Journal Article

Internationalisation and employability development are important themes for UK higher education (HE) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA). One aspect of many UK HE institutions' internationalisation strategies has been to increase the number and range of UK programmes delivered "offshore" as transnational education (TNE)--through overseas partner institutions, international branch campuses or distance learning. This research project aims to understand the extent to which curricula, and planned study-related experiences for students on TNE programmes of UK universities, are supporting the development of employability. The following is appended: Methodologies. A bibliography is also included. [The interviews with TNE alumni in this report were carried out as part of a project being undertaken by the Career Development Organization (CRAC) for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), to investigate the wider benefits of TNE to the UK.]

This paper looks at the effect of technological and organisational changes on the probability for workers in the second part of their careers of transmitting their knowledge to other colleagues in their employing firm. We use matched employer-employee data to link changes occurred at the firm level with knowledge transmission behaviours measured at the individual-level. To control for selection bias based on differences in observable characteristics between workers employed in changing work environments and those employed in non-changing ones, we apply propensity score matching techniques. We find that ICT and management changes reduce significantly the probability for workers over 45 of transmitting their knowledge to their colleagues. Then, we analyse the role of training in mitigating this negative impact. To address issues of self-selection into training, we use propensity score matching methods and a proxy for unobservable productivity. We show that participation in a training program regarding ICT tools may help older workers restore their role of knowledge transmitters.

In-work training is generally regarded as beneficial for employees and in Britain it continues to offer significant gains in earnings. However, little previous research has tested whether training also leads to higher levels of job satisfaction or 'happiness'. Employers need to retain trained employees in order to make training cost-effective, but this may clash with employees' career aims if they view external job mobility as a better strategy, for instance because of reduced internal promotion opportunities. Using panel survey data for the 1990s and the 2000s, and considering four different aspects of job satisfaction, this research finds that job mobility, usually regarded as inimical to in-firm training provision, is associated consistently with gains in job satisfaction, while receipt of training has effects on satisfaction that are mostly close to zero. Further, job satisfaction is high in circumstances where financial returns to training are low, and vice versa. Finally, we find that training inhibits mobility, probably a good outcome for employers but not necessarily for employees.

This study investigates the impact of non-formal training on job tasks of workers. The analysis is based on panel data from Germany covering detailed information on tasks performed at work at the level of individual workers. The results indicate that after training workers are more engaged in non-routine interactive tasks than they were before training. Analyses by topic of training reveal considerable heterogeneity in the impact of training on job tasks. In particular, it is 'communication and soft skills' training which is associated with more non-routine interactive tasks.

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and automation technologies have the potential to significantly disrupt labor markets. While AI and automation can augment the productivity of some workers, they can replace the work done by others and will likely transform almost all occupations at least to some degree. Rising automation is happening in a period of growing economic inequality, raising fears of mass technological unemployment and a renewed call for policy efforts to address the consequences of technological change. In this paper we discuss the barriers that inhibit scientists from measuring the effects of AI and automation on the future of work. These barriers include the lack of high-quality data about the nature of work (e.g., the dynamic requirements of occupations), lack of empirically informed models of key microlevel processes (e.g., skill substitution and human–machine complementarity), and insufficient understanding of how cognitive technologies interact with broader economic dynamics and institutional mechanisms (e.g., urban migration and international trade policy). Overcoming these barriers requires improvements in the longitudinal and spatial resolution of data, as well as refinements to data on workplace skills. These improvements will enable multidisciplinary research to quantitatively monitor and predict the complex evolution of work in tandem with technological progress. Finally, given the fundamental uncertainty in predicting technological change, we recommend developing a decision framework that focuses on resilience to unexpected scenarios in addition to general equilibrium behavior.

Vocational education and training (VET) teachers and trainers have a key role in ensuring that workers in business and industry are upskilled and up-to-date in a rapidly changing industrial, economic and technological environment. It follows that the VET practitioners should themselves keep up to date, not only with industry developments but also with the pedagogical skills needed to embrace technology and adapt to new sites for learning. However, in Australia and other Western nations, continuing professional development for VET practitioners has been spasmodic and not always well supported, in contrast to the ways it has been established and accepted in other professions. This paper examines the professional development approaches of some of those other professions and identifies the key features that might be adopted in any genuine attempt to develop a more purposeful and systematic provision of ongoing learning for teachers and trainers in VET. The paper concludes with a number of recommendations aimed at Australian VET practitioners in particular, but which might be applicable to VET in any developed country.

Workplace learning is increasingly central to the international lifelong learning agenda but has made limited contributions to full-time vocational education in England during the last 30 years. A more central role is envisaged within the technical education proposed by the 2016 Sainsbury Review and Post-16 Skills Plan , with access to work placements dominating discussion of policy implementation. A multicase study of workplace learning among post-16 students in England on current 'study programmes' was mapped to four of the technical routes designated by the Sainsbury Review and Skills Plan, using documentary, observation and interview data. The study drew on theorisation of the workplace as the site of situated or incidental learning, whilst noting that its opportunities are differentially allocated according to organisational or personal differences, in ways that have particular implications for young people on placements. Whilst access to more advanced learning opportunities was secured through planned, collaborative approaches, reliance on incidental learning offered more routinised experiences to students less prepared for autonomous learning. The study indicates that questions of access, knowledge and pedagogy remain to be addressed if plans for 'technical education' in England are to provide meaningful learning opportunities and support transitions to fulfilling work.

IT competency plays a vital role in knowledge management processes. Information technology affects an organization’s ability to store and recall knowledge that has been made explicit through codification, including different forms such as written documents, reports, presentations, patents, formulas, etc. This study aims to measure the influence of a company’s IT competency dimensions such as IT-knowledge, IT-operations, and IT-infrastructure on knowledge sharing. For this purpose, a survey of 910 Polish employees with different roles and experiences and across different industries has been conducted. The data were analyzed with a structural equation modeling method (SEM). Findings suggest that infrastructure is not a significant IT competency when it comes to knowledge sharing, whereas IT-knowledge and IT- operations are. It means that infrastructure should be perceived as a necessary but not sufficient factor to ensure the knowledge-sharing flow in organizations. This conclusion leads to the interesting implication that IT-operations and ITknowledge are actually the vital factors to support effective knowledge sharing. It means that business case knowledge, which is pivotal for effective operations is fundamental for developing IT competency. It means that knowledge workers who act as “bridges” between IT and business operations became more and more valuable human capital assets.

This paper investigates to what extent self-rated job-specific and generic skills and different types of educational signals are positively related to the labor market integration process of Dutch graduates, 18 months after finishing upper secondary vocational education. Our contributions to the current literature are that of simultaneously investigating these different types of skills and (a more extensive concept of) educational signals, and moreover examining to what extent the impact of self-rated specific skills and educational signals differ between the four labor market outcomes under investigation. We analyzed secondary survey data from the VET survey collected in the Netherlands in 2015. Results indicate that (1) self-rated specific skills—acquired either in education or on the job—are more positively related to favorable labor market outcomes than self-rated generic skills in the first 18 months of graduates' integration process, (2) only certain educational signals positively impact labor market integration, and (3) the positive impact of self-rated specific skills and signals varies between different labor market outcomes.