Lukas Graf
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Graf
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Lukas

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State-Led Bricolage and the Extension of Collective Governance: Hybridity in the Swiss Skill Formation System.

2023-01 , Lukas Graf , Alexandra Strebel , Patrick Emmenegger

This paper explores the extension of collective governance to sectors without collective governance tradition. We introduce the concept of state-led bricolage to analyze the expansion of the Swiss apprenticeship training system – in which employer associations fulfill core collective governance tasks – to economic sectors in which training had previously followed a school-based and state-oriented logic. In deindustrializing societies, these sectors are key for the survival of collectively governed training systems. Through a mixed-methods analysis, we examine the reform process that led to the creation of new intermediary organizations that enable collective governance in these sectors. In addition, we compare the organizational features of these organizations with the respective organizations in the traditional crafts and industry sectors. We find that the new organizations result from state-led bricolage. They are hybrid organizations that reflect some of the bricoleur's core policy goals and critically build on the combination of associational and state-oriented institutional logics.

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The Governance of Decentralized Cooperation in Collective Training Systems: A Review and Conceptualization

2019 , Emmenegger, Patrick , Graf, Lukas , Trampusch, Christine

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Work-based higher education programmes in Germany and the US: Comparing multi-actor corporatist governance in higher education

2017-02-21 , Graf, Lukas

In both Germany and the United States, employers search for new strategies to recruit and train people in times of a dynamically evolving economy and rising educational expectations on the part of individuals. In this context, we observe the proliferation of work-based higher education programmes in both countries. This development challenges the common classification found in the political economy and educational policy literature that distinguishes between collectively governed dual apprenticeships in Germany and market-driven on-the-job training in the US. The paper proposes an alternative conceptualization that identifies significant similarities in the governance mode of work-based higher education across the two countries. Based on expert interviews and document analysis, the institutional analysis focuses on complex multi-actor governance constellations at the nexus of vocational training and higher education and explores consequences for contemporary policy-making in advanced skill formation.

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Betrieblich-hochschulbasierte Ausbildungsformen in Deutschland und den USA: Eine (Re)Konzeptualisierung

2016-04-25 , Graf, Lukas

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Embedded flexibilization and polite employer domination: the case of short‐track apprenticeships in Switzerland

2020-03 , Di Maio, Gina , Graf, Lukas , Wilson, Anna

Liberalization pressures challenge countries to adapt their training systems. This is particularly relevant for coordinated market economies with firm-driven but collectively governed apprenticeship systems. Recent literature has identified different liberalization trajectories for these countries. For instance, segmental-ism describes the increasing influence of large employers in Germany. In Denmark, state agencies manage increased flexibility in training through embedded flexibilization. In this paper, we identify a new form of embedded flexibilization, characterized by polite employer domination. We find this trajectory of liberali-zation in Switzerland, which represents another training system heavily based on firm involvement. We illustrate our argument at the example of short-track apprenticeship training, which has been expanded in all three mentioned countries in response to ongoing liberalization and deindustrialization pressures. In Swit-zerland, the relevant reform was initiated by the state while business adopted a rather passive role initially. Yet, state actors eventually stepped back and dele-gated key competences to employers, which implies that the employers’ camp asserted their interests in the end while tolerating some concessions for the bene-fit of disadvantaged groups. Our process tracing reveals that policy makers used layering to implement short-tracks that enhance social inclusion, while simultaneously increasing the scope of employer cooperation.

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Torn between economic efficiency and social equality? Short-track apprenticeships in Denmark, Germany and Switzerland

2019 , Maio, Gina , Graf, Lukas , Wilson, Anna

Educational institutions, especially those facilitating vocational education and training (VET), face the challenge of combining social goals, such as the provision of quality education for a large section of the population, with rising economic utility demands. However, we know little about how VET systems institutionalize these different demands and, further, how social and economic goals are actually institutionalized in VET. Our article aims to unpack this puzzle by analysing shorttrack dual vocational training programmes (short-tracks) in Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. These short-tracks combine on-the-job and school-based training, targeting candidates who face difficulties entering full-length dual programmes. Thus, short-tracks are prime examples of training programmes located at the nexus of economic and social demands. In our comparative institutional analysis, we bridge the political economy of collective skill formation and sociological institutionalism literatures. We find that the institutionalization of goals in VET not only differs between countries but that there is also considerable variation within national VET systems. Our analysis reveals that VET regulations, regional and sectoral standards, and the legitimization of key actors can differ greatly in their institutionalization of social and economic goals.

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How Employer Interests and Investments Shape Advanced Skill Formation

2017-03-31 , Graf, Lukas , Powell, Justin J.W.

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Social versus Liberal Collective Skill Formation Systems? A Comparative-Historical Analysis of the Role of Trade Unions in German and Swiss VET.

2020-09 , Patrick Emmenegger , Lukas Graf , Alexandra Strebel

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Combined modes of gradual change: the case of academic upgrading and declining collectivism in German skill formation

2018-01-01 , Graf, Lukas

The corporatist-governed dual-training system has been a key example of collective governance in the German capitalist model. However, high-end dual-training is increasingly being offered within post-secondary higher education. Here, firms and universities, not chambers of commerce or trade unions, are the actors negotiating the curricula of and access to a range of ‘dual-study programmes’. This article traces the emergence and expansion of this more firm-specific skills provision system, which diminishes the beneficial constraints for strategic cooperation and, in turn, the provision of collective training standards and transferable skills. The case study builds on the ‘gradual institutional change’ taxonomy, while pointing to the potential benefits of using different modes of change in combination. Through analysing firms’ strategies to initiate change in an institutional grey area between established socio-economic spheres, the article shows how layering, conversion and drift can become interlinked and how each individual process can trigger and feed the next.

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Integrating International Student Mobility in Work-Based Higher Education: The Case of Germany

2017-01-07 , Graf, Lukas , Powell, Justin J.W. , Fortwengel, Johann , Bernhard, Nadine

Dual study programs are hybrid forms of work-based higher education that have expanded very rapidly in Germany—a country traditionally considered a key model in both higher education (HE) and vocational education and training (VET). The continued expansion of these hybrid programs increasingly raises questions if, how, and why they may be internationalized. Although comparative research suggests that this could be challenging due to the uniqueness of the German education and training system, strong forces support internationalization. This study examines the current state and the future prospects of internationalization of such innovative dual study programs by focusing on student mobility, a key dimension of internationalization. We find growing interest in but still relatively little mobility related to dual study programs, whether among German (outgoing) or international (incoming) students. Based on expert interviews and document analysis, we extend existing typologies of student mobility regarding specific features of work-based HE programs. Furthermore, we discuss opportunities—at home and abroad—for increasing student mobility in this rapidly expanding sector.

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