IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijatma/v5y2005i4p387-410.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Restructuring of automotive supply-chains: the role of workforce skills in Germany and Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Geoff Mason
  • Karin Wagner

Abstract

The recent restructuring of automotive supply-chains in response to intense competitive pressures has led to rapid change in, and upgrading of, the skills required by automotive component suppliers. In this paper we compare matched samples of Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers in Germany and Britain in order to examine how the ability of suppliers to develop the required new skills has been affected by the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the two countries' vocational education and training (VET) systems. Our findings suggest that higher levels of craft apprentice training in German establishments give them an advantage over their British counterparts in responding flexibly to changes in markets, technologies and supply-chains. Furthermore, the engineering and commercial graduates produced by German Fachhochschulen help German suppliers to improve design skills relatively quickly and to manage long-term relationships with local supply-chain partners.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoff Mason & Karin Wagner, 2005. "Restructuring of automotive supply-chains: the role of workforce skills in Germany and Britain," International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 5(4), pages 387-410.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijatma:v:5:y:2005:i:4:p:387-410
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=8582
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ryan, Paul & Wagner, Karin & Teuber, Silvia & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2011. "Financial aspects of apprenticeship training in Germany, Great Britain an Switzerland / Finanzielle Aspekte der betrieblichen Ausbildung in Deutschland, Großbritannien und der Schweiz," Arbeitspapiere 241, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Düsseldorf.
    2. Geoff Mason, 2014. "Skills and training for a more innovation-intensive economy," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 431, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    3. A. R. Kemal, 2005. "Skill Development in Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 44(4), pages 349-357.
    4. Karin Wanger, 2005. "Productivity and Skills in Industry and Services-A Britian-German Comparison," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 44(4), pages 411-438.
    5. Paul Lewis, 2020. "Developing Technician Skills for Innovative Industries: Theory, Evidence from the UK Life Sciences Industry, and Policy Implications," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(3), pages 617-643, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijatma:v:5:y:2005:i:4:p:387-410. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=2 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.