Session Information
02 SES 11 B, International Perspectives on VET III: Export & Import
Paper Session
Contribution
Context: The funding program “Internationalization of VET”, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), subsidizes different projects which are funded for implementing education and training services (initial vocational education and training as well as further education) in different countries abroad.
A special interest of the funding programme is to support the development of context-related and need-driven business models. This is a challenge for the involved VET providers as they mostly lack the experience of offering services abroad. Based on the “business model generation approach“ by Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) and Osterwalder et al. (2014) we will present a comparative analysis of the developed business models with the focus on nine elements: key partners, key activities, key resources, value proposition, customer relationship, channels, customer segment, costs, revenue.
Results of our first online survey, conducted in fall 2018 and executed by our project partner IIT in Berlin, show that 69% of the projects actually work on a project in their respective target country for the first time and only 31% have been active in the country during the last five years. This means a large share of the organizations face the challenge of expanding to a new context and of having to establish new cooperations and connections with potential business partners, clients and local decision-makers such as government representatives.
Currently, 14 projects (which started between mid-2017 and end-2018 and run three years usually) work on the issue: How can a vocational education and training-related service be placed on the market – a foreign, in many cases even unfamiliar market? The countries of interest are Greece, Spain, Serbia, Tunisia, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, and the Philippines.
We demonstrate the practical application and development of a Business Model Canvas (BMC), named by the kind of presentation of a business model, by drawing on two of the projects: NEMID[1], a project located in Serbia, and KoLeArn[2], a China project. For NEMID and KoLeArn, we will present the categories of BMC and how and why they changed in an iteration process including political actors (for the case of NEMID) and how the business model is being implemented for in-company training without any political contact (for the case of KoLeArn).
This process is being analysed using the promotor model (Gessler 2019; Gemünden et al. 2006). There are four types of promotors: power promotors contribute through hierarchical power; expert promotors provide expert knowledge; process promotors arbitrate between technical and economic worlds by means of organizational knowledge; and relationship promotors use extensive network competences to realize innovation. During the next years, the projects will be interviewed recurringly about their promotors equipment and development on order to trace the evolution of the promotors’ roles during project implementation. Our thesis claims that each promotor role should be filled in the country of origin as well as in the country of interest for a successful implementation of VET services.
Our research questions are:
• How are the nine elements defined and how are the relations between the nine elements defined?
• How and with which strategies are the change agents (VET providers) managing the problem of lacking experience?
• Which impact have the environmental conditions on the development of demand-oriented
and international VET business models?
[1]The acronym NEMID stands for "Nachfrageorientierte Entwicklung und modellhaften Implementierung einer dualen Berufsschule in Serbien“, which can be translated with “demand-driven development and model-like implementation of a dual VET school in Serbia”.
[2]KoLeArn stands for „Kontextsensitive Lerndienstleistungen im Arbeitsprozess“, meaning context-sensitive learning services in the work-process.
Method
We use the case study methodology. Selected by the funding regulation, our cases are all projects that are funded in “Internationalization of VET”. This presentation focusses on two contrasting justified cases. We will focus on two different cases: different in respect of the environmental conditions (e.g. regarding local policy: Serbia is a democratic state and China is a dictatorship) and the service conditions (e.g. product: a a dual VET school in Serbia and company in-house schooling in China). We apply a mixed methods approach using qualitative and quantitative survey methods. Our main data survey form is guided expert interviews which are transcribed and analysed. Each funded project has project coordinators and project personnel. With each project, we have the opportunity to interview several project participants within the project period: Firstly, an introductory discussion at the beginning of the project term; secondly, interviews with the German project participants within Germany; thirdly, interviews with project partners in each target country; fourthly, a final inquiry at the end term or after completion of the project. Furthermore, regular online surveys are used to collect quantitative data. The surveys are filled out by different project actors to reach different varieties of perspectives (as project managers have different insights than project performers etc.). For each target country, we produce comprehensive context analyses, including not only the education systems but also labour market issues and political and reform processes. The market of services for VET is being analysed as well. These studies are based on desk research mainly.
Expected Outcomes
NEMID, a project which strives for the demand-driven development and implementation of a private dual VET school in Serbia, uses the BMC for its strategic planning. After some months of project activity, as well as different interviews and feasibility checks with the German Chamber of Commerce in Serbia, NEMID decided to adjust the original BMC plans. Therefore, an iterative process of BMC development was initiated: NEMID iterated the BMC several times. KoLeArn, a project that focusses smart industrial production in China, reacts on the demand for skilled labour in China. Employers’ associations are the network of the project actors, political support is not available at the moment. The BMC is a digital business model which is customized to the Chinese working culture. KoLeArn can profit from experiences from a previous BMBF funding where VET in mechatronic engineers was supposed to be implemented in China. KoLeArn and NEMID with their differences (framework conditions; business models; experiences) are two contrasting cases and we expect differences also with regard to success of the projects. Our thesis claims that each promotor role should be filled in the country of origin as well as in the country of interest for a successful implementation of VET services. Besides, we assume that a successful project need - Political support - Experience and competences regarding the target country - business models with envisaged redesigns and iterations - acceptance of the VET-service by the economy, also with regard to willingness to pay. To validate our results as gainful in general, a wider appraisal is necessary with other cases unbiased by the funding program. This point affects also the limitation of our research: we did not choose justified cases ourselves, but we chose the ones that are part of the BMBF program. Due to this reason, scope and validity are limited hithereto.
References
Gemünden, H. G., Hölzle, K., & Lettl, C. (2006). Formale und informale Determinanten des Innovationserfolges: Eine kritische Analyse des Zusammenspiels der Kräfte am Beispiel der Innovatorenrollen. Schmalenbachs Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung, 58(Supplement 54), S. 110–132. Gessler, M. (2019). Promotoren der Innovation im transnation alenBerufsbildungstransfer: Eine Fallstudie. In: Michael Gessler, Martina Fuchs, Matthias Pilz (Hrsg.), Konzepte und Wirkungen des Transfers Dualer Berufsausbildung (231–279). Wiesbaden: Springer. Kovačević, M. (2016). Labour Force Survey in the Republic of Serbia 2015. Belgrade: Bulletin Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y., Bernarda, G., & Smith, A. (2014). Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want. New York: Wiley. Osterwalder, A., & Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business Model Generation. New Jersey: Wiley.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.