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The German institutional setting of skill formation is supposed to enable young people smooth and structured transitions into the labor market. For decades, the large majority of graduates of the “dual system” of vocational education experienced good chances to immediately access appropriate job positions. However, labor market entry has become less stable in the last two decades. In this paper, we examine the changing transition from vocational training to the first job in Germany. We analyze the consequences of inter-firm mobility and unemployment after finishing vocational education for the transition to the first job. Our results show that leaving the training firm, and especially unemployment, strongly enhance occupational shifts at labor market entry. In addition, not keeping one’s trained occupation negatively affects the chances to enter skilled job positions.

Certain features of collective bargaining have, over time, promoted uniformity and sometimes inflexibility in teacher policy and negotiated contracts. From the start, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) – passed in 1935 to regulate unionization and collective bargaining in the private, industrial sector – served as the template for state labor laws regulating education. The framers of the NLRA never had the needs of the public sector or schools in mind. Yet the 35 states that now require collective bargaining for teachers have drawn on the NLRA’s procedures and standards. For example, they have used the NLRA for defining how teachers organize and are represented; what constitutes an unfair labor practice; and how obligatory membership or dues provide union security (e.g. agency shop, union shop). They have also drawn on the NLRA to define what range of issues can be bargained; whether strikes are legal; and what processes are used to resolve an impasse (e.g. mediation, fact finding, binding arbitration, or all three).¹ Although the laws of the 35 states show some important variations, their similarity is more striking than their differences. Jessup (1985) concluded that the narrow scope of bargaining established by New York’s Taylor Law “severely restricted the range of concerns teachers could productively bring to the bargaining table” (p. 195).

Since the mid-1980s, much research attention has been devoted to top management teams and their impact on the strategic behavior and performance of firms. In particular, this research has focused on the role of top managers’ background, values, and experiences in explaining the choices they make. So far, this research has largely failed to address the national context in which top management teams are formed and operate. Empirical studies have typically involved top management teams of U.S. firms. Other studies are rare, and when they exist, they usually do not take the national context into account. This paper explores the impact of national context characterized by society-specific value systems and institutions, on the composition, organization, and functioning of top management. We address three topics in particular: (1) national variations in the structure and practices of top management and their implications for managerial choices; (2) national governance systems that define and constrain the tasks and functioning of top management teams; and (3) national institutions that help to define managerial selection, promotion, and career patterns.

There exist a number of approaches that attempt to explain the occupational choices of youth from different perspectives. The social cognitive theory and the self-efficacy approach, to name the most influential, emphasize the centrality of cognitive abilities of individuals in making a career choice, and look at professional orientation primarily through the lenses of micro factors. This chapter extends existing approaches by accentuating the importance of cultural traditions and stereotypes for occupational choices.

This chapter uses official statistical data ranging from the rise of the USSR to the present day. These have been collected by the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) and were partly retrieved from archives.

After a review of extant theoretical frames pertinent to career choices, this chapter suggests a theory of occupational choices through the lenses of gender, thus deploying Sandra L. Bem’s (1973, 1981) framework on gender schema. Proposing a theoretical model that links micro and macro factors, the chapter then demonstrates how the approach functions in the Russian post-socialist context.

The novelty consists of incorporation of sociocultural aspects of occupational choices, thus allowing a scope for comparative research. Additionally, the proposed model of gendered career choices can be employed for explaining differences within sexes. Besides, the model argues that not primarily intelligence but often external factors shape career choices.

The paradigm of school-to-work transition is changing, with an increasing number of students combining work and study. Furthermore, there exists some mixed evidence for the impact of student employment on future earnings and employment likelihood. The purpose of the present paper is to examine additional evidence that would shed light on the pros and cons of student work as a function of its type (i.e. whether or not it matches the student's field of study). We also discuss practical implications for specialists who facilitate the transition of graduates to the job market.

This is a quantitative study based on the National Statistical Survey of Graduate Employment (SGE) conducted by the Russian Federal State Statistic Service (Rosstat) in 2016. Statistical methods of data analysis were used (logistic regression, Mincer equations). The analysis is based on two dependent variables as follows: data on graduates' employment and their monthly earnings.

We show that student work is a predictor of higher employment chances for both university and vocational college graduates. Moreover, the highest employment chances are associated with student work that is well-matched to the field of study. As for earnings, the greatest returns are again associated with work related to education. Jobs unrelated to education significantly correlate with earnings only for university graduates.

