Exploring the Intensity of Relationships with Vocational Education Centres: A Typology of Spanish SMEs

Even though the availability of skilled labour and technological know-how is critical to the sustainability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the relationships between industry and the vocational education system have received little attention in the recent literature about social aspect...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Lavía Martínez, Cristina, Otero Gutiérrez, Beatriz, Albizu Gallastegi, Eneka, Olazaran Rodríguez, Mikel
Tipo de documento: artigo
Data de publicação:2021
País:España
Recursos:Universidad del País Vasco
Repositório:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/71282
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/71282
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:SMEs
vocational education and training
VET
innovation
Spain
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spelling Exploring the Intensity of Relationships with Vocational Education Centres: A Typology of Spanish SMEsLavía Martínez, CristinaOtero Gutiérrez, BeatrizAlbizu Gallastegi, EnekaOlazaran Rodríguez, MikelSMEsvocational education and trainingVETinnovationSpainEven though the availability of skilled labour and technological know-how is critical to the sustainability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the relationships between industry and the vocational education system have received little attention in the recent literature about social aspects of innovation. The objective of this paper is to analyse the intensity of relationships between industrial SMEs and vocational education and training (VET) centres from the firms’ perspective. The study is based on a survey carried out to a sample of 1,388 Spanish industrial SMEs which had vocational education graduates among their employees. Multivariate hierarchical segmentation techniques were used in order to identify the main explanatory variables. As a result, a typology (‘tree’) of eight organisational profiles was obtained which are associated to different intensity levels (from higher to lower) of relationships between firms and schools. The results obtained show that most industrial SMEs maintain relations with vocational education centres, which reflects the importance of the latter for the companies. The organisational type having the highest level of relations refers to SMEs with experience in external cooperation (cooperation with other actors in innovation projects) which have vocational education employees (graduates) in technical areas and which are bigger in size. Likewise, the results suggest that fruitful collaboration between SMEs and vocational education centres depends on the existence of an established culture of innovation among the smaller firms.This work was supported by the Basque Government, Department of Education (Grant Number PIBA 2018-60) and the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU, Grant Number GIU17/012)MDPI202520252021info:eu-repo/semantics/articleapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10810/71282reponame:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigacióninstname:Universidad del País VascoIngléshttps://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/9287info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/712822026-06-18T09:23:17Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Exploring the Intensity of Relationships with Vocational Education Centres: A Typology of Spanish SMEs
title Exploring the Intensity of Relationships with Vocational Education Centres: A Typology of Spanish SMEs
spellingShingle Exploring the Intensity of Relationships with Vocational Education Centres: A Typology of Spanish SMEs
Lavía Martínez, Cristina
SMEs
vocational education and training
VET
innovation
Spain
title_short Exploring the Intensity of Relationships with Vocational Education Centres: A Typology of Spanish SMEs
title_full Exploring the Intensity of Relationships with Vocational Education Centres: A Typology of Spanish SMEs
title_fullStr Exploring the Intensity of Relationships with Vocational Education Centres: A Typology of Spanish SMEs
title_full_unstemmed Exploring the Intensity of Relationships with Vocational Education Centres: A Typology of Spanish SMEs
title_sort Exploring the Intensity of Relationships with Vocational Education Centres: A Typology of Spanish SMEs
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Lavía Martínez, Cristina
Otero Gutiérrez, Beatriz
Albizu Gallastegi, Eneka
Olazaran Rodríguez, Mikel
author Lavía Martínez, Cristina
author_facet Lavía Martínez, Cristina
Otero Gutiérrez, Beatriz
Albizu Gallastegi, Eneka
Olazaran Rodríguez, Mikel
author_role author
author2 Otero Gutiérrez, Beatriz
Albizu Gallastegi, Eneka
Olazaran Rodríguez, Mikel
author2_role author
author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv SMEs
vocational education and training
VET
innovation
Spain
topic SMEs
vocational education and training
VET
innovation
Spain
description Even though the availability of skilled labour and technological know-how is critical to the sustainability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the relationships between industry and the vocational education system have received little attention in the recent literature about social aspects of innovation. The objective of this paper is to analyse the intensity of relationships between industrial SMEs and vocational education and training (VET) centres from the firms’ perspective. The study is based on a survey carried out to a sample of 1,388 Spanish industrial SMEs which had vocational education graduates among their employees. Multivariate hierarchical segmentation techniques were used in order to identify the main explanatory variables. As a result, a typology (‘tree’) of eight organisational profiles was obtained which are associated to different intensity levels (from higher to lower) of relationships between firms and schools. The results obtained show that most industrial SMEs maintain relations with vocational education centres, which reflects the importance of the latter for the companies. The organisational type having the highest level of relations refers to SMEs with experience in external cooperation (cooperation with other actors in innovation projects) which have vocational education employees (graduates) in technical areas and which are bigger in size. Likewise, the results suggest that fruitful collaboration between SMEs and vocational education centres depends on the existence of an established culture of innovation among the smaller firms.
publishDate 2021
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2021
2025
2025
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
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dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10810/71282
url http://hdl.handle.net/10810/71282
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/9287
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv MDPI
publisher.none.fl_str_mv MDPI
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
instname:Universidad del País Vasco
instname_str Universidad del País Vasco
reponame_str Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
collection Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
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