What leads employers to co-finance and collectively provide transferable skills? This study analyses employer cooperation in four sectors with varying levels of employer cooperation in the provision and financing of transferable (general) skills in post-secondary vocational training. It finds that employers’ associations cooperate in order to provide and finance skills when: (1) they rely on internal labour markets for recruitment, (2) there are institutional spill-over effects between employers’ cooperation in initial and continuous vocational training, (3) large firms are committed to collective training, (4) there is a tradition of collective labour agreements, (5) employers’ associations’ logic of organization building includes training policies as an important means to attract members, and (6) they do not prefer universities (of applied sciences) as an alternative and substitutive track to enhance the general skills of their employees. These findings contribute not only to the literature on employers’ collective action in vocational and further training but also to studies of business associations. © Oxford University Press 2022.
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