When Do Companies Train Low‐Skilled Workers? The Role of Institutional Arrangements at the Company and Sectoral Level
| Author | Philip Wotschack |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12503 |
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12503
58:3 September 2020 0007–1080 pp. 587–616
When Do Companies Train Low-Skilled
Workers? The Role of Institutional
Arrangements at the Company and
Sectoral Level
Philip Wotschack
Abstract
The article investigates how institutional arrangements at the organizationaland
sectoral level aect the likelihood and sizeof employer investments in continuing
training for low-skilled workers in Germany. By building on comparative
political economy and organizational theory, hypotheses are derived and tested.
Regression analysis based on the IAB Establishment Survey (waves 2011 and
2013) shows evidence that the training participation of low-skilled workers is
related to institutional dierences between sectors and organizations. At the
organizational level, structures of employee representation and formalized HR
policies are positively associated with higher rates of training participation
among low-skilled workers. Moreover, there is evidence that low-skilled workers
benefit in organizational clusters that are characterized by structures of
employee representation, formalized HR practices, and bargaining coverage.
At the sectoral level, this study finds evidence that low-skilled workers in the
health care and manufacturing sector are more likely to receive continuing
training.
1. Introduction
In all European societies, low-skilled workers face particular labour market
risks in terms of unemployment, bad working conditions or low pay
(Eurofound 2009). These risks will further increase with on-going changes in
the world of work, often leading to higher skill requirements and a shrinking
demand for low-skilled work (Berger and Frey 2015; Dengler and Matthes
2019; OECD 2016). Continuing training forms a key measure to respond
Philip Wotschackis at WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Globalization, Work,and Production
Project Group and Weizenbaum Institut for the Networked Society.
C
2019 The Authors.British Journal of Industrial Relations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, whichper mits
use, distributionand reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properlycited.
588 British Journal of Industrial Relations
to these developments by improving skills, labour market opportunities and
career prospects for this group of workers (Cedefop 2015; Martin and R¨
uber
2016; McVicar et al. 2016; Mohr et al. 2016: 553). It is the crucial question
of this article how low-skilled workers can be better integrated in employer-
provided continuing training. The focus is on the role of institutional
arrangements at the organizational and sectoral level in Germany.
Like in many European countries (Abramovsky et al. 2011; Martin
and R¨
uber 2016; Ramos and Harris 2012), training participation of low-
skilled workers is low in Germany. According to representative data for
Germany (in 2017), only one out of two companies has devoted (working)
time or money to continuing training (IAB 2017). On average, one third
of the employees participated in continuous training. While around 40
per cent of the skilled workers took part in continuing training, the
share among the low-skilled workers (doing work that does not require a
vocational degree) was only 20 per cent (IAB 2017; see also Janssen and
Leber 2015: 6).
The low training participation of low-skilled workers raises questions for
both the underlying obstacles and pathways to overcome these obstacles.
While there is a relative broad literature on training participation in general
(see Frazis et al. 2000; Grund 2012; Hansson 2007; K¨
applinger 2007; Wiseman
and Parry 2017), fewer studies have focused on the particular group of
low-skilled workers (see Abramovsky et al. 2011; Bellmann et al. 2015;
Martin and R¨
uber 2016; Mohr et al. 2016). Moreover, the role of the
institutional context did not receive much attention,so far. Studies addressing
the training participation of low-skilled workers have been mainly concerned
with labour shortages (Bellmann et al. 2015) or task characteristics (Mohr
et al. 2016). To my best knowledge, the role of institutional dierences
between organizations and sectors has neither been explored systematically
nor addressed theoretically in previous research on training participation of
low-skilled workers.
A qualitative study based on 10 firm-level case studies in Germany could
identify a number of favourable institutional influences and mechanisms at
the sectoral and company level (Wotschack and Solga 2014). Besides the
(well-known) factors that increase in-company training in general (such
as a shortage on the external labour market, technological change or an
existing educational infrastructure), institutional embeddedness of the
company proved to be an essential prerequisite for the integration of low-
skilled workers through training programs. This includes diverse company
agreements and collective regulations, long-term employment relations,
worker representation, strong norms of solidarity, as well as tight cooperation
between the corporate actors. Moreover, the high proportion of low-skilled
workers who participate in further training could not be explained by a
single characteristic. In fact, several factors worked together in specific
constellations.
This article wants to extend previous research on continuing vocational
training by addressing the question, how institutional dierences between
C
2019 The Authors.British Journal of Industrial Relations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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