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"human"

A wide diversity of literature exists that is relevant to examining PD and understanding PL, making such investigation an interdisciplinary area of inquiry. This inquiry is located at the intersection of a number of areas of research and of policy. Research into the continuing learning of professionals can be informed by the literature from higher education and continuing professional education, workplace and informal learning, adult and community education and organisational learning and human resource management. Until recently, research from these areas was rarely integrated, let alone focused towards the particular concerns of the continuing learning of working professionals. © 2010, Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

Degrees from vocational education and training (VET) are considered to guarantee a successful transition from school to work. The German labor market is strongly segmented along occupations. Consequently chances for a successful transition into the labor market are distributed unequally. Educational certificates from general education as well as from the VET system serve as signals for expected productivity and learnability throughout work and occupation. Hence, signals determine wage expectancies of VET graduates. Better degrees in general and vocational education, as well as higher training expenditures by bigger firms eventually result in first job salary disparities. Using the Saarland VET Graduate Panel, we can for the first time analyze the impact of final grades received by VET graduates on wages in their first job. In our study VET grades represent a stable and significant additional human capital indicator in explaining wage differences among graduates within comparable occupations. © 2010 Duncker und Humblot GmbH. All rights reserved.

This article reviews diverse representations of learning evident among published accounts of workplace learning across fields such as adult education, human resource development, management and organisation studies. The discussion critically addresses the question of how to mediate a multiplicity of definitional, ideological and purposive orientations. The argument here is that the issue is not perspectival, but ontological. The critical problem lies in mistaking learning as a single object when in fact it is enacted as multiple objects, as very different things in different logics of study and practice. Particularly in the contested arena of work as a site of economic conflict and production, learning needs to be appreciated as a messy object, existing in different states, or perhaps a series of different objects that are patched together through some manufactured linkages. © 2010 The author.

This paper aims to describe how to support the development of expertise in a multi-disciplinary setting in one technical university in Finland. The aim of this paper is to improve the understanding of what expertise is and how to promote such expertise through doctoral education. There is a need to create interdisciplinary skills for complex global environments in engineering education. Therefore, a multidisciplinary doctoral programme combining both humanities and engineering disciplines, specifically in industrial engineering, provides a great opportunity to study scientific expertise. The implications of this paper provide a greater understanding of how university departments can support doctoral students during their journey to becoming professional scientists and experts. The review shows that the scholarly community plays an important role in fostering new experts through doctoral education. Earlier, doctors were seen as wise men in a factual sense; today's doctors and those of the future are seen as having skills and knowledge to work within communities that build up expertise in collaboration. Expertise is not one man's property but is developed in a network of actors in social environments. The structures of doctoral education support the earlier view of expertise. However, these structures should be changed in order better to promote the development of expertise as understood today. In order to promote the development of the scientific expertise of doctoral students, more collaborative approaches should be adopted during doctoral education. Doctoral students should be encouraged to take on the role of an active agent in the scholarly community in its broad sense. Students should participate actively in scientific conferences and other professional meetings from the early stages of their studies.

Conventional technical education has been implemented within an apprenticeship system; however, the framework to support this system is now collapsing. Today, the technical education of plasterers is often implemented using training methods far removed from those of the conventional apprenticeship system.However, in Japan, the training of technicians has been left to subcontractors; this has resulted in a lack of consistency, and this approach is now in a state of neglect.In the West, vocational education is provided in schools, and technical training is implemented through collaboration between educational institutions and the corporate sector.The modern building industry is characterized by major advances in construction technology and the challenge of new building technologies. In view of this, there is a need to train top-class plasterers who are capable of adapting to a constantly changing work environment.Unlike other occupations, the work of plasterers can be divided into three categories, each with a unique work description and work methods.The work description of an advanced-level plasterer is to perform plastering work requiring advanced skills (that is, work that only a skilled craftsman or supervisor can handle), to work with clients and engineers to propose technical solutions and coordinate work processes, and to train, instruct, and guide young and subordinate workers.In order to perform these activities, advanced-level plasterers must have the management skills to provide appropriate and timely instruction, guidance, and proposals on-site. In September 2007, upon completion of a Kanto-area seminar, I conduced a questionnaire survey of participants.The seminar enabled participants to efficiently learn communication and leadership management skills through off-the-job training and brainstorming.This paper clarifies and presents one aspect of educational methods for training subcontractor technicians-a subject that has been somewhat neglected up to now.On the basis of these concepts, the first objective of this study is to raise specific issues in relation to vocational education and personnel development-the cultivation of plasterers to perform plaster work, one of the main kinds of subcontract work in Japanese construction projects-and to describe a method for training building-industry technicians that enables the acquisition of occupational ranks according to the individual's stage of skill development, in line with a model system (from hiring to the attainment of the highest technical qualification) for the current employment of plasterers). © Chinese Research Institute of Construction Management.

