A Study on Education and Training Collaboration between Large and Small & Medium-sized Enterprises: Focusing on the Time of Promoting Policy for Win-Win Cooperation between Large and Small Enterprises in 2012

The Korean government has announced win-win growth policy and been promoting collaboration between large enterprises (LEs) and small & medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This study examined the status and perception in education and training (E&T) collaboration between LEs and SMEs in supply chains following the promotion of the win-win growth policy. Particular focus was placed on E&T which is applicable to most of the collaboration domains. A survey method was employed and LEs and SMEs that are partners in their supply chain participated (151 LEs and 401 SMEs). Overall, 80.1% of the LEs and 68.3% of the SMEs were engaged in E&T collaboration. The larger their sizes, the more likely they were to be engaged. The LEs tended to have a more positive perspective and recognition for E&T collaboration than the SMEs. Main contents of collaboration were directly related to enhancing productivity (i.e., quality control and technology support) and they were also considered the most important for LEs and SMEs’ mutual benefits. The major hindrance was ‘a lack of time for training’. E&T collaboration could act as a means to achieve consensus to support win-win collaboration, healthy inter-organizational communication, and expand the domains of E&Ts valued at enterprises.