RECONCILING EMPLOYER DEMANDS AND ACADEMIC DELIVERY: BRIDGING THE POWER SKILLS GAP AMONG MANAGEMENT GRADUATES

Abstract

As the global business landscape evolves power skills including communication, leadership, adaptability, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence position as essential competencies for management graduates. Despite this growing emphasis, a persistent misalignment remains between employer demands and academic delivery, particularly within the Sri Lankan context. Despite the considerable body of global research on skills mismatch, a lacuna exists in the scholarly discourse regarding a systematic review of ‘power skills’ and their localized implications in Sri Lanka. This study mitigates this identified research gap by executing a systematic review of extant literature, encompassing academic publications, industry reports, and employer-centric surveys published within the period of 2018 to 2024. By synthesising data from 30 secondary sources, this research provides an in-depth analysis of the skills gap and explores the key determinants of its existence. This study mitigates this identified research gap by executing a systematic review of extant literature, encompassing academic publications, industry reports, and employer-centric surveys published within the period of 2018 to 2024. The results emphasise that while employers consistently prioritise power skills across global and regional markets, management education continues to place disproportionate weightage on technical knowledge and theoretical constructs. Experiential learning models, leadership development initiatives, and critical thinking exercises remain insufficiently integrated into core curricula, exacerbating the gap between graduate capabilities and organisational needs. In the Sri Lankan context, structural limitations in pedagogy, curriculum design, and industry collaboration further deepen the skills mismatch. The study concludes that bridging the power skills gap requires systemic reforms, including the integration of power skills development into core management curricula, the adoption of experiential and reflective learning methodologies, and the strengthening of academia-industry linkages. Practical recommendations are proposed to align academic outputs with employer preferences, thereby enhancing graduate employability and organisational resilience in a complex and rapidly changing global economy.