What drives enterprise training? Evidence from Australia

In Australia, as elsewhere, much research in the field of vocational education and training has focused on the supply side of the training market. Research has been driven by the perceived need to reform the public provision of training to create a more highly skilled national workforce upon which enterprises can draw to improve their competitiveness. Little, however, is known about the demand side. In particular, the processes of training within the enterprise, while often maligned publicly as being low in quantity and quality, have remained relatively unexplored. This paper reports the results from a two-year study of the determinants of training in a range of Australian privatesector enterprises. Forty-two case studies of enterprises from five industry sectors were undertaken and a national survey of 1,760 enterprises. The resulting data set is a unique record of the training arrangements that exist within contemporary Australian enterprises.