The internationalisation of vocational education and training (VET) is now almost a necessity in a world with global labour markets, where employees, employers and other actors have to deal with constant and rapid changes. Flexibilisation, digitalisation and the emergence of new occupations and markets require ongoing adaptations of training provision to changing demand. VET is increasingly playing a role, e.g. by combining academic education and vocational training to develop labour market relevant skills and competences (OECD, 2015). Both followed by further training in that field, vocational training can contribute to a country's competitiveness (ibid.).
In this context, the German dual approach of vocational education and training enjoys great recognition worldwide, as it contributes to economic development to a particular degree (OECD, 2010). For this reason, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany (BMBF) supports projects that pursue the goal of internationalising VET (BMBF, 2016).
Pilz et al. (2020) show different internationalisation strategies of VET providers depending on their organisational orientation and, though that, their objectives related to the target market. The study describes the strategies based on the closeness or distance towards both the dual model and the target market (ibid.), the transfer processes are not within the scope of the research. However, the transfer of VET is a major challenge that is not easy to overcome, neither at the system level nor at the level of individual VET-related services (Wiemann et al., 2019; Posselt et al., 2019).
The transfer of VET services is particularly feasible, where few government structures make this transfer particularly challenging. In many countries, this means the market of VET is rather unregulated, which, however, also requires the positioning of education service providers from an economic perspective. Vocational training as a product is difficult to address, and if it is, then with strong local business partners who primarily aim to meet their own needs (Kühn, Peters & Holle, 2020).
The possibilities for VET providers to approach a new market are manifold. A common feature here is the development of a business model that is oriented to their own resources on the one hand and to the requirements of the market on the other hand (for example, see (Bullinger & Scheer, 2003; Leimeister, 2020; Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2013). Systematic development increases the probability of success of business models and of their VET service providers. At the same time, it represents a major challenge, especially in an international context. The development of a sustainable business model represents an important criterion for success in the aforementioned BMBF funding. This funding consists mainly of two funding guidelines, namely "Berufsbildungsexport [Export of VET] (BEX, 2010-2017)" and "Internationalisierung der Berufsbildung [Internationalisation of VET] (IBB, 2016, ongoing)". To a certain extent, the same actors were and are active in both funding lines. This offers the opportunity to examine the learning processes and effects in the course of VET transfer more closely and in this way to contribute to VET-related service research as a relatively new research field.
This work aims to analyse the processes of business model development and adaptation by VET service providers and wants to crystallise the lessons learned by the actors. Lessons learned are widely understood as knowledge stocks that emerge from the reflection of activities. In this context, lessons learnt are defined as "findings, knowledge or experiences that have emerged and are documented during project implementation" (Dechange, 2020). The basic questions of this paper are thus: What are the lessons learned by actors who were active in both funding guidelines? Are there adaptation processes and how can these be described?
