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WISEs and their potential to transform the Croatian skill-formation regime
Nikola Buković* 
Danijel Baturina*
Danijel Baturina
Affiliation: Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
 0000-0002-9063-305X
Article | Year: 2025 | Pages: 431 - 456 | Volume: 49 | Issue: 3 Received: December 10, 2024 | Accepted: April 17, 2025 | Published online: September 3, 2025
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FULL ARTICLE
FIGURES & DATA
REFERENCES
CROSSMARK POLICY
METRICS
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Public
commitment to vocational training
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High
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Statist skill formation (Sweden,
France)
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Collective skill formation (Germany,
Austria, Denmark, The Netherlands…)
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Low
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Liberal skill formation (USA, UK,
Ireland)
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Segmentalist skill formation (Japan)
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Involvement
of firms in initial vocational training
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Low
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High
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Source: Busemeyer and Trampusch (2012: 12).
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Type
of measure
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Enablers
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Supporters
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WSNs
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Training courses
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51.7
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65.2
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54.5
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Recruitment of new staff
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27.0
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27.0
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20.7
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Internal re-organization of staff
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27.0
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23.6
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24.1
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No measures
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19.1.
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11.2
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19.3
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Other measures
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12.4
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15.7
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22.1
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*Data for enablers and supporters is based on responses from enablers, while data for WSNs is based on responses from supporters. Source: Galera et al. (2022: 135).
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Self-funded
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67.1
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Co-funded by public funds
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55.2
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Funded by public funds
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35.5
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Funded by private funding schemes
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9.2
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Paid by employees
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2.6
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Other
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2.6
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*Responses from enablers. Source: Galera et al. (2022: 137).
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Country/category
of workers
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Bulgaria
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Croatia
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Latvia
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Slovenia
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Enablers
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2/5
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3/6
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2/6
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3/9
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Supporters
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4/5
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2/6
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1/6
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7/9
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WSNs
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3/7
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2/6
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0/4
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11/12
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* Data for enablers and supporters is based on responses from enablers, while data for WSNs is based on responses from supporters. Source: B-WISE F2F survey (2021).
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Country/source
of funding
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Bulgaria
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Croatia
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Latvia
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Slovenia
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Paid by employees
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0/2
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0/4
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0/4
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0/9
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Self-funded
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2/2
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2/4
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4/4
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4/9
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Co-funded by public funds
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1/2
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2/4
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3/4
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9/9
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Funded by public funds
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1/2
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2/4
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0/4
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2/9
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Funded by private funding schemes
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0/2
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1/4
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0/4
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0/9
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Other
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0/2
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0/4
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0/4
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0/9
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*Responses provided by enablers. Source: B-WISE F2F survey (2021).
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Country/source
of funding
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Bulgaria
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Croatia
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Latvia
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Slovenia
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Lack of funds
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4/5
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2/6
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2/6
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7/9
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Lack of time to organize/involve
staff in training
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0/5
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3/6
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2/6
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5/9
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Lack of knowledge about training
opportunities
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0/5
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1/6
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0/6
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0/9
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Lack of tailored training
opportunities fully matching the WISE skill gaps
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0/5
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2/6
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4/6
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4/9
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Other
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0/5
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0/6
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0/6
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0/9
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Not applicable (no barriers
detected):
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0/6
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2/6
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1/9
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0/9
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Source: B-WISE F2F survey (2021).
Table 1Typology of skill formation regimes in advanced industrial democracies DISPLAY Table
Table 2Measures in the pipeline to address skill gaps for enablers, supporters and workers with support needs (% values)* DISPLAY Table
Table 3WISEs training activities funding schemes (% values)* DISPLAY Table
Table 4Use of training to address skill gaps for enablers, supporters and WSNs/selected countries (ratio between responses per item and total number of responses)* DISPLAY Table
Table 5WISEs training activities funding schemes/selected countries (ratio between responses per item and total number of responses)* DISPLAY Table
Table 6Barriers to providing training for WISE staff/selected countries (ratio between responses per item and total number of responses)* DISPLAY Table
* The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.
2 Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Latvia, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Spain.
3 Looking beyond Europe an argument can be made that WISEs now constitute a major sphere of social enterprises activity globally (Cooney,  2016).
4 In 2022, the results for the 80,113 disadvantaged workers, who have followed an integration pathway in 2,072 work integration social enterprises from 10 countries, are as follows: 40% - Found a job on the labour market; 21% - Became self-employed or started an education program; 39% - Other (unemployment, sickness, retirement, etc).
6 The transitional model is a more recent and dynamic evolution of the traditional (permanent) model of integration and it was not the priority of all the first initiatives of WISEs that emerged in Europe in the 1980s (Borzaga, Galera and Nogales, 2008.; Galera et al., 2022).
7 Same authors also note that some WISEs simultaneously adopt both integration pathways, acting as a springboard to the labour market for some of the integrated workers, while offering permanent jobs to others.
8 For example, The Act on Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment of PWDs defines some aspects of financial and expert support for the employment of PWDs. Also, the Ordinance on incentives for the employment of PWDs allows for certain subsidies.
9 Rationale behind specific country-case selection is outlined in section 5.
10 The avoidance of treating CEE as homogenous, which research has shown is not the case is also noted in cases of sectors close to WISEs like civil society (Mayer et al., 2020; USAID, 2021).
11 Instead as percentages, data is presented as a ratio between responses per item and total number of respondents. We consider this approach more appropriate and informative when dealing with small-n (sub) samples, such as in this case.
12 Dobrotić ( 2016) asserts that policymakers in Croatia mostly ignore a “productivist” function of the welfare state, resulting in low employment rates, underdeveloped ALMPMs and social inclusion measures.
13 These are the latest available annual averages published by the Croatian Employment Service.
14 These are specifically socioeconomic enterprises (SÖB) and common benefit employment projects (GBP).
15 There is also a certain recognized “danger” of narrowing the meaning of the wider social entrepreneurship sector to WISEs as governmental agencies are mostly interested in the employment of marginalized social groups feature of the sector (Vidović, 2019; Vidović and Baturina, 2021 ).
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September, 2025
III/2025
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