Empirical Essays in International Business and Education Economics

This thesis contains four chapters in International Business and Education Economics. Chapter 1 contributes to the emerging literature on strategic human resource management (HRM). By using representative Swiss establishment-level data, we investigate the importance of two alternative workplace training strategies in subsidiaries of MNCs, i. e., formal initial vocational education and training (VET) or the provision of largely informal on-the-job training. Chapter 2 shifts the focus on the intermediary headquarter relocation in MNCs and the factors that drive the relocation decision. Chapter 3 presents findings of the research project “Do works councils improve the quality of apprenticeship training in Germany?” financed by the Hans-Böckler-Foundation, Germany. We provide the first empirical evidence on how the existence of a works council is associated with the input, process, and outcome quality measures in the German apprenticeship system. Chapter 4 investigates participation in further training in Germany. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), this chapter tests whether a gender gap in further training exists among the part-time working population in Germany.