Large Employers and Apprenticeship Training in Britain

We consider the link between apprenticeship and large employers in Britain, in terms of the contribution of apprenticeship to intermediate skills and the contribution of large employers to the Advanced Apprenticeship (AA) programme. Evidence is taken from interviews with managers in 28 organizations. We find that apprenticeship functions to only a limited extent outside AA, and then primarily because of the ineligibility of particular categories of trainee. The use that employers make of apprenticeship varies considerably, in association with its cost‐effectiveness relative to recruitment and upgrade training within human resource management strategy, and with employers’ evaluations of the technical content of AA qualifications. The prospects for increased sponsorship of apprenticeship by large organizations are curbed by the greater appeal of recruitment and upgrade training in various contexts.     

Apprenticeship Training and Day Release in UK Engineering: Some Cross-sectional Evidence

Cross-sectional evidence is presented on the determinants of the number of apprentices and employees on day release in a sample of UK engineering firms. Firm size, unionization, skill levels and turnover appear crucial for both measures of training.     

The Survival of Apprenticeship Training: A British, American, Australian Comparison

This paper examines the development of apprenticeship training in three English-speaking countries where apprenticeship has fared very differently. It declined at an early date in the USA in most sectors of the economy; it survived intact in Britain well into the post-Second World War period; and it has survived relatively strongly in Australia up to the present day. The reasons for decline and survival are examined and an explanation is proferred in terms of the interaction between the institutional supports and the ability and need felt by employers to sustain the system.     

Bargaining for Skills: Trade Unions and Training at the Workplace

Training and development have featured as key issues on the 'new bargaining agenda' outlined by the TUC. Although evidence suggests that union successes in achieving a role in training decisions at the workplace have thus far been limited, few studies have sought to examine the impact of union involvement on training outcomes. Drawing on a survey of members and representatives from the Manufacturing Science and Finance union, this paper demonstrates that union involvement in training decisions is associated with relatively superior training activities and outcomes at the workplace.     

培训项目策划与管理

用项目管理的理论和方法对培训项目按照策划、计划、组织实施与评估4个环节进行了全面分析和描述,对于提高技能培训和取证培训水平,推动培训项目的科学规范化管理具有重要的参考价值。     

High-Performance Workplaces, Training, and the Distribution of Skills

Using a data set based on a nationally representative sample of British establishments, the analysis suggests that those exhibiting high-performance work practices have higher levels of training and those with a comprehensive set of these (or bundle) exhibit much higher levels than those which do not. This mainly reflects a greater intensity rather than a greater breadth of training. There is little evidence that the presence of these practices at a workplacepromotes a polarization of skills.     

Works Councils,Collective Bargaining,and Apprenticeship Training – Evidence From German Firms

In this paper, we investigate the effects of works councils on apprenticeship training in Germany. The German law attributes works councils substantial information and co‐determination rights to training‐related issues. Thus, works councils may also have an impact on the cost‐benefit relation of workplace training. Using detailed firm‐level data containing information on the costs and benefits of apprenticeship training, we find that firms with works councils make a significantly higher net investment in training compared to firms without such an institution. We also find that the fraction of former trainees still employed with the same firm 5 years after training is significantly higher in the presence of works councils, thus enabling firms to recoup training investments over a longer time horizon. Furthermore, all works council effects are much more pronounced for firms covered by collective bargaining agreements.     

服装设计与工艺专业本科人才培养方案的优化

随着中国加入WTO以及内需市场的启动,中国服装业已经具有相当规模。服装行业亟需大量的服装专业技术人才。需要构建适应服装生产需求的专业人才培养方案,逐步培养与市场接轨的应用型、创新型人才和与大学深造接轨的研究型人才方案,来优化现行服装专业人才培养方案。本文主要从宏观和微观两个角度来研究服装专业人才培养方案的优化。宏观方面主要阐述服装专业人才培养方案目标优化;微观方面主要从课程顺序的优化,课程开课学期的顺序调整专业方向的延伸等方面研究人才培养方案的优化。     

Community Reinvestment and Credit Risk: Evidence from an Affordable-Home-Loan Program

This study examines the performance of home purchase loans originated by a major depository institution in Philadelphia under a flexible lending program between 1988 and 1994. We examine long-term delinquency in relation to neighborhood housing market conditions, borrower credit-history scores and other factors. We find that likelihood of delinquency declines with increasing neighborhood housing market activity. Also, likelihood of delinquency is greater for borrowers with low credit-history scores and those with high ratios of housing expense to income, and when the property is unusually expensive for the neighborhood where it is located.     

Building and Delivering the Virtual World: Commercializing Services for Internet Access

This study analyzes the service offerings of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), the commercial suppliers of Internet access in the United States. It presents data on the services of 2089 ISPs in the summer of 1998. By this time many ISPs had begun to offer services other than basic access. This paper develops an Internet access industry product code which classifies these services. Significant heterogeneity across ISPs is found in the propensity to offer these services, a pattern with an unconditional urban/rural difference. Most of the explained variance in behavior arises from firm-specific factors, with some evidence of location-specific factors.     

Delivering Flexibility: Contrasting Patterns in the French and the UK Food Processing Industry

This article provides a comparative analysis of changes in numerical and functional labour flexibility in the French and the UK food processing industry. Based upon case study data, it explores the interaction between competitive pressures and institutional and regulatory structures and their impact on workplace practices. The findings indicate that, faced with a similar competitive environment, firms in both countries have sought to increase labour flexibility. However, the predominant forms of flexibility vary across the two countries, partly reflecting the characteristics of national labour market institutions. Numerical flexibility dominates in the UK, with high levels of paid overtime and temporary agency work. In contrast, French workplaces rely more on internal functional flexibility while also achieving numerical flexibility through seasonal variations in work schedules and a wide range of short‐term employment contracts.     

Skills shortages and training: a forgotten dimension in new technology

Skills shortages and training problems are forgotten by many companies when they adopt new technology. 52 engineering firms in a 'traditional' industry in a single local labour market were interviewed to examine their attitudes to new technology and the skills and training implications of technology adoption. Skills and training issues were often forgotten or misjudged during the new technology appraisal process. It was these same areas which created most problems for many companies after adoption. Misjudgements concerning the level of labour force flexibility and training requirements for staff often created problems after the adoption of new technology. Skills shortages for adopting firms are most acute at the skilled level, this predominantly concerns the 'local labour market'. Most firms adopted a short term response to skills shortages. Relatively low utilisation of policy initiatives and 'formal' avenues of assistance prior to new technology adoption were also identified.     

Skills and Industrial Relations in Coordinated Market Economies — Continuing Vocational Training in Denmark,the Netherlands,Austria and Switzerland

This article offers the first systematic study of the institutional and political conditions under which collective agreements finance and organize continuing vocational training (CVT). Combining Mill's methods of agreement and difference with pattern matching, it identifies proactive small and medium enterprises, proactive public policies, proactive trade unions, and links between CVT and wage bargaining as probable conditions for CVT by collective labour agreement. The most important finding is that the research on the development of political–economic institutions in coordinated market economies has to analyse more carefully how state activities and the behaviour of small and medium‐sized firms affect the coordination of economic activities in skills formation.     

Chinese Trade Unions in the Transition from Socialism: Towards Corporatism or Civil Society?

The article explores the changing role of China's trade unions in the era of post-Mao economic reform in the light of two alternative scenarios of organizational evolution—corporatism and civil society. Using interviews and survey materials as well as documentary evidence, it concludes that the increasing complexity of the Chinese economy and the tensions it is producing are creating an associational universe of workers' organizations which is diverse and volatile, embodying elements of both scenarios. In such a context, corporatist industrial relations will be difficult to establish and maintain and it is likely that, in relations between unions and the party-state, the principles of corporatist inclusion and free association will come into increasing conflict.     

Employer‐Sponsored Training and Longer‐Tenured Workers: Evidence from Australia

I estimate the incidence and intensity of training with particular emphasis on where along the tenure‐training profile formal training occurs. Using data from the Survey of Education and Training gathered by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, I find a different relationship between training and tenure than what is suggested by human capital models. Instead of training being concentrated towards the beginning of the employment relationship, it tends to be evenly distributed along the tenure profile. Such findings are more consistent with theories of wage compression and strategic complementarity than traditional human capital approaches.     

Microelectronics in the Clothing Industry: Firm Strategy and the Skills Debate

This article examines the impact of CAD/CAM on the UK clothing industry. It questions the extent to which computerisation has led to a greater choice over production strategy and argues that upskilling has not occurred.     

Measuring the Employer's Return on Investments in Training: Evidence from the Literature

Three components of the literature on measuring the employer's rate of return to investments in employee training are reviewed: (1) studiesthat use large samples of firm-level or establishment-level data collected through mail or phone surveys, (2) studies that use data from one or two companies to conduct an 'econometric' case study, and (3) company-sponsored case studies. The strengths and weaknesses of each of these approaches are evaluated and the estimated returns on investments (ROIs) are compared. The analysis indicates that the employer's return on investments in training may be much higher than previously believed. In order to obtainaccurate information on the employer's ROI from training, researchers should be encouraged to gain access to company databases and to supplement them with data-gathering efforts to collect information on variables needed to isolate the effect of training.