Workforce Development Systems: Concepts, Components, And Participant Inclusion
Open Access
- Author:
- Levine, Eli
- Graduate Program:
- Public Administration
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 19, 2024
- Committee Members:
- Theodore Alter, Outside Unit & Field Member
Michele Tantardini, Major Field Member
Goktug Morcol, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Elizabeth Beckett-Camarata, Major Field Member
L. Marvin Overby, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- workforce development
economic development
public administration
public policy system - Abstract:
- To ensure an economy can function, firms that carry out productive activities must have people who know how to carry out those activities. Workforce development systems (WDSs) are a means to ensure that people know how to carry out the productive activities of their firms. WDSs may also be leveraged for people to improve their material living conditions through attaining credentials and valuable skills for the economy. Therefore, understanding WDSs and the several factors that ensure they work well is valuable for policymakers because WDSs can be used for both business interests and those who wish to see wealth become more easily attainable for a greater number of people. In the first chapter of this dissertation, I present the results of a review of peer-reviewed articles on workforce development organizations, policies, and systems. The results indicate that most articles in all the three decades discuss topics related to “organizations” and “development," with focusing on specific functions in WDSs (e.g., “policy,” “training," and “skill”). The least mentioned keywords were typically related to inclusion of people from disadvantaged backgrounds (e.g., “disabled,” “women,” and “minorities”) or topics that related to the interests of labor (e.g., “human capital” and "income.”) However, topics related to inclusion were also represented among the most highly cited and central articles in the literature corpus, reflecting some interest in the topics. In Chapter 2, I analyzed the laws of six U.S. states and classified them into three categories (high-performing WDS, mid-performing WDSs, and low-performing WDS) to investigate if there were any differences among the laws of the states with various levels of performance. The results indicate that states with high-performing WDSs tended to have fewer numbers and types of stakeholders mentioned in their laws. Apart from that, there were no clear relationships between specific stakeholders that were mentioned and their assigned roles, and the performances of the states’ WDSs. Instead, I was able to identify types of stakeholders that were most and least likely to be considered in state legislation related to creating WDSs, and the roles they were most and least likely to be assigned by the laws. In Chapter 3, I analyzed state level data from the six states I identified in Chapter 2 to investigate the outcomes of the WDS programs for different demographic backgrounds in terms of sex, age, and race/ethnicity. The results indicate that the outcomes of the programs varied among different demographic groups.