ABSTRACT International political discourse has implied that upskilling leads to higher productivity and growth. Combining aspects from skills theory and institutional theory, this article asks what role upskilling can play in making bad jobs better, drawing on previous research about the process of professionalising the cleaning occupation in Norway. In line with institutional theory on educational transfer, it interprets a change in educational skills – the introduction of the trade certificate for cleaners – as a way of legitimising an occupation with a dubious reputation, ‘borrowing’ legitimacy from the educational system. The trade certificate functioned as a component in the ‘reverse signalling’ of skills towards procurers of cleaning services and potential employees, which was intended to improve skill use and by that, job quality. I suggest this strategy was founded on a reliance on knowledge society narratives: that education and skills yield complexity, productivity and job quality. However, this change in ‘formal structure’ did little to change industry job quality, which was subjected to a strict tender-based regime where price generally outweighed skills. A general application of a collective wage agreement was necessary to improve job quality, demonstrating the limits of upskilling for changing work design, even in a collective bargaining system.

中文翻译：

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通过技能提升工作质量？挪威集体体系中清洁行业的案例

摘要国际政治言论暗示，高技能会导致更高的生产率和增长。结合技能理论和制度理论的各个方面，本文提出了在提高挪威清洁职业专业化过程的研究成果的基础上，提高技能在改善不良工作中可以发挥什么作用。与教育转移的制度理论相一致，它解释了教育技能的变化–引入了清洁工贸易证书–从而使具有可疑声誉的职业合法化，从教育系统“借用”了合法性。该贸易证书是向清洁服务采购商和潜在雇员的技能“反向发信号”的一个组成部分，旨在改善技能的使用，从而提高工作质量。我建议该策略基于对知识社会的叙述的依赖：教育和技能产生复杂性，生产力和工作质量。但是，这种“形式结构”的变化并没有改变行业的工作质量，行业的工作质量受到严格的基于招标的制度的影响，价格通常超过技能。集体工资协议的一般应用对于提高工作质量是必要的，即使在集体谈判系统中，这也表明了变更工作设计所需要提高的技能。