Empirische Untersuchungen zu Vorteilen und Kosten von Traineeprogrammen für Unternehmen

A comprehensive review of the related literature revealed that trainee programs have not yet received a lot of attention by academic research despite their high practical relevance. In this context, the present research project makes a special contribution to understanding what advantages companies can expect from offering a program and what related costs arise. In order to deal with this question, three individual empirical studies were carried out as part of the dissertation project:
The first study is a quantitative evaluation of application decisions using descriptive and inductive statistics. Actual applicant data, such as CVs and certificates, were used for the investigation. The results show that applicants for trainee programs - in comparison to university graduates who apply for other job vacancies – are characterized on average by better academic grades, higher mobility and more international experiences.
The second study contains investigations of the matching quality and career paths of trainees based on qualitative expert interviews. In line with the approach of the previous study university graduates that started their careers not as a trainee but on a regular entry position serve as comparison group for investigating the trainees. The interviews revealed that the quality of both person-organization fit and person-fit of trainees are rated very high by program experts. In addition former trainees show increased tendency for cross-functional and cross-regional job changes in their career paths. This high flexibility for new tasks in the firm makes former trainees an important asset for dynamic talent management.
The third study covered the analysis of related program costs by the means of a case study. The results from this case study were cross-checked via an e-mail survey. The results show that trainee programs can come with significant costs for firms, but that the individual program design determines the specific height of the costs.
Combining the results from the three individual studies the thesis emphasizes which important advantages firms can expect from their trainee program with respect to finding and recruiting new talents for the firm, utilizing these talents in the best possible form and supporting the efforts of talent management processes.