Enhance or Erode? How Elite Business Schools Shape Students Psychological Capital : A longitudinal qualitative study in Sweden

Sammanfattning

The future elites are often seen as fostered with social, cultural and future economic capital and resources during their educational lifecycle. Recent research suggests that a fourth type of capital is psychological, which underlines positive psychological resources (hope, optimism, self-efficacy and resilience). Through a longitudinal qualitative research design, we followed 12 students from three elite Swedish business schools over three years. The purpose was to unveil how the schools shape such resources. We found that two schools, with stronger externally perceived status, enhance psychological capital as it gives students a sense of hope and optimism in attaining future advantages. Meanwhile, it erodes self-efficacy and resilience as students are met with several stressors beyond academic stress, such as networking, job seeking and peer comparison. The third school, with a weaker externally perceived status, had fewer additional stressors. We suggest that this keeps students' psychological capital more intact, as there are less stressors present to erode it, although they emphasize less hope about future gains and advantages stemming from the school itself. We also present preliminary results on how the psychological resources of belongingness and entitlement could extend psychological capital theory to be adjusted to inequality and elite formation research.