Different Responses to Common Demailands:Firms, Institutions, and Training in Europe

• Published in: European sociological review 1997-12, Vol.13 (3), p.267-282
• Main Author: Regini, M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0266-7215; 1468-2672
• DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.esr.a018218

This article is based on interviews with informed participants and on case studies of companies in Baden-Wiirttemberg, Rhône-Alpes, Lombardy, and Catalonia. It discusses the new trends in firms' demand for human resources and the different mechanisms for the social production of a skilled labour supply. The research findings throw light on three major points. First, they show how the training mechanisms that have developed in the regions studied may be grouped into two very distinct types: a ‘redundancy-oriented’ system on the one hand, and an ‘appropriateness-oriented’ system on the other, each of them producing a type of labour supply that yields different advantages and disadvantages for the companies based in the region. Second, they highlight the new features of companies'demand for human resources. On this basis, the article argues that three trends identified in all the companies surveyed seriously challenge the training systems of all these regions. The last section discusses the different ways in which the regional institutions respond to this challenge, by trying to cope with especially those aspects which are regionally specific. Hence, although the persistent myth of the ‘one best way’ to organize training occasionally drives attempts at institutional imitation, the basic solutions with which regional institutions are now experimenting tend to vary cross-regionally.