The Factors Influencing International Students' Choice of Working in Taiwan after Graduation

Abstract or Introduction

This study examined the influence of personal, university experiences and labor market factors on international students' choice of working in Taiwan after graduation. Personal factors are individualistic features such as feelings, family ties and career perceptions. University experiences include everything that university life offers. Labor market factors cover all those features of Taiwan's labor market.

The main purpose was to discover the connections between personal factors, university experiences, labour market factors and international students' choice of working in Taiwan after graduation. Other purposes were to build an integrated model and provide a descriptive overview of the factors influencing international students' choice of working in Taiwan. By so doing, the study aimed to boost Taiwan's capacity of retaining international graduates as potential future and professional talent for the country. This is made necessary the transition of countries' economies to innovation-based economies which raises the demand for professional talent. In turn, the demand for professional talent caused the current "global war for talent". This war pushed countries including Taiwan to devise policies such as the National Human Resource Development (NHRD) action program and other strategies to attract and retain foreign talent to supplement locally undersupplies of talented workers. Primary data was collected from 205 international students who are currently studying in Taiwan universities. The Statistical Software for Social Sciences (SPSS) and SmartPLS3 were used to analyze the collected data. Results showed that indeed personal factors, university experiences and labor market factors have an influence on international students’ choice of working in the country after completing their studies. It was also discovered that university experiences and labor market factors mediate the influence of personal factors on international students’ choice of working in Taiwan after graduation.