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This paper uses firm-level panel data of on-the-job training to estimate its impact on productivity and wages. To this end, we apply and extend the control function approach for estimating production functions, which allows us to correct for the endogeneity of input factors and training. We find that the productivity premium of a trained worker is substantially higher compared to the wage premium. Our results are consistent with recent theories that explain work-related training by imperfect competition in the labor market.

Education in implementation science, which involves the training of health professionals in how to implement evidence-based findings into health practice systematically, has become a highly relevant topic in health sciences education. The present study advances education in implementation science by compiling a competence profile for implementation practice and research and by exploring implementation experts’ sources of expertise. The competence profile is theoretically based on educational psychology, which implies the definition of improvable and teachable competences. In an online-survey, an international, multidisciplinary sample of 82 implementation experts named competences that they considered most helpful for conducting implementation practice and implementation research. For these competences, they also indicated whether they had acquired them in their professional education, additional training, or by self-study and on-the-job experience. Data were analyzed using a mixed-methods approach that combined qualitative content analyses with descriptive statistics. The participants deemed collaboration knowledge and skills most helpful for implementation practice. For implementation research, they named research methodology knowledge and skills as the most important ones. The participants had acquired most of the competences that they found helpful for implementation practice in self-study or by on-the-job experience. However, participants had learned most of their competences for implementation research in their professional education. The present results inform education and training activities in implementation science and serve as a starting point for a fluid set of interdisciplinary implementation science competences that will be updated continuously. Implications for curriculum development and the design of educational activities are discussed.

There is increasing evidence that science & engineering PhD students lose interest in an academic career over the course of graduate training. It is not clear, however, whether this decline reflects students being discouraged from pursuing an academic career by the challenges of obtaining a faculty job or whether it reflects more fundamental changes in students' career goals for reasons other than the academic labor market. We examine this question using a longitudinal survey that follows a cohort of PhD students from 39 U.S. research universities over the course of graduate training to document changes in career preferences and to explore potential drivers of such changes. We report two main results. First, although the vast majority of students start the PhD interested in an academic research career, over time 55% of all students remain interested while 25% lose interest entirely. In addition, 15% of all students were never interested in an academic career during their PhD program, while 5% become more interested. Thus, the declining interest in an academic career is not a general phenomenon across all PhD students, but rather reflects a divergence between those students who remain highly interested in an academic career and other students who are no longer interested in one. Second, we show that the decline we observe is not driven by expectations of academic job availability, nor by related factors such as postdoctoral requirements or the availability of research funding. Instead, the decline appears partly due to the misalignment between students' changing preferences for specific job attributes on the one hand, and the nature of the academic research career itself on the other. Changes in students' perceptions of their own research ability also play a role, while publications do not. We discuss implications for scientific labor markets, PhD career development programs, and science policy.

While many advocate 'lifelong learning' as the ideal career model, its impact on workers' lives is still partly unclear. Especially research on monetary returns to further education has yielded mixed evidence. I argue that a thorough assessment has to consider both the types of courses and the segmentation of labour markets. Using data from the German National Educational Panel Study, I test explanations of differing returns to non-formal further education in Germany, a country known for its highly segmented labour market. Results confirm that the returns to short non-formal training courses, which are the most common forms of further education in Germany, differ remarkably between types of courses and segments. Employer-mandated courses yield the highest returns, which is especially pronounced in internal labour markets. Furthermore, there are no returns on closed occupational labour markets. In occupations, where formal credentials are less important, returns to training are present. These results suggest that returns depend less on individual decisions to invest in training and more on the context. Hence, these findings go against human capital explanations and instead support implications of the Job Competition Model and Credentialism, which emphasize the importance of labour market structure.

This article identifies the effects of work-related training on worker productivity by exploiting a field experiment that randomly assigns workers to treatment and control groups combined with data on worker performance before and after training. We find that participation in the training programme leads to a 10% increase in performance. Moreover, we provide experimental evidence for externalities from training: An increase of 10 percentage points in the share of treated peers improves a worker's performance by 0.51%. Furthermore, we find that the performance increase is not due to lower quality provided by the worker.

The Network on Labour market, economic, and social outcomes of learning (LSO Expert Network) has diligently worked on the selection of indicators for monitoring adult learning policies. Their inaugural theoretical framework on adult learning, published in 2013, covered a broad spectrum of policy areas. This comprehensive scope reflected both the focus of existing data sources and the challenges encountered in data collection efforts. Over the past decade, significant policy shifts have occurred, reshaping adult learning systems both domestically and internationally. Concurrently, there have been improvements in the availability and frequency of data pertaining to adult learning. In response to these developments, this working paper presents an updated theoretical framework on adult learning, aiming to enhance the identification of statistical data concerning adult learning systems and facilitate the selection of pertinent indicators for monitoring purposes. Additionally, the paper offers detailed insights into national priorities and practices within this domain.

This study investigates the relation of further training and employees’ affective commitment by disentangling the relevance of a firm’s general support for further training and the individual’s actual participation. Using linked employer-employee data, we consider both the firm’s and the individual’s perspective and control for several HR instruments additionally to the usual demographics and job characteristics. We also distinguish between subgroups of employees regarding age and schooling. Results show that employees’ participation in further training and a firm’s support for further training are both positively related to affective commitment. Furthermore, our results hint for differences in employees’ expectations regarding the amount of the firm’s support for further training. Whereas there is no meaningful relation of the general firm’s support for further training to commitment of university graduates, participation in further training measures and the individuals’ perceived support for personnel development is particularly relevant for this group of employees.

Older workers throughout Europe are increasingly expected to participate longer in the labour market. While training appears to increase workers’ employability, prior research indicates that employers are less prone to provide training with increasing age of the workers. In this study, we aim to provide a better understanding of what affects employers’ considerations. We conduct a vignette experiment among Dutch employers to investigate how the government and workers themselves can exert influence on employers’ willingness to provide training. Our analyses show that employers’ provision of training declines with workers’ age, and additionally reveal two mitigating mechanisms. First, government reimbursements appear to work as a buffer: when reimbursements are offered, the decline in employers’ willingness to offer training is less pronounced throughout workers’ careers. Second, workers’ interest in training has a delaying effect: when workers are interested in training, employers’ willingness to provide training remains rather stable until workers are aged about 55, and decreases only afterwards. This contrasts the constant decline with age when workers had no interest in training. Our findings emphasise that employers’ considerations cannot be understood without taking the context into account, because governments and workers can affect employers’ decisions through cost reduction and social exchange relations, respectively. More research is needed to disentangle other possible underlying mechanisms.