This reflects the distinct cultures and socialization patterns cultivated in different academic fields (Becher & Trowler, 2001; Malin, 2022).
At the same time, the findings suggest that organizational purpose may be expressed differently across disciplinary contexts. While Technical Sciences students were more likely to prioritize purpose and sustainability in employment-related trade-offs, Business and Economics students were more likely to report that identification with an organizational mission would increase their motivation. This indicates that purpose is not a uniform construct but may be interpreted and enacted in different ways depending on educational and professional contexts.
If universities help shape how students value work, they can also help shape it more deliberately through curricula that broaden the questions students ask about organizations, career guidance attentive to purpose, and closer ties with employers who share these commitments. Preparing graduates for the present labor market means attending not only to what they know but to what they have learned to value. Higher education is uniquely positioned to take on this task.
The study is subject to several limitations. The sample was drawn from Hungarian higher education students and was dominated by full-time students, which may limit the generalizability of the findings. Furthermore, the cross-sectional nature of the research does not allow causal conclusions to be drawn regarding the influence of higher education on workplace values and expectations. The unequal representation of disciplinary groups should also be considered when interpreting the findings. An additional limitation is that the study relies on field of study as a proxy for educational environment. Although disciplinary differences may reflect distinct socialization processes and professional cultures, the present research did not directly assess students' educational experiences, curricular exposure, or professional identity development. Future research should incorporate measures of disciplinary socialization, purpose development, and employability-related learning experiences to better understand the mechanisms through which higher education may influence workplace values and career expectations.
Future research could extend this work by examining a broader range of academic disciplines, comparing students and graduates at different career stages, or employing longitudinal designs to explore how workplace values and purpose orientations develop over time. Such studies could contribute to a deeper understanding of how higher education and professional socialization interact in shaping the work-related values of future generations.
The project supported by the Doctoral Excellence Fellowship Programme (DCEP) is funded by the National Research, Development, and Innovation Fund of the Ministry of Culture and Innovation and the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.
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