Do national values and firms’ training practices affect employees’ employability in Europe?: Distinguishing internal and external labour markets

Abstract

Multinational enterprises’ internal labour market allows these firms to take advantages from exchanging highly employable workers among different production units. As these firms requires employable workers, they have an incentive to invest in training practices. But interactions between employees and contextual factors in the development of employees’ employability in multi-country environments are not well known. Against this background the current study analyses different facets of employability (i.e., within the internal and external labour markets; basic and aspiring) in order to examine the impact of national cultural values and firms’ training practices on different facets of employees’ employability. Linear regression models tested the proposed hypotheses on a sample of 32,339 employees from 31 European countries. Results confirm the influence of national values of ‘masculinity’ and training practices, beyond human capital –i.e., individual’s level of education and work experience–, on the perceived employability of European employees. Post-hoc analysis also shows that the ‘person-job fit’ is an important issue that moderates the influence of human capital, social values of masculinity and training practices on employees’ employability. Discussion and practical implications of the work are provided.