Foreign direct investment and local knowledge base: Embedding foreign subsidiaries in German dual vocational education and training Authors Martina Fuchs Universität zu Köln Johannes Westermeyer Universität zu Köln Lena Finken Universität zu Köln Matthias Pilz DOI: https://doi.org/10.14512/rur.179 Keywords: Foreign direct investment, Local knowledge base, Local embeddedness, Dual vocational education and training, Germany Abstract Dual vocational education and training systematically combines the learning of apprentices (in vocational schools) or students (in applied universities) with the ‘learning venue’ of the company. The dual vocational education and training exists in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and stands for regional competitiveness as well as for job opportunities of young people on the local labour market. Outside of these three countries, the dual system hardly exists, but dual practices are subject of international skill transfer policies. While this transfer is well researched, it is hardly known to what extent (in mirror image) subsidiaries of foreign companies take part in the dual system of German speaking countries. This question was examined, by focussing on subsidiaries of multinational companies in Germany. Theoretically, the contribution relates to research on local knowledge bases and the embeddedness of foreign subsidiaires. The study pursues a qualitative method. The results show that the local training managers have freedom for decision-making and use this in favour of getting involved in dual vocational education and training. However, the effort turns out to be high. Dual activities take place primarily as a strategy for adapting to the institutional environment, not as a way of shaping the environment. The local stakeholders are mostly reactive in this regard. 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In: International Journal of Training and Development 25, 2, 124–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijtd.12214 Downloads PDF (German) HTML (German) XML (German) Published Issue publication date 2023-04-28 (version 2)Published online first 2022-10-18 (version 1) Versions 2023-04-28 (2) 2022-10-18 (1) Issue Vol. 81 No. 2 (2023) Section Research Article License Copyright (c) 2022 Martina Fuchs, Johannes Westermeyer, Lena Finken, Matthias Pilz This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Articles in Raumforschung und Raumordnung – Spatial Research and Planning are published under a Creative Commons license. From Vol. 79 No. 2 (2021), the license applied is CC BY 4.0. From Vol. 77 No. 1 to Vol. 79 No.1, articles were published under a CC BY-SA license. Earlier volumes have been re-published by oekom 2022 under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CC BY 4.0. How to Cite 1.Fuchs M, Westermeyer J, Finken L, Pilz M. Foreign direct investment and local knowledge base: Embedding foreign subsidiaries in German dual vocational education and training. RuR [Internet]. 2023 Apr. 28 [cited 2024 Dec. 14];81(2):91-106. Available from: https://rur.oekom.de/index.php/rur/article/view/179 More Citation Formats ACM ACS APA ABNT Chicago Harvard IEEE MLA Turabian Vancouver Download Citation Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX Share
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