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Article
Publication date: 3 April 2017

Anika Jansen and Harald Ulrich Pfeifer

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between pre-training competencies of apprentices and their productivity at the workplace.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between pre-training competencies of apprentices and their productivity at the workplace.

Design/methodology/approach

For the analysis, the authors use firm-level data on apprentices’ oral and writing competencies and competencies in basic mathematics, information technology and problem solving. The authors regress the apprentices’ productivity on these school competencies and include a number of firm and apprentice-specific control variables. By reducing the authors’ data set to firms that only have one apprentice the authors transform the firm-level data into quasi individual-level data.

Findings

The main findings are that not all competencies are equally related to productivity. Problem-solving competencies followed by oral and writing competencies show the strongest relation to the productive potential of apprentices. IT competencies are also positively but weakly related to the apprentices’ productivity. In contrast, higher levels of basic mathematical competencies leave productivity levels largely unchanged. Differentiating between occupational groups, the authors find that the positive relation between the competencies and productivity predominantly exists in commercial occupations rather than in industrial and technical occupations.

Practical implications

The results show that better school competencies are associated with a higher productivity of apprentices, which in turn lowers the firms’ training costs. From a policy perspective, this finding is important because it implies that, by improving the apprentices’ competencies, the firms’ willingness to participate in the apprenticeship system can be increased. Moreover, the results are important for training firms because they show on which competencies firms should focus in their recruitment decision.

Originality/value

The paper studies for the first time the relation between pre-training competencies and productivity of apprentices at the working place. A practical implication from the authors’ analysis is that it could be useful to implement tools measuring the problem solving and oral and writing competencies of apprenticeship applicants in the process of recruitment.

Details

Evidence-based HRM: a Global Forum for Empirical Scholarship, vol. 5 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-3983

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Book part
Publication date: 28 November 2016

Johanna F. Gollnhofer

Research has shown that activist consumers create places that are imbued with idiosyncratic meanings, conventions, rules, and activities. However, research on why and how such…

Abstract

Purpose

Research has shown that activist consumers create places that are imbued with idiosyncratic meanings, conventions, rules, and activities. However, research on why and how such places are created is scant.

Methodology/approach

This ethnography in the context of voluntary refugee helpers shows why and how a meaningful place is produced.

Findings

By drawing on spatial theory from human geography, I map out how activist consumers create a hyper-place: embedded in the dynamics of demarcating and linking, voluntary helpers set a place apart from the surrounding space and other places. This place allows for practices that combine materiality, activities, and meanings in new ways in comparison to practices in traditional places. This place allows for the enactment and the conveyance of values that are not accommodated in traditional marketplaces.

Originality/value

I contribute to literature on activist consumers and the role of place within consumer research.

Details

Consumer Culture Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-495-2

Keywords

Abstract

Purpose

To advance the learning of professional practices in teacher education and medical education, this conceptual paper aims to introduce the idea of representational scaffolding for digital simulations in higher education.

Design/methodology/approach

This study outlines the ideas of core practices in two important fields of higher education, namely, teacher and medical education. To facilitate future professionals’ learning of relevant practices, using digital simulations for the approximation of practice offers multiple options for selecting and adjusting representations of practice situations. Adjusting the demands of the learning task in simulations by selecting and modifying representations of practice to match relevant learner characteristics can be characterized as representational scaffolding. Building on research on problem-solving and scientific reasoning, this article identifies leverage points for employing representational scaffolding.

Findings

The four suggested sets of representational scaffolds that target relevant features of practice situations in simulations are: informational complexity, typicality, required agency and situation dynamics. Representational scaffolds might be implemented in a strategy for approximating practice that involves the media design, sequencing and adaptation of representational scaffolding.

Originality/value

The outlined conceptualization of representational scaffolding can systematize the design and adaptation of digital simulations in higher education and might contribute to the advancement of future professionals’ learning to further engage in professional practices. This conceptual paper offers a necessary foundation and terminology for approaching related future research.

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Article
Publication date: 2 May 2020

T. Ramayah, Pedro Soto-Acosta, Khoo Kah Kheng and Imran Mahmud

Firms' knowledge-processing capabilities have a central role in achieving innovation performance and competitive advantage. Absorptive capacity capabilities and innovation are…

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Abstract

Purpose

Firms' knowledge-processing capabilities have a central role in achieving innovation performance and competitive advantage. Absorptive capacity capabilities and innovation are viewed as essential for enterprise success. Absorptive capacity is deemed as a highly important organizational capability to recognize value and assimilate both external and internal knowledge in order to enhance firm innovation. The aim of this study is to determine if innovation performance can be improved through absorptive capacity (knowledge acquisition, dissemination and utilization), when it is supported by internal (firm experience) and external knowledge sources (R&D cooperation and contracted R&D).

Design/methodology/approach

A quantitative methodology based on employing a structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The proposed research model and its associated hypotheses are tested by using Partial Least Squares (PLS) structural equation modelling (SEM) on a data set of 248 manufacturing companies located in the Northern Region of Malaysia.

Findings

Results showed that firms' experience is significantly related to absorptive capacity, while for R&D cooperation and contracted R&D findings were mixed. In addition, absorptive capacity was found as a strong predictor of innovation performance.

Originality/value

One of the defining features of competition in many industries has been the extremely rapid pace of technological change, marked by a continuous stream of innovations. Manufacturing firms, therefore, face the challenge of nurturing existing knowledge and developing novel knowledge in order to create new business opportunities. This study makes valuable contributions with regard to understanding the behavioural of manufacturing firms towards process and product innovation.

Details

Business Process Management Journal, vol. 26 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-7154

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