No abstract

In this article, we argue that every typology should be constructed in a systematic, transparent process. Moreover, to validate a typology's explanatory value, a typological approach must rest on a strong theoretical foundation. We both propose such an approach and apply it to construct three ideal types of vocational education and training (VET) programs. We build on Luhmann's theory of social systems, which helps elucidate the significance of the linkage between actors from the education and employment systems in VET. The first ideal type, with a maximal linkage, entails equal power-sharing between actors from the two systems. We expect such a VET program to have the most favorable youth labor market outcome. In contrast, the other two ideal types, in which only one system has all of the power, result in either undesirable outcomes, such as unemployment or skill mismatch, or missing access to further education.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractThis paper uses panel data of Swiss firms to analyze the impact of education-level diversity in the workforce on innovation performance, addressing endogeneity by exploiting within-firm variation as well as variation in labor supply across regions. We find that vertical educational diversity increases the extensive margin of R&D and product innovation, particularly new product innovation. However, the relationship with process innovation, R&D intensity, and product innovation intensity is insignificant or even negative. These results are in line with the idea that vertical educational diversity enhances the creative moment of the invention phase, while it might affect the commercialization phase negatively due to the dominance of coordination and communication costs relative to the gains in creativity. JEL: O3Keywords: Vertical educational diversity, innovation performance, R&D, product innovation, process innovation Acknowledgements: We thank the participants of the 15 th ISS Conference, the KOF-UZH Seminar and the KOF Brown Bag Seminar for helpful comments and suggestions.