In this SIWG session, Kees van Kersbergen (Aarhus University) will present experimental work about the perspective of managers in Danish firms on artificial intelligence (AI), regulation, and social policy responses, while Milan Thies (EUI) will present his research on how ecological and digital transformations have shaped the states’ involvement in vocational education and training systems.
Managing the Artificial Intelligence Revolution: Perceived Risks and Policy Preferences among Firm-Level Decision Makers (with David Weisstanner)
Kees van Kersbergen (Aarhus University)
This paper explores the political and policy implications of artificial intelligence (AI) from the perspective of managers in Danish firms. How do managers perceive AI’s impact on the workplace? What are their preferences for social and regulatory policies to address AI’s societal effects? How does information on AI’s economic consequences and regulation influence these preferences? Using a novel firm-level survey with experimental treatments, we capture the attitudes of managers toward AI regulation, compensation policies, and social investment initiatives. We find, first, that firms heavily utilizing AI are less supportive of stringent AI regulations and unemployment benefits, favoring instead education and retraining policies. Second, while informational treatments about AI’s economic impacts increased concern among firms, they did not significantly alter policy preferences. Finally, AI knowledge among managers correlates with lower levels of concern about AI’s societal impacts, though significant variations exist within AI-using firms.
Training for the Twin Transitions: Why Governments Intervene in Vocational Education and Training Systems
Milan Thies (EUI)
Technological change and the decarbonization of European economies are changing the demand for skills on the labour market. While much attention has been paid to changes on the demand side, it remains puzzling how the equally important supply side, skill formation systems, has adjusted to the structural economic changes of the 21st century. This paper combines quantitative and qualitative analyses to investigate the link between the twin challenges of the digital and ecological transformations and institutional change in vocational education and training (VET) systems. First, it uses natural language processing to identify the directions of change in VET systems across the EU. I draw on a novel dataset consisting of 291 standardized country-level descriptions of the EU member state’s VET systems. The findings suggest that states have progressively and decisively intensified their involvement in VET between 2005 and 2022. Second, I conduct an in-depth case study of VET policy in Germany — a least likely case for increasing state intervention due to its collectively organized skill formation system — to explore why states expand their involvement in VET. The qualitative analysis, based on 32 elite interviews with decision-makers involved in drafting and negotiating recent VET reforms and policy documents, finds that digital and ecological structural change has been a key motivator for redefining the role of the state in the German VET system, introducing a wide range of new policies such as individual legal entitlements, public services, and training subsidies.
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Hybrid event. The link to the session will be provided following registration.