DIFFERENT RESPONSES TO COMMON DEMANDS - FIRMS, INSTITUTIONS, AND TRAINING IN EUROPE

This article is based on interviews with informed participants and on case studies of companies in Baden-Wurttemberg, Rhone-Alpes, Lombardy, and Catalonia. It discusses the new trends in firms' demand for human resources and the different mechanisms for the social production of a skilled labour supply. The research findings throw light on three maj or points. First, they show how the training mechanisms that have deve loped in the regions studied may be grouped into two very distinct typ es: a 'redundancy-oriented' system on the one hand, and an 'appropriat eness-oriented' system on the other, each of them producing a type of labour supply that yields different advantages and disadvantages for t he companies based in the region. Second, they highlight the new featu res of companies' demand for human resources. On this basis, the artic le argues that three trends identified in all the companies surveyed s eriously challenge the training systems of all these regions. The last section discusses the different ways in which the regional institutio ns respond to this challenge, by trying to cope with especially those aspects which are regionally specific. Hence, although the persistent myth of the 'one best way' to organize training occasionally drives at tempts at institutional imitation, the basic solutions with which regi onal institutions are now experimenting tend to vary cross-regionally.