Student Work Placements in Small Firms: Do They Pay-off or Shift Tastes?

Stuart Fraser (), David Storey and Paul Westhead

Small Business Economics, 2006, vol. 26, issue 2, 125-144

Abstract: We present a model of training investments and employment outcomes. In this model training may enhance trainees’ tastes for particular types of career (taste shift) and/or shift their wage offer distributions (pay-off). An empirical analysis is conducted with a unique data-set of UK graduates. These data contain information on students’ career tastes before small-firm placements as well as their employment outcomes after graduation. Analysis of these data indicates that the placements provide a pay-off among highly employable graduates who face certain disadvantages in the labour market. Conversely individuals, who expressed a taste for small-firm careers before placements, are more likely to take-up small-firm employment after placements suggesting these individuals experience enhanced opportunities for their preferred career. However individuals with pre-placement large-firm preferences have no greater likelihood of entering small-firms’ employment after placements indicating there is no fundamental effect on career tastes. Copyright Springer 2006

Keywords: career preferences; employment outcomes; government-subsidised training programmes; selection bias; small firms; J24; I28; C35 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11187-004-2438-6

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