Strategic Compensation as a Factor of Attraction for Students Graduating in Business Administration: A Brazilian Case

Abstract

This paper aims to identify the most attractive compensation strategies to students about to complete their undergraduate degree in Business Administration at the Federal University of S ã o Carlos (UFSCar). Thus, it seeks to meet the substantial and growing demand for business management professionals by the productive sectors in the Sorocaba metropolitan area, S ã o Paulo State, Brazil. Strategic compensation systems involve a balanced combination of different forms of compensation in order to achieve three main goals: to attract, retain, and motivate employees, in alignment with organizational goals. In Brazil, this practice was encouraged by the creation of Law No. 10.101 on December 19, 2000, which regulates employees’ profit sharing and company performance. The several existing compensation strategies must be tailored within the regional compensation practices, as market practices are parameters for determining the compensation mix in companies. The research method used was a survey to be a procedure for collecting primary data from individuals in line with the descriptive nature of the research. Data were collected through a questionnaire administered to students, using the Likert scale, whose measure was the degree of importance given by respondents to the surveyed items. The scale ranged from 1 to 5, where 1 was unimportant and 5 was very important. Based on the research population, the results suggest that the most attractive remuneration types are direct salary and benefits, followed by variable compensation and non-financial compensation.