Article 2025

Ohio's Regional Manufacturing Workforce Partnerships: Governing a Common Pool Resource

Economic Development Quarterly
Journal · Vol. 39 · Issue 1 · pp. 60-70
Abstract

Ohio's manufacturing industry sector partnerships (ISP) are economic development and workforce development efforts that rely on community development inputs. The authors posit that graduates of regional, sector-led, industry-specific workforce training programs constitute a common pool resource, as described by Elinor Ostrom, because while hiring graduates is rival, it is not excludable. This creates a workforce version of the tragedy of the commons because these programs often have experiential learning components in workplaces and require funding support, mentoring, and the long-term commitment of company leaders to a partnership. The training programs will flounder if participating employers do not earn a return on their resource expenditures. The output of the partnership program is trained workers, while its primary outcome is the production of goods and services. The economic mobility of the recipients of ISP training is a by-product, or secondary outcome, of the partnership's activities © The Author(s) 2024.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Manufacturing economic development policy workforce development policy economic development practice industry sector partnerships workforce development practice

Index Keywords

learning training workplace Vocational education United States economic development labor supply manufacturing Community development recruitment (employment) Ohio
Author Affiliations
The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States
Development Intern, Fund The Climb Foundation, Columbus, OH, United States
Funding & Acknowledgements
Manufacturing Institute, MI
We appreciate the advice we received from Chris Spence of the New Growth Group, Iris Hentze and Kristine Goodwin of the National Council of State Legislatures, and Christiana McFarland, then with the National League of Cities and now with SRI International, at the outset of this research. We benefited from reviews and comments by John Magill, Tim Bartik, George Erickcek, and Susan Houseman. Comments made by two anonymous reviewers helped us clarify and focus the article. The article is derived from a report that was delivered by the Ohio Manufacturing Institute to the Ohio Manufacturers Association. The authors were not paid for preparing or for publishing the article.
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