Vocational education and training in Chinese and German companies in China: a ‘home international’ comparison

Abstract

China is currently focusing strongly on developing its vocational education and training system, and Germany is an important partner in this process: many German companies operate major manufacturing sites in China and need highly skilled employees. So do German companies in China continue to meet their training needs through the familiar German model of vocational education and training (or a similar model)? Or does their model for training production staff more closely resemble the Chinese model? To date, there have been few research studies in this area. This article aims to fill the gap with a ‘home international’ comparison of the training strategies of Chinese and German companies in China. Theory‐driven semi‐structured interviews were conducted with managers of human resources departments in 11 Chinese companies and 11 subsidiaries of German companies in China. Transcripts of these interviews were then subjected to textual analysis to systematize the findings and extract data. The findings demonstrate both similarities and differences between the Chinese and the German companies, particularly in terms of the links between the national training system, the national labour market and the social setting.