Career Readiness through Generation Z Narratives: A Framework on Knowledge-to- Capability Translation

Abstract Management education faces increased pressure to prepare students for workplaces characterised by technological disruption, changing skill requirements, and heightened expectations of immediate job readiness. While existing research has examined Generation Z's employability, digital competencies, and expectations from higher education, less is known about how management students themselves perceive the process through which classroom knowledge becomes career-relevant capability. This study explores how Generation Z postgraduate management students conceptualise career readiness, identify perceived gaps between management education and workplace expectations, and describe the learning experiences they believe facilitate the transition from knowing to doing. Guided by an interpretivist paradigm, the study adopts a participatory netnographic design to explore how Generation Z postgraduate management students construct meanings of career readiness through online community interactions. Data is collected through student discussions, reflective posts, polls, and researcher-facilitated conversations within a dedicated digital community and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The study aims to develop a Knowledge-to-Capability Translation Framework that explains how students perceive the movement from conceptual learning to workplace readiness through experiential learning, digital competence, AI literacy, professional confidence, and capability development.