Barriers to worker’s lifelong learning from a firm’s perspective

Participants are randomly assigned to one of four vignettes that describe a hypothetical situation involving a ficticious employee at the respondent’s company. Within these vignettes, we randomize the type of the employee (unskilled vs. skilled) and the type of human capital (general vs. specific) that the employee wants to acquire through the proposed further training.
Respondents will be asked about (i) the likelihood to allow the employee to attend the further training, and (ii) reasons for and consequences of the employee’s participation in the further training.

2022-10-25

2022-12-31

Our primary outcome is respondent’s likelihood to allow the described employee to participate in the proposed further training.

The outcome question on the likelihood to allow the participation in the further training is the following:
“How likely are you to make this continuing education possible?”
Answers can be given on a scale from 0 to 100%.

We elicit reasons of and perceived consequences for respondents’ decision to allow further training. These questions allow us to study channels through which the treatment variation affects decisions to allow further training. In particular, we elicit agreement to statements regarding the expected consequences of the proposed further training, such as increased job satisfaction and productivity of the employee, both at the respondent’s own company as well as at another company, and increased likelihood of the employee to move to another company. Besides, we ask about agreement with the statement that the proposed further training is good for the respondent’s company overall. We also ask to what extent the respondent agrees with the statement that there are no financial or human resources to make the further training possible.

We also would like to study treatment-effect heterogeneities by companies (i) industry, (ii) employment structure, (iii) size and (iv) past further-training activities.

The outcome questions on the further outcomes include agreement to the following items:
(1 = agree totally, 5 = absolutely not agree)
- “This training promotes his job satisfaction.
- This training increases his productivity in my company.
- This training would increase his productivity in another company.
- This training is overall good for my company.
- This training increases the likelihood that he will move to another company.
- My company lacks the human or financial resources to make this training possible.“

We conduct the experiment with an envisaged sample size of 2,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Germany.
Respondents answer the survey questions autonomously on their own as a pen-and-paper survey.
The respondents are shown a hypothetical scenario (vignette) of an employee in their company who wants to participate in further training. Each respondent will see one vignette that is randomly assigned. Afterwards, the respondent will be asked several items about the likelihood to allow the further training as well as reasons for the decision and consequences for the employee and the respondent’s company due to the further training.

Not available

Randomization will be carried out in office by a computer before the survey is sent to potential participants.

Individual

No

2,000 firm managers

2,000 firm managers

500

None