Session Information
02 SES 12 A, Policy & Governance III: Apprenticeship and Occupation
Paper Session
Contribution
An occupation (Beruf) can be conceived of an institution (Lawrence 2004; Abraham & Hinz 2008). It represents a division of labour, also referring to particular wage relations, social position, and status in society. Predominant in collective skill formation systems such as Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Switzerland (Busemeyer & Trampusch 2012), this kind of vocational education and training (VET) is based on collective governance where consensus-oriented and time-consuming decision-making involves stakeholders (Clarke et al. 2013). Further, occupations need to be normatively, cultural-cognitively, and legally defined (Nicklich & Fortwengel 2017).
In Switzerland, the Confederation is responsible for strategically developing the VET system, for vocational law, and the enactment of training ordinances. The 26 cantons implement the law, organise vocational schools, supervise host companies, and engage in career counselling. Labelled as a “parastate administration” (Linder 1994: 129), public authorities have delegated public tasks to private actors. Therefore, occupational associations are the main actors when it comes to defining occupational training content and curricula and creating apprenticeship positions. This is based on the widely held assumption that they know the labour market’s needs and ensure that VET is adapted to them. Thus, they are important educational actors that conduct institutional work on occupations.
The institutional work perspective (Lawrence & Suddaby 2006; Lawrence et al. 2009; 2011; 2013) deals with various forms of institutional change and tries to understand the role of actors in these processes. It states that institutions need to be purposefully and actively created, maintained, and disrupted, and focuses on the knowledgeable, creative, and practical work of individuals and collective actors attempting to shape institutions. It asks the question about how human action produces institutions (Hwang & Colyvas 2011). This theoretical stream is especially interested in studying institutional work that is “nearly invisible and often mundane, as in the day-to-day adjustments, adaptations and compromises of actors” (Lawrence et al. 2009: 1).
The institutional work of disruption refers to deinstitutionalisation,which is a “process by which the legitimacy of an established or institutionalized organizational practice erodes or discontinues”(Oliver 1992: 564). Organisations fail to continually reproduce previously taken-for-granted actions. This might be the case if changes in the political field, in government laws and societal values, or functional economic considerations call the legitimacy of a traditional practice into question. Then, deinstitutionalisation might be a proactive and conscious response by organisations to changing circumstances or the result of environmental changes over which they exert little control and respond only passively or subconsciously. In consequence, delegitimation of an institution might also foster replacement and precipitate reinstitutionalisation initiatives to repair institutional disenchantment. Up to now, empirical studies of deinstitutionalisation are rare (Maguire & Hardy 2009).
In 2004, the Swiss VET law was reformed. One aim was to reduce the number of occupations by merging similar ones into occupational fields. This should broaden occupational profiles to improve mobility in the labour market. The case study of the piano makers and tuners is an example of institutional disruption because they could not uphold the legitimacy of retaining their individual occupation and needed to merge with similar ones. We address the following research question: Which practices of institutional work did the piano makers’ association develop in the deinstitutionalisation process?
Method
We explore our research question by using a qualitative case study (Merriam 2009; Patton 2005). The aim of case study research is to conduct in-depth analysis, focussing on understanding it from the participants’ perspective (Harrison et al. 2017). It intends to provide a comprehensive holistic description that helps to understand the phenomenon. The case selected is the association responsible for the piano makers’ occupation. After the VET reform, public authorities aimed at reducing the number of occupations by merging small occupations. This led to the disruption of the piano maker occupation. The piano makers’ apprenticeship merged with organ builders and wind instrument makers to become the musical instrument makers’ apprenticeship. They were among the first that went through the reform process and started the new apprenticeship 2007 with an average of 12 apprentices per year. The association of the piano makers brings together around 240 piano makers and tuners from all Swiss language regions. The association defines the content of vocational training. It operates a website, arranges expertise, and organises events and further training. The management of the association works on a voluntary basis without payment. While in the 20th century, a piano still belonged in every good room, in the 1960s the Swiss had to compete with imports from the Far East. At the same time, modern residential construction meant that larger pianos hardly found any room. Today, ten times more digital pianos are imported into Switzerland than acoustic pianos. Accordingly, the number of apprentices has fallen sharply in recent decades (Grossrieder 2018). Nowadays, musical instrument makers specializing in the piano are mainly concerned with maintaining, repairing, and tuning pianos. Typically, case studies use various data sources (Harrison et al. 2017). First, we analysed official documents about the VET reform to set the ground for our empirical study. Second, our case study was based on theory-generating, semi-structured expert interviews with a key representative of the occupational association (Bogner et al. 2009). Third, we used document analysis. Data sources were official communications such as the magazines of the occupational association, website, newspaper articles, and government documents, as well as statistical information. The analysis of the different sources served to reconstruct the occupational reform process (Langley 1999) and to identify the occupational associations’ institutional work.