Nurturing a high-quality, knowledgeable and innovative human capital with strong moral and ethical values has become a new source of driving the nation's productivity growth and competitiveness. Therefore, human Resource Development Council (HRDC) was established in 1992 to generate lifelong learning in workplace setting to improve labor productivity, technology transfer and innovation. In 2002 it was renamed as human Resource Development Limited (HRDL). All registered employers with HRDL are eligible for the employees training grants. The total approved training places and disbursement of training grants had increased over the years. This paper investigates to what extent the training programs improve employee knowledge, skills, works behavior and job performance, and what are the significant training related factors influencing job performance. The paper is based on data collected through self-reported survey on 1200 employees (458 responded) at hotels, resorts and ICTs companies in four selected states. Out of the responses, 73 percent attended various training programs coordinated by HRDL. The result shows that, in general, the training programs improve knowledge, skills and positive work behavior of employees. Multiple linear regression analysis supports the hypothesis that training related variables have positive impact on employees' job performance except cognitive competence.

Explanations of the employment differences between children of some groups of immigrants and children of natives can be found on both the supply and the demand side of the labour market. This chapter focuses on the demand side. Three issues are highlighted: Recruiting through networks, discrimination and labour market institutions. Networks play an important role when recruitment and promotion are largely made through informal channels. There are differences between the networks of children of immigrants and children of natives. Compared to children of natives, the children of immigrants on average to a greater extent have unemployed parents and relatives, live in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods and attend segregated schools. This means that the children of immigrants have less access to networks with links to the labour market and to the most rewarding areas of the labour market. There are several studies showing discrimination against the children of certain groups of immigrants. One reason behind discrimination could be that employers, coworkers and/or customers dislike being in close contact with people from certain minorities. Another source of discrimination is what economists call statistical discrimination, which occurs if information on the individual job seeker's productivity is difficult or costly to obtain. Employers' hiring decisions are in this case based on preconceptions of the average productivity of the group the job seeker seems to belong to, and not on the abilities of the job-seeking individual. Children of some groups of immigrants are ascribed various characteristics that can be attributed to some individuals in the group but not to all. Generalising negative characteristics to every individual in the group contributes to statistical discrimination. Different institutions can counteract the difficulties caused by discrimination and the lack of networks. Educational institutions are important for the transition from school to work. If occupation-specific human capital is provided in the regular educational system, employers are well informed of the potential productivity of an inexperienced job seeker. Young people with credentials from such vocational tracks have an advantage in finding not only a job, but also an appropriate job. The disadvantages are obstacles for the children of immigrants to gain entrance into attractive vocational tracks, in particular to training places at the work place, where there is a risk of discrimination against the children of immigrants or an extensive use of selection through networks. On the other hand, more comprehensive educational systems have the benefit of being less selective, but the disadvantage of giving less informative signals to the labour market. When discrimination and the lack of resourceful networks are obstacles for children of immigrants to gain employment, labour market programmes can improve their chances. Programmes that are very close to the labour market are found to be the most effective in terms of increasing the participants' employment possibilities. Such programmes are wage subsidies in ordinary jobs and labour market training of high quality. Another measure found to be effective is intensified matching and counselling. The important issue is whether the children of immigrants have access to high quality programmes to the same extent as children of natives or if they are overrepresented in programmes that are very far from the labour market. There are some indications that this is the case, but the issue needs further research. The policy implications constitute of measures that compensate for the lack of networks and counteract discrimination. Correspondence testing could be a useful tool to assess the extent of discrimination against children of immigrants. Besides legislation there are a number of other measures, which have in common that they increase the chances of children of immigrants to refute preconceptions about their abilities and give them a chance to demonstrate their true productivity to employers. Educational institutions need to more vigorously involve themselves in the acquisition of apprenticeship and other training places in the ordinary labour market and in the allocation of pupils to these training places. Labour market programmes should be subjected to a systematic use of evaluation methods. Such evaluations should consider how the policy is implemented as well as the labour market outcomes of programme participants. Differences in implementation or in outcomes between the children of immigrants and the children of the native-born should be identified. Education on discrimination and the mechanisms behind should be included in the inservice training at employment offices and schools and be mandatory in all intercultural courses. © OECD 2010.