An important limitation of the present research is that it estimates the effects of student employment over a rather short-term period by using data on employment just after graduation and only starting salaries. These findings evoke the need for further study of graduate competencies and the process of their acquisition.

Our findings suggest some directions for education development. The results can be used to analyze governmental and other stakeholders' initiatives in the field of vocational and higher education.

The research results can be used by a wide range of stakeholders interested in the employment of graduates as a source of data for designing measures for improving graduates' employability.

Our study obtained data on the impact of student work on later employment. Tertiary graduates get returns from all work experience, while VET graduates earn more only if their student employment was consistent with their field of study.

Civil war and conflict in African nations tend to involve the destruction, damage, and neglect of schools and classrooms. Sierra Leone is no exception. The slaughter and dispersal of children and the unemployment of teachers, coupled with the loss of equipment, textbooks and other supplies, accounted for the rapid decline in school enrolments during the civil war. This chapter seeks to provide a synthesis of the impact of the global mandate “Education for All” in Sierra Leone's local and national context. It provides examples of contextual realities and challenges that confront the implementation of this international mandate. The chapter argues that Sierra Leone's embrace and constant striving for the actualization of this global mandate is encouraging, but lacks significant contextual quality to make it a truly realized promise. Although progress can be classified as ongoing and truly encouraging, vital historical lessons can be learnt as the country forges to foster the realization of this dream.

By drawing upon institutional theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of four critical resources (credit, electricity, contract enforcement and political governance) in explaining the quality of entrepreneurship and the depth of the supporting entrepreneurship ecosystem in Africa.

A quantitative approach based on ordinary least squares regression analysis was used. Three data sources were employed. First, the Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI) of 35 African countries was used to measure the quality of entrepreneurship and the depth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Africa which represents the dependent variable. Second, the World Bank’s data on access to credit, electricity and contract enforcement in Africa were also employed as explanatory variables. Third, the Ibrahim Index of African Governance was used as an explanatory variable. Finally, country-specific data on four control variables (GDP, foreign direct investment, population and education) were gathered and analysed.

To support entrepreneurship development, Africa needs broad financial inclusion and state institutions that are more effective at enforcing contracts. Access to credit was non-significant and therefore did not contribute to the dependent variable (entrepreneurship quality and depth of entrepreneurial support in Africa). Access to electricity and political governance were statistically significant and correlated positively with the dependent variables. Finally, contract enforcement was partially significant and contributed to the dependent variable.

A lack of GEI data for all 54 African countries limited this study to only 35 African countries: 31 in sub-Saharan Africa and 4 in North Africa. Therefore, the generalisability of this study’s findings to the whole of Africa might be limited. Second, this study depended on indexes for this study. Therefore, any inconsistencies in the index aggregation if any could not be authenticated. This study has practical implications for the development of entrepreneurship in Africa. Public and private institutions for credit delivery, contract enforcement and the provision of utility services such as electricity are crucial for entrepreneurship development.

The institutional void is a challenge for Africa. This study highlights the weak, corrupt nature of African institutions that supposedly support MSME growth. Effective entrepreneurship development in Africa depends on the presence of a supportive institutional infrastructure. This study engages institutional theory to explain the role of institutional factors such as state institutions, financial institutions, utility providers and markets in entrepreneurship development in Africa.

This chapter is about the modern, Western education system as an economic system of production on behalf of the capitalist mode of production (CMP) and globalization towards a single, global social space around market capitalism, liberal democracy and individualism.

The schooling process is above all an economic process, within which educational labour is performed, and through which the education system operates in an integrated fashion with the (external) economic system.

It is mainly through children’s compulsory educational labour that modern schooling plays a part in the production of labour power, supplies productive (paid) employment within the CMP, meets ‘corporate economic imperatives’, supports ‘the expansion of global corporate power’ and facilitates globalization.

What children receive in exchange for their appropriated and consumed labour power within the education system are not payments of the kind enjoyed by adults in the external economy, but instead merely a promise – the promise enshrined in the Western education industry paradigm.

In modern societies, young people, like chattel slaves, are compulsorily prevented from freely exchanging their labour power on the labour market while being compulsorily required to perform educational labour through a process in which their labour power is consumed and reproduced, and only at the end of which as adults they can freely (like freed slaves) enter the labour market to exchange their labour power.

This compulsory dispossession, exploitation and consumption of labour power reflects and reinforces the power distribution between children and adults in modern societies, doing so in a way resembling that between chattel slaves and their owners.