Varieties of Capitalism and financial cooperation between employers: The initial and continuous vocational training in comparison

Abstract

According to theorists of Varieties of Capitalism, employers can achieve strong decentralized cooperation on vocational training when there are institutional devices encouraging workers and firms to co-invest in the skill production. Yet numerous European countries, including those where such institutional devices exist, do not rely on ‘spontaneous’ co-investment but operate compulsory training funds and levies which establish obligatory mutualization between employers.The objective of this article is to show that the rationalist theoretical framework of Varieties of Capitalism theory is capable of accounting for such collective financial schemes in the apprenticeship field, but is less suited to capture the compulsory contributions for continuing vocational training.