human resource issues persist as a vexation for tourism managers. Foodservice is a core component of many tourism destinations and attractions yet the foodservice labour market is historically volatile. This article reports on the findings of a job satisfaction survey of chefs working in Australia's tourism and hospitality industry. This study's aim is to determine empirically whether there is a positive relationship between creativity and job and occupational satisfaction. A customised instrument is designed to mitigate the shortcomings of generalising scale items and findings of generic job satisfaction surveys to a single occupation. This paper focuses on identifying a range of dimensions of job satisfaction and occupational attributes connected to creativity and its associated dimensions. Reliability and data reduction analyses were conducted to validate the construction of composite 'creativity' variables for the basis of further comparisons. The findings indicate that the sample ranks creativity more highly than working conditions and that there is a clear relationship between creativity and both organisational and occupational satisfaction. Results vary as a function of gender. In conclusion, theoretical and practical implications for occupational and tourism management are discussed. © 2009.

The basic aim of this paper is to investigate the impact that educational level of individuals and participation in training programmes (apprenticeship, intra-firm training, continuing vocational training, popular training) have on their job prospects in the Greek regions of Northern Aegean and Crete, both highly attractive tourist destinations, during the implementation of the first Community Support Framework - CSF (1989-1993). We try to see whether the educational level itself and participation in training programmes increased the chances of finding a job. More specifically, we research what are the social and demographic characteristics that increase the chances of someone in the examined population finding a job, how those chances change (if they do) after the introduction of training courses and, also, whether University graduates, in contrast to most of the rest of the EU member states, face greater difficulties in finding a job than non-University graduates, as a series of studies or aggregate statistics for Greece conclude. We use individual anonymised records (micro-data) of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) for both employed and unemployed in both regions at NUTS 2 level.

AIM: To characterize a vocational training doctor's population that chooses General Practice and Family Medicine as career, in Portugal, trying to identify a profile; to know the proportion of the trainees that choose this specialty as a first-line option, for their professional future; to analyze the relationship between that choice and the sociodemographic and professional characteristics of the General Practice and Family Medicine trainees. Type of Study: Observational and cross-sectional study, with an analytic component. Population: Doctors who entered the vocational training program for General Practice and Family Medicine in Portugal, during the year of 2005 (N = 228). Methods: Postal questionnaire survey of all doctors that began vocational training during the year of 2005. Descriptive statistics were calculated and we use the χ 2 and T test to analyze the relationship between the variables (α = 0,05). Results: The overall response was 47,81% (n = 109). The profile found is mostly feminine (76, 15%), average age = 30, 2 years (DP = 6,28), Portuguese nationality (79,82%), graduate less than five years (Mo = 2002), and with a professional work average in medicine = 3,0 years (DP = 3,87). Most of trainees has no experience, working in undiferentiated Primary Care settings (87,04%). The specialty was chosen as a firstline option by 78,90% of the trainees, regardless of their profile. Conclusion: The high proportion of trainees choosing this specialty, as a first-line option, is a relevant result in this study. Identifying the specialty internship Doctor's profile, through a representative population, gives us an important evidence for future investigations, in a moment of a primary care reform in Portugal. © 2010 CELOM.