Article 2018

Changing content and form: corporate training in Finnish retailing, 1900–1975

SJ
Seppala, Jarmo
Management and Organizational History
Journal · Vol. 13 · Issue 2 · pp. 160-190
Abstract

In this paper, I study the history of corporate training in the Finnish retail industry from the beginning to the last quarter of the 20th century. In this effort, I search for answers to questions regarding how and why retail organizations adapted their in-house educational organizations to the different pressures arising from ideologically imprinted stakeholders or external regulators and the competitive business environment. From the historical development of corporate training systems, it is possible to discern two clear dimensions that help to structure the history of the corporate training of Finnish retail organizations. The dimensions are the form (generic vs. specific) and content (ideological vs. practical) of training. During the research period, corporate training transformed from the development of means-end rational capabilities into a ‘semipublic’ educational system. © 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Ideology Professional Skill Corporate training institutional environment retail trade task environment

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations
Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyvaskyla, Central Finland, Finland, Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics, Jyvaskyla, Central Finland, Finland
Funding & Acknowledgements
No funding information
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