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We analyze the relationship between initial vocational education and training (VET) and training policies by looking at the ways and extent to which different approaches foster the acquisition of general and transferable skills. The factors that particularly affect the investment in training and the investment in transferable skills are analyzed both from the point of view of the individual and the employer. We argue that with the reform of their national training systems, Spain and the United Kingdom have followed different routes in order to foster precisely an increase in the investment on transferable skills. Those pathways differ in the extent to which policy strategies have aimed at reducing either individual worker or firms’ constraints to receive or invest in transferable training, and in the extent to which the emphasis for certification focused on “demonstrated learning outcomes” as opposed to “particular learning processes or places.” The paper concludes with the presentation of some policy implications.

Contemporary labor economics has a ready explanation for the role of job training in the labor market. The human capital framework pioneered by Becker (1962, 1993) and Mincer (1962) and now extended by many, many others sees training as an investment in productive capacity that benefits both workers and employers. Employers enhance the productivity of their firms by investing in the skills of their workers, and these productivity gains are passed on to workers in the form of higher wages. Key to all of this is the distinction between general and specific skill. According to the theory, employers will not pay for or provide general skills (i.e. those that are transferable and hence valuable to other employers), because they are averse to being “poached” by more high-wage employers. They will, however, invest in workplace-specific skills, which assure them a return on their training investments.

In this paper universities are considered to be central to a knowledge‐driven economy. UK employers value generic skills more highly in employees where disciplinary‐based understanding is assumed to be on a par. Enterprise education should, therefore, not only benefit students, but add greatly to wealth creation and national prosperity. In order to respond, universities need to formulate a coherent policy that will initiate a cultural change to foster enterprise and entrepreneurship. In order to address the question of whether and how such organisations can change, this paper aims to take a close look at influencing factors like culture and structure.

The analysis in this paper utilises tools and techniques that help to identify those factors that shape an organisation's strategy and structure. This paper takes a close look at the organisational structure and culture at a leading research‐led UK university, with respect to enterprise education. An insight for strategic development is achieved by recognising the university as a professional bureaucracy, relying on the balance between the standardisation of skills and training, rather than through a more general analysis of a “large organisation”.

The paper finds that in this professional bureaucracy, the operating core comprises professionals with considerable autonomy, but close association with their clients (students). Coordination between professionals takes place through the standardisation of skills and knowledge and the provision of enterprise education requires an appropriate standardisation of skills. A strong culture pervades throughout, and complex organisational structures and models of governance exist. This paper suggests that sweeping, major reforms are inappropriate.

The paper shows that this university has chosen to embrace educational changes that lead to enterprising student attributes by a process of “seeping change” in the context of a professional bureaucracy attending to the challenge of standardising skills.