Expected Outcomes
In the disruption and reinstitutionalisation process, the piano makers’ association heavily relied on voluntary work. They mainly wanted to professionalize their new associations’ office and finance training material. Therefore, they set up an obligatory branch fund. This resulted in convincing their members about this necessity and coercion – even leading to a lawsuit against one non-complying firm. Further, they faced difficulties in finding a canton willing to operate their VET school. However, in co-opting a member of parliament, they eased their way of dealing with the state agency. Alternative training opportunities existed, which could also overcome perceived skill deficiencies, such as training of piano makers in a neighbouring country. Therefore, the reinstitutionalisation of the apprenticeship was not functionally necessary owing to immediate labour market needs. The piano makers’ occupation exists today as a result of the inventive and strategic institutional work of the occupational association who was able to position itself within the new legal framework. They actively constructed labour market needs, skilfully crafted their main arguments for reinstitutionalising their occupation and succeeded in convincing their members and external stakeholders. We show that the disruption of occupations might also entail institutional creation work. If an occupation loses its legitimacy, it is threatened with deinstitutionalisation. Our empirical case study of the piano makers shows that they complied with their normatively coined environment and were able to reinstitutionalise their former occupation as a specialisation in an occupational field. As occupational associations are also active players, they work to adapt to inflected institutional arrangements and might conduct repair work (Micelotta & Washington 2013). We, therefore, suggest that institutional disruption can also trigger institutional creation processes.
References
Bogner, A., Littig, B., and Menz, W., eds (2009) Interviewing Experts. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Busemeyer, M., & Trampusch, C. (2012) ‘Introduction: The comparative political economy of collective skill formation’, in Busemeyer, M. and Trampusch, C. (eds) The Political Economy of Collective Skill Formation, pp. 3-40. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clarke, L., Winch, C., & Brockmann, M. (2013) ‘Trade-based Skills versus Occupational Capacity: The Example of Bricklaying in Europe’, Work, Employment and Society, 27/6: 932–51. Grossrieder, B. (2018) ‘Besuch bei den letzten Klavierstimmern’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 18.01.2018. Harrison, H., Birks, M., Franklin, R., and Mills, J. (2017) ‘Case Study Research: Foundations and Methodological Orientations’, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 18/1: Art. 19, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1701195. Hwang, H., & Colyvas, J.A. (2011) ‘Problematizing Actors and Institutions in Institutional Work’, Journal of Management Inquiry, 20/1: 62-66. Langley, A. (1999) ‘Strategies for Theorizing from Process Data’, Academy of Management Journal, 24/4: 691-710. Lawrence, T. B. (2004) ‘Rituals and Resistance: Membership Dynamics in Professional Fields’, Human Relations, 57/2: 115–143. Lawrence, T. B., Leca, B., & Zilber, T. B. (2013) ‘Institutional Work: Current Research, New Directions and Overlooked Issues’, Organization Studies, 34/8: 1023-1033. Lawrence, T. B., & Suddaby, R. (2006) ‘Institutions and Institutional Work’, in Clegg, S. R., Hardy, C., Lawrence, T.W. and Nord, W. R. (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Organization Studies, pp. 215-254. London: Sage. Lawrence, T. B., Suddaby, R., & Leca, B. (eds) (2009) Institutional Work: Actors and Agency in Institutional Studies of Organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lawrence, T. B., Suddaby, R., & Leca, B. (2011) ‘Institutional Work: Refocusing Institutional Studies of Organization’, Journal of Management Inquiry, 20/1: 52-58. Linder, W. (1994) Swiss Democracy. Possible Solutions to Conflict in Multicultural Societies. New York: St. Martins Press. Maguire, S., & Hardy, C., (2009) ‘Discourse and Deinstitutionalization: The Decline of DDT’, The Academy of Management Journal, 52/1: 148-178. Micelotta, E. R., & Washington, M. (2013) ‘Institutions and Maintenance: The Repair Work of Italian Professions’, Organization Studies, 34/8: 1137-1170. Nicklich, M., & Fortwengel, J. (2017) ‘Explaining the Puzzling Stagnation of Apprenticeships in Germany’s Security Services: A Case of Insufficient Institutional Work?’, Journal of Professions and Organization, 4/3: 302-323. Oliver, C. (1992) ‘The Antecedents of Deinstitutionalization’, Organization Studies, 13/4: 563-588. Patton, M. Q. (2005) Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods: Integrating Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
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