Fuelling Germany’s Mittelstand with complementary human capital: the case of the Cooperative State University Baden-Württemberg

ABSTRACT

While research on universities is well elaborated within the field of higher education, less effort has been made to study other institutions of tertiary education. Complementary to the need of hybrid (specific and general) human capital for German Mittelstand firms, the system of tertiary dual education in Germany has succeeded in hitting two birds with one stone. Though Germany has often been criticized for its low rate of university graduates, the critique has largely failed to acknowledge the differentiation of Germany's dual tertiary education model. By highlighting the case of Baden-Württemberg and its Cooperative State University system, we illustrate the diversity of Germany’s landscape of higher education institutions. It appears that the availability of a large pool of tertiary dual educated students contributes in particular to the advantage of Mittelstand firms in Baden-Württemberg.

KEYWORDS:

• Vocational education
• cooperative education
• Mittelstand
• hidden champions
• human capital

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Julian Schenkenhofer is a research associate at the University of Augsburg, Chair of Management and Organization. His research topics revolve around German Mittelstand companies that pursue a niche strategy and are commonly known as hidden champions. In particular, Schenkenhofer targets economic and strategic firm investments in the provision of human capital, e.g. the centralization vs. decentralization of education systems as well as the geographic distribution of human capital in urban vs. rural areas.

Dominik Wilhelm is a research associate at the University of Augsburg, Chair of Management and Organization. His research is in the field of Entrepreneurship & Finance, which includes alternative forms of financing such as crowdfunding and SME bonds as well as innovative business models of companies in the financial sector. His interests also cover the strategic management of family businesses.

ORCID

Julian Schenkenhofer http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3502-1197

Notes

1 Baden-Württemberg (BW) is one of the 16 states of Germany located in the southwest, east of the Rhine River, which forms the border with France. It is Germany's third-largest state, with an area of 13,804 sq mi and 10.8 million inhabitants. BW has also the second highest GDP per capita of all states, excluding the two city-states and port-cities Hamburg and Bremen.

2 Federalism in Germany is made of the states of Germany (the länder) and the federal government. The central government, the states and the German municipalities have different tasks and partially competing regions of responsibilities ruled by a complex system of checks and balances.