Digital Skill Alignment over Time: The Dynamic Digital Skill Realisation Framework for Graduate Employability

Abstract

Higher education is expected to develop digital capabilities that support graduate employability, but the labour-market relevance of those capabilities can change between acquisition and employment entry. This conceptual article develops the Dynamic Digital Skill Realisation Framework (DDSRF) to explain that transition as a time-sensitive process rather than a fixed skills match. A theory-building synthesis was constructed through targeted purposive searches spanning higher education, digital skills, graduate employability, labour-market alignment, skill decay and obsolescence, signalling, employer judgement, and unequal employment outcomes. The contribution lies not in introducing new individual constructs, but in integrating them into a temporally explicit process. The framework distinguishes capability formation from initial alignment, capability-side skill decay from demand-side obsolescence, and skill signalling from employer recognition and valuation. It further specifies how contextual conditions shape the conversion of recognised skill value into realised employability outcomes and how graduate outcomes can inform institutional renewal. The propositions and empirical research agenda provide a basis for testing these relationships. Higher education should therefore address not only skill formation and initial matching, but also the preservation, visibility, recognition, and realisation of digital capability value across university-to-work transition.