State-movement coalitions for building labor market systems at scale

Abstract

A range of U.S. organizations such as workforce intermediaries, community colleges, and early college high schools have attempted to connect schools and employers to give young people the combination of academic, social, and technical skills, credentials, and work experience needed to launch them into careers in high-growth, high-demand fields. While these organizations have successfully connected the supply side and demand side of the labor market in particular regions, they have had difficulty building statewide labor market systems that support worker training and employment. In this 20-month field study, I examined the successful building of statewide labor market systems in four U.S. states in the context of a specific programmatic idea-the implementation of career pathways spanning from high schools to colleges to employers. I found that state-movement coalitions can effectively scale labor market systems statewide by using three kinds of tactics: organizing tactics (building statewide governance structures and modifying governance processes over time), cultural tactics (providing new frames and building social accountability), and political process tactics (creating new policies and piloting and broadening the set of stakeholders over time).