Contributions published at Empirical Research in Business, Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management (Uschi Backes-Gellner)

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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence for individual educational investment decisions and to investigate the relative importance of two factors, the type of education (vocational vs. academic) and subject area (e.g., commercial or health), in determining variance in earnings. Design/methodology/approach: Using a sample of 1200 individuals based on the 2011 Swiss Adult Education Survey, Mincer-type earnings equations are estimated. The variance in earnings is decomposed with respect to the two factors mentioned above, which allows to quantify the relative contributions of type of education and subject area to variance in earnings. Findings:The results of the variance decomposition show that subject area explains nearly twice the variance in earnings compared with that explained by type of education. Social implications: As results show that earnings variance-and thereby risk-relate more to subject area than to type of education, this study suggests that for individuals caring about the risk of their educational decision the selection of a specific subject area is more relevant than the choice between vocational and academic tracks; in addition, educational policies as part of HRM policies should devote as much attention to the choice of subject areas as to vocational or academic education. This is especially important for companies or countries planning to introduce or to extend vocational education as part of their human resources strategies. Originality/value: This study is the first to show whether earnings vary more by type of education or by subject area.

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Knowledge is a key factor for innovation and productivity. Individual knowledge heavily depends on the education an individual has chosen. Therefore the economic outcomes of differences in individuals’ education have a long lasting history in economic research. By distinguishing between two types of education, vocational and academic, researchers link the properties of each educational type to economic outcomes, such as productivity and innovation. Researchers associate academic education with positive effects on innovation and productivity. On the contrary, researchers do not attribute those effects to vocational education, because they typically conceptualize it as an educational type that is very specific and contains knowledge on outdated technologies. This thesis departs from this view on vocational education by analyzing Swiss dual-track vocational education and training (VET), a specific form of vocational education that consists of general knowledge and is embedded in an institutional arrangement that updates knowledge frequently. The second chapter of this thesis analyzes the effect of dual-track VET on firm’s innovations. It conceptualizes dual-track VET as a knowledge diffusion mechanism that updates the knowledge of firms that participate in such training. The results show that firms benefit from participating in dual-track VET by having a higher innovativeness. Knowledge from dual-track VET is an external knowledge source for firms. Firms do not only rely on external knowledge sources, but also on internal knowledge sources, such as their workforce. The workforce covers different educational degrees and thus different knowledge. The third chapter therefore analyzes how firms combine knowledge from differently qualified workers and which human resource management (HRM) practices they apply to induce knowledge flows within the workforce. The empirical analysis reveals that multiple combinations of educational degrees and HRM practices exist that explain superior innovation performance of firms. A taxonomy summarizes the results. This taxonomy contains a mechanistic and an organic type. Two additional types constitute hybrid cases and either rely on a vocational-skill mix or on organizational learning. Interactions among workers might not only influence innovativeness of firms, but also the productivity of interacting workers. Chapter four analyzes educational spillover effects from dual-track VET. The results show a highly robust and statistically significant effect of the number of workers with dual-track VET degrees on the productivity of workers with tertiary degrees. Wissen ist ein zentraler Faktor für Innovation und Produktivität. Das Wissen eines Menschen hängt zu einem grossen Teil vom Bildungsweg ab. Der Einfluss von verschiedenen Bildungsabschlüssen auf ökonomische Kenngrössen ist daher seit langem ein Bestandteil der Ökonomie. Eine verbreitete Differenzierung von Bildung unterscheidet zwischen beruflicher und akademischer Bildung. Beide Bildungstypen haben bestimmte Eigenschaften, die dazu verwendet werden, um den Einfluss des Bildungstyps auf Innovation und Produktivität zu bestimmen. Akademische Bildung wird von verschiedenen Studien ein positiver Einfluss auf Innovation und Produktivität zugeschrieben. Der beruflichen Bildung hingegen werden keine positiven Effekte auf Innovation und Produktivität zugeschrieben. Als Gründe werden eine zu hohe betriebliche Spezifität und ein Fokus auf etablierte Technologien angegeben. Diese Dissertation weicht von der vorherrschenden Sicht auf berufliche Bildung ab, indem sie einen spezifischen Typ der beruflichen Bildung, die duale Berufsbildung in der Schweiz untersucht. Duale Berufsbildung vermittelt Wissen, das in vielen Betrieben eingesetzt werden kann. Zudem verfügt die duale Berufsbildung über Institutionen, die eine ständige Aktualisierung von Ausbildungsinhalten sicherstellen. Im zweiten Kapitel dieser Dissertation wird der Effekt der dualen Berufsbildung auf die Innovationsfähigkeit von Unternehmen untersucht. Die duale Berufsbildung wird dabei als ein Instrument zur Wissensverbreitung konzeptualisiert, das das Wissen aller Unternehmen, die Berufslehren anbieten, aktualisiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass das Anbieten von Berufslehren zu einer höheren Innovationsfähigkeit führt. Das Wissen, das aus der dualen Berufslehre stammt, ist eine externe Wissensquelle für Unternehmen. Um innovativ zu sein, verwenden Unternehmen auch interne Wissensquellen. Die Belegschaft eines Unternehmens ist eine solche interne Wissensquelle. Mitarbeiter haben unterschiedliche Bildungsabschlüsse und verfügen daher über unterschiedliches Wissen. Das dritte Kapitel untersucht deshalb, wie Unternehmen unterschiedliches Wissen kombinieren und welche Human Resource Management-Praktiken sie verwenden, um den Wissensfluss zwischen den Mitarbeitern zu fördern. Die Ergebnisse der empirischen Analyse werden in einer Taxonomie zusammengefasst, die zeigt, dass verschiedene Kombinationen von Wissensbestand und Wissensflüssen zu einer besseren Innovationsleistung führen. Die Taxonomie beinhaltet eine mechanistische und eine organische Kombination. Zusätzlich werden zwei weitere Kombinationen identifiziert. Eine Kombination besteht aus Komplementaritäten zwischen Berufsbildung und höherer Berufsbildung, die andere aus organisationalem Lernen. Interaktionen zwischen Mitarbeitern können nicht nur die Innovationsfähigkeit von Unternehmen steigern, sondern auch ihre Produktivität. Im vierten Kapitel wird daher untersucht, ob Mitarbeiter mit einer tertiären Bildung von der Zusammenarbeit mit Mitarbeiter, die eine Berufslehre abgeschlossen haben profitieren. Die Ergebnisse zeigen einen robusten und hoch signifikanten Effekt auf die Produktivität der tertiär gebildeten Mitarbeiter.

This paper proposes a new measurement for the specificity of occupations based on a content analysis of training curricula that we link to labor market demands. We apply Lazear’s (2009) skill weights approach and test predictions on labor market outcomes derived from his theory. We find clear evidence of a trade-off between earning higher returns with more specific training and higher occupational mobility with less specific training. Our measure improves the micro-foundation of human capital specificity and provides an evidence-based approach to evaluate the specificity of training curricula.

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The German Codetermination Law grants workers of establishments with 200 or more employees the right to have a works councillor who is fully exempted from his or her regular job duties while still paid a regular salary. This article analyses theoretically and empirically how this de jure right to exemption translates into de facto practice, and explicitly takes into account the nature of the employment relations participation regime. It is found that the right of exemption has no effect in cooperative employment relations because exemptions are granted even in the absence of legal rights, but does make a difference in adversarial relations when exemptions are only granted above the threshold where legal rights force employers to do so, i.e. legal rights do make a decisive difference in exactly those situations where the legislators’ intent would not be realized without the right to legal enforcement.

This paper analyzes whether effort provision in entrepreneurial teams depends on the size of the team, assuming that size determines the strength of free-riding and peer pressure effects in entrepreneurial teams. We provide a theoretical model and empirical analyses to explain the joint effect of free-riding and peer pressure on effort in start-up teams. We begin with an economic model by Kandel and Lazear in J Polit Econ 100(4):801–817, (1992) and enrich it using insights from entrepreneurship research. Based on our model, we first hypothesize that with increasing team size in entrepreneurial teams, the efforts of the individual team founders should follow an inverted U-shaped pattern. Second, we argue that the peer pressure effect is stronger if team members have stronger social ties, and thus we expect the effort-maximizing team size to be larger in teams with stronger social ties. Using a data set from 214 German start-up teams, we find that our hypotheses are supported by the data.

Little is currently known about the effects of skill composition on academic entrepreneurship. Therefore, in this paper, following Lazear’s (J Labor Econ 23(4):649–680, 2005) jack-of-all-trades approach, we study how the composition of a scientist’s skills affects his or her intention to become an entrepreneur. Extending Lazear, we examine how the effect of balanced skills is moderated by a balance in working time and peer effects. Using unique data collected from 480 life sciences researchers in Switzerland and Germany, we provide first evidence that scientists with more diverse and balanced skills are more likely to have higher entrepreneurial intentions, but only if they also balance their working time and are in contact with entrepreneurial peers. Therefore, to encourage the entrepreneurial intentions of life scientists, it must be ensured that scientists are exposed to several types of work experience, have balanced working time allocations across different activities, and work with entrepreneurial peers; e.g., collaborating with colleagues or academic scientists who have started new ventures in the past.