Non Provision of Training and Sustainability: Small-Sized Companies in the EU Context

Abstract

Investing in human capital is one of the critical decisions of a company. The company's competitiveness and organisational, social and environmental sustainability is influenced by corporate training. This paper explores the relationship between sustainability and the non-provision of employee training in enterprises. The introduced topic is based on a systematic literature review and a secondary data analysis of Continuing Vocational Training Survey (CVTS), which provides comparable data from 29 European countries in reference years 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020 with a net sample of 113,000 enterprises. The paper focuses on small enterprises with 10 to 49 employees, representing over 20 million people in more than 1.3 million European business units. Recently aggregated data illustrate the European companies' attitude to corporate training and its barriers. Once the main obstacles to employee training are identified and removed, an organisation can increase the training and development of its employees. The more training and development activities is provided, the more it impacts its competitiveness and the company's sustainability. This paper examines the EUs small enterprises, emphasising specific situations in the last decade in the Czech Republic. It brings a new attitude to the connection between corporate training in small companies in the EU and sustainability.