Multinational companies and local knowledge base

An evolutionary perspective: Regional variants of initial vocational education and training activities in Germany

Subsidiaries of foreign companies provide a significant number of jobs in Germany. However, so far, there is hardly any information on which strategies and interventions they use to ensure their competence needs are met.

The research project therefore investigates how these subsidiaries generate practice-relevant competencies on site. The focus is on initial training activities and recruitment programs for skilled professionals who have already been trained as a key interlink between the local labour market and the skills requirements of the companies. Additionally the project examines which evolutionary formations of actor arrangements can be found and how these activities can be explained.

The central interest from the business education perspective is, whether and why the subsidiaries either use and accept the existing training system in Germany and thus adapt to the "training culture" of the host country, or bring practices in training and recruiting from their country of origin. The project will explore this research question for investors from the USA, the UK, France, Japan and China in Germany. In addition, various regional actors in the context of provision of initial vocational and/or academic training, the settlement process of foreign companies and the related recruitment of skilled professionals for the subsidiaries are included in the analysis in order to ascertain the distinctive factors of establishing training structures in the foreign branches.