This article compares the development of the collective skill formation systems in Germany and Austria from an historical-institutionalist perspective. It highlights that in both countries craft policy decisively impacted on the collectivisation of vocational training while industrial relations and social partnership exhibited different effects. Whereas in Germany the economic integration of trade unions, hence, collective bargaining, prompted collective skill formation, in Austria it was the impact of unions' political integration, hence, craft and social policies, which were oriented to social partners. Consequently, in those two countries two different causal chains led to the same result, namely, the emergence of a dual apprenticeship system. The study applies the method of contrasting contexts and Austria and Germany were selected as cases because both countries are typical cases for collective skill formation systems. The objective of the article is rather to analyze complex causality than to specify causal effects. The period of investigation is from 1849/1897 to 1938. © Rainer Hampp Verlag, www. Hampp-Verlag.de.
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