1,720,973 research outputs found
Human capital and firms’ innovation: evidence from emerging economies
No full textWe explore the relationship between human capital and firms’ innovation in emerging economies. Most papers consider the formal knowledge developed in R&D laboratories as a major source of innovation. However, a critical portion of knowledge required for innovation resides in human resources and is created outside any formalised R&D activity. We consider that, to improve their technological capabilities, firms should invest in different forms of human capital, namely highly educated workforce and experienced managers, but also in strategic human resource (HR) practices aimed at developing human capital by increasing employees’ firm-specific technical skills and competences. Besides looking at the type of innovation outcomes, we place greater emphasis on the strategies of innovation development, as these should signal an improved firms’ ability, not just to innovate, but to put their own creative effort in the development of innovation. Our results contrast with the traditional view of firms in emerging economies as mainly relying on the external acquisition of innovations, by showing their actual ability to develop new technologies. In this respect, HR practices aimed at fostering employees’ learning and autonomy at work appear more important than the educational attainment of workers, whilst the experience of managers does not seem effective
Work organisation, Employees' education, and Innovation: a firm-level analysis for Italy
No full textThis paper explores the relation between employees’ education, work organisation and firms’ innovation capabilities. We argue that, to improve their innovation capabilities, firms should focus more on work organisation, particularly on practices aimed at human capital development by increasing the firm-specific technical skills, engagement and motivation of employees. Moreover, we examine firms’ innovation capabilities from two perspectives: the type of innovation outcomes (product or process innovation) and the strategies of innovation development (generation in-house, in cooperation or imitation/adoption). We place greater emphasis on the latter, and thus on the distinction between innovation processes based on internal generation and those that instead rely on external sourcing, which adds a more comprehensive view about the level of firms’ innovation capacity. Our results confirm that, for firms that whish to be more innovative, work organisation matters more than the education level of the workforce
Determinants of sustainable & responsible innovations: A firm-level analysis for Italy
No full textThis paper provides a micro-econometric analysis of the factors facilitating the introduction of Sustainable & Responsible Innovations by firms, with a focus on those aimed at improving occupational health and safety and reducing environmental impacts. Compared to the latter, the former objective of innovation has rarely been investigated with quantitative methods. By means of a bivariate probit model, we assess whether firms pursuing workers’ health and safety as innovation objective are also ascribing high importance to environment preservation. The evidence provided by using data for Italian firms highlights the key role of external knowledge and innovation sources and internal human resource practices for the achievement of Sustainable & Responsible innovative outcomes. Many similarities but also some differences between innovative firms emerge, according to whether they are committed to health and safety or environment protection
Public procurement for innovation: firm-level evidence from Italy and Norway
Full text linkControlling for factors affecting the participation in the procurement market, this article attempts to identify the main determinants of firms’ propensity to undertake innovative activities as part of public procurement contracts. The empirical analysis is carried out by using micro-data from two Community Innovation Surveys for Italian and Norwegian firms. We find that small- and medium-sized firms, as opposed to larger companies, have a lower capability to enter into the procurement market; however, once they succeed, they are equally capable of offering innovative solutions to public buyers. Another major result regards firms’ cooperation with universities and public research institutes, which seems to play a key role in order to facilitate firms’ involvement in public procurement for innovation. Although there are some differences in the estimated coefficients of explanatory variables, these results are consistent between Italy and Norway
Heterogeneity in cooperation for innovation and technological capabilities of firms in Italy
No full textThis study aims at providing new insights into the role of cooperation in the process of technological capabilities development across firms in Italy. Technological capabilities are considered in relation to the way innovation is performed, whether by generation, imitation or adoption strategies. Main findings, based on firm-level data from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS 2012), confirm that the role of heterogeneous cooperation linkages for innovation varies greatly across firms and industries, so that it cannot be fully appreciated when innovative firms are considered on the same footing, regardless of whether they have been able to develop the new technologies introduced or not
Gender diversity in European firms and the R&D-innovation-productivity nexus
Full text linkIn this paper, we empirically explore whether gender diversity in European firms, measured at different organisational levels, contributes to enhancing their performance in terms of innovation and productivity. Particularly we propose a structural econometric framework that allows us to simultