title: Apprenticeship engagement among large employers in Scotland
Creators: name: Quigley, Paul
Publisher: name: University of Glasgow
Year: 2024

description: This thesis considers apprenticeship engagement among large employers in Scotland, as there has been no significant academic research available on what drives apprenticeship engagement within the contemporary Scottish context. Additionally, there has existed a need to develop a theoretical approach to evaluating apprenticeship engagement as current literature is sporadic and disjointed. This work involved eleven qualitative case studies within large organisations across Scotland, consisting of semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis. A series of supplementary interviews were also conducted with a broad range of stakeholders including skills practitioners, learning providers, business interest groups, HR professionals, apprentices, and trade unions. The case study organisations were categorised using a typology developed by Bredgaard (2017) dependent on engagement with, and attitude to, apprenticeships. This served to advance understanding of what different types of employers exist in Scotland in relation to apprenticeship engagement and enabled the identification of key characteristics of employer behaviour within each category. 

A critical realist data analysis approach was used which has allowed for some of the key structural forces and causal mechanisms driving apprenticeship engagement to be revealed and understood. It is found that committed employers, that engage with apprenticeships and hold a positive attitude toward them, are moved to engage as part of a long-term strategy. This approach is centred around either investment in workforce development, driven by labour market pressures, or around notions of ‘giving back to communities’, guided by ideas of corporate social responsibility. Sceptical employers engage with apprenticeships despite holding a negative attitude regarding them, and these organisations are generally private companies that engage as part of a short-term strategy, often to claim funding, meet immediate recruitment needs, or to conform to perceived industry expectations.

Passive employers do not engage with apprenticeships despite being generally positive about the concept because it is believed that the approach would not be suitable. This is a result of a limited understanding of available apprenticeship frameworks. These organisations also tend to be non-profit seeking, meaning that market pressures that might encourage engagement, for example to seek available funding or to hire staff on lowered apprentice wages, do not significantly influence decision making. Dismissive employers tend to prioritise flexible hiring practices, for example by utilising a temporary labour force or subcontractors. These organisations are likely to consider processes of deskilling and the lowering of labour costs and conditions where possible, and apprenticeships are generally viewed as a contractual commitment that would be incompatible with broader strategy. 

In addition to demonstrating the utility of Bredgaard’s framework within the context of apprenticeship engagement, it is proposed that the typology must be developed further to account for dynamic movement across the typology given that employer attitudes and engagement may change over time. It is hoped that the knowledge developed by this thesis will have practical application for practitioners and policymakers in the ongoing quest to improve the quantity and quality of apprenticeship opportunity available to people in Scotland, and that the theoretical contribution through the development of Bredgaard’s typology will support further academic research on apprenticeship engagement across a variety of different contexts.