Business Model Development and Transfer in the Context of Internationalisation: Lessons Learned of German VET Providers

Context: The internationalisation of vocational education and training (VET) is today almost a necessity in a world with global labour markets, where employees, employers and other actors have to deal with constant and rapid changes. Flexibilisation, digitalisation and the emergence of new occupations and markets require ongoing adaptations of training provision to changing demand. This research focuses on the aspect of business model and VET service development of small and medium sized VET training providers from Germany being active in different target countries. The aim of this study is to analyse the processes of business model development and adaptation by VET service providers and to crystallise the lessons learned by the actors.  

Approach: The research design contains two steps. Firstly, a document analysis was conducted based on 50 documents from selected projects of two German funding lines and following the approach of organisational research. Analysed document types were project descriptions, interim reports, final reports and business model canvases. Result of the document analysis was the formulation of work theses to develop guiding questions. Secondly, the project actors were interviewed based on those questions using semi-structured expert interviews.  

Findings: Regarding the development and design of business models in international contexts, the following lessons learned can be summarised: Development processes are not linear. Close involvement of local partners and customers facilitates the demand-oriented development of VET services and at the same time serves to reduce risks. Across the marked diversity of the projects and their lessons learned, a common development emerged, namely the attempt to reduce complexity, such as through planned modularisation at product or service level, adaptation of organisational framework conditions or flexible interface design.  

Conclusion: The development of business models still seems to be largely intuitive and less strategic or systematic. However, this result may also be due to the contextual conditions of the survey. Furthermore, there is a need for research regarding the design and transfer processes with concrete reference to VET services, for example in relation to programme development on a meso- and micro-didactic level.