Global strategies und local modes of technical vocational education and training in German multinational companies: A regional comparison in Emerging Economies

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Multinational companies need skilled labour for their international production. Hence, global players as well as "smaller" multinational companies introduce vocational education and training for their workers in the international subsidiaries. Particularly, emerging economies offer advantageous markets; yet they are challenging locations for vocational education and training. Headquarters as well as the local management coin the vocational education and training in the subsidiaries. Additionally, the local setting is important, too. Recently, new arrangements have been made between subsidiaries of multinational firms and local actors to improve the local vocational education and training in emerging economies. To explain the different kinds of vocational education and training in international subsidiaries of German multinational companies, this project focuses on subsidiaries in three selected regions with different "skill formation systems" (the region between Guadalajara and Puebla in Mexico, and the metropolitan regions of Bangalore in India and Shanghai in China). Additionally, the examination also includes multinationals´ headquarters in Germany. The central research question is how multinational companies arrange vocational education and training at the worldwide destinations, considering the local conditions in the emerging economies. In particular, the project analyses two questions: 1. Is vocational education and training introduced centrally or decentralized, similar in the different international subsidiaries or in diverse variants, and with which kind of hybrid solutions? 2. How do multinationals use or build up local arrangements of vocational education and training? This project is explorative. It combines the perspectives of economic geography and economic and business education systematically and in an innovative way. Together, project heads and research assistants examine the regions as "research tandems", and the research assistants change their supervisors "cross over" during the research process and thus learn about both disciplinary perspectives. The methodological approach combines different suitable qualitative procedures and techniques.