Developing Technician Skills for Innovative Industries: Theory, Evidence from the UK Life Sciences Industry, and Policy Implications
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12532 |
| Author | Paul Lewis |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12532
58:3 September 2020 0007–1080 pp. 617–643
Developing Technician Skills for
Innovative Industries: Theory, Evidence
from the UK Life Sciences Industry, and
Policy Implications
Paul Lewis
Abstract
This article explores how innovative firms attempt to acquire the skilled
technicians needed to deploy new technologies. Interviews with 40 employers
from the UK life sciences sector reveal that shortages of technicians, an
awareness of the importance of practical skills best acquired through work-
based learning, and increasing dissatisfaction with the use of graduates, are
encouraging employers to turn towards apprenticeship training. However, the
rules governingthe funding of various kinds of education and training discourage
providers from oering the kinds of apprenticeships increasingly sought by
employers, giving rise to a ‘system failure’ that manifests itself in shortages of
technicians and the use of over-qualified graduates in technician roles.
1. Introduction
This article explores two, closely related questions. First, how do innovative
firms seek to acquire the skilled technicians they need to deploy new
technologies? Second, to what extent are their eorts supported or impeded
by the institutions governing the provision of various kinds of education and
training? These are important questions, not least because under the auspices
of the current industrial strategy, government policy in the UK emphasizes
both the importance of developing innovative, high-value manufacturing and
the need to train more skilled technicians of the kind that will be required as
and when those sectors expand (HM Government2017; HM Treasury and the
Department of Business, Innovation and Skills 2011). Nor are these questions
relevant only to the UK. Governments in several other countries are also
grappling with them as they attemptto develop their domestic industries in the
Paul Lewis is at Department of PoliticalEconomy, King’s College London.
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2020 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
618 British Journal of Industrial Relations
face of rapid technological change and increasingly fierce global competition
(see, for example, Dalitz and Toner 2016 for the case of Australia, Bonvillian
and Singer 2017 on the USA, Sung and Raddon 2017 on Singapore and Liu
and Finegold 2017 for China).
Innovation is the process whereby new technologies are created and diuse
through the economy to createnew products and novel methods of producing
existing goods and services. It involves the invention of completely new
ideas and the use of existing ideas by organizations that have not hitherto
employed them. It is the means through which new knowledge is applied
to economic processes in order to increase productivity, national income
and living standards (BIS 2011: 1–2, 7–22; OECD 2005: 46–52, 2015:
3–4). Defined thus, innovation clearly depends critically on the work of
highly qualified research scientists and engineers, who drive the research
and development (R&D) through which new ideas are developed (BIS
2011: 111–14; Jones and Grimshaw 2016: 109). Good managerial skills are
also important for ensuring the eective use of new knowledge and novel
technologies (Bloom et al. 2014; HM Government 2017: 169). But there
is another kind of worker who plays an important but in comparison to
graduates neglected role in innovation, namely, technicians (Makkonen and
Lin 2012; Tether et al. 2005; Toner 2011). Technicians are workersoccupying
roles that require ‘intermediate’ — that is, Levels 3–5 — skills in science,
technology,engineering and/or mathematics. The category encompasses both
‘skilled trades’, such as laboratory technicians and maintenance engineers,
and ‘associate professional/technical’ roles (examples of which include some
varieties of manufacturing technician and production engineer) (Mason
2012). Most significantly for whatfollows, technicians are intimately involved
in the installation, commissioning, operation and maintenance of new
technologies, thereby contributing to the ‘absorptive capacity’ of the firms
that employ them (i.e. to the ability of those firms to make eective use
of innovative technologies) (Cohen and Levinthal 1990: 128–33; Jones and
Grimshaw 2016: 112–15; Mason et al. 2019). Wherethe skills of the technician
workforceare deficient — because of shortages of technicians, or because their
skills are too specific, or because they lack theoretical knowledge — firms
will suer from poor absorptive capacity, lacking the capability to deploy
new technologies to good eect. This in turn lead to slower innovation, lower
productivity growth and reduced competitiveness (Mason and Wagner 2005;
Prais 1995).
The question therefore arises of how innovative firms fill the technician
roles required to deploy new technologies. That is the question addressed
in this article, which investigates how employers in two innovative parts of
the UK life sciences sector attempt to acquire the technicians they need and
how their eorts are facilitated or impeded by the working of the education
system. Data were collected via interviews with 40 employers in industrial
biotechnology (IB) and cell therapy (CT), with the research questions posed
and the analysis of the data being informed by twocomplementary analytical
perspectives: the theory of human capital (HC) and innovation systems (IS)
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2020 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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