New funds for research on skills supply in the wholesale industry

The Swedish Retail and Wholesale Development Council has granted SEK 1 924 000 in research funds to four researchers at Jönköping International Business School. The funds will finance the project ”Career paths in wholesale: who stay, quit and become entrepreneurs?”.

Mikaela Backman, Helena Nilsson, Pia Nilsson and Özge Öner are researchers at Centre for Entrepreneurship and Spatial Economics (CEnSE) at Jönköping International Business School. They have now been awarded research grants for their project aimed at analyzing, understanding and to highlight different career paths for employees and entrepreneurs in the wholesale trade.

- Skills supply is one of the biggest challenges companies face in Sweden, regardless of sector and geographic location. For sectors that also have problems retaining existing staff within the company, such as wholesale and retail, there are additional challenges and costs, Mikaela Backman says.

The researchers will also study those who choose to leave the wholesale industry and where they go, for example which sectors they continue to. The project aim is to find common denominators of employees who stay in wholesale for a long period of time, those who advance in the industry, those who leave the industry, and those who become entrepreneurs.

- In this way we will be able to show what kind of educational courses and previous experiences that can contribute to a long and successful career in the wholesale industry, as an employee or as an owner of a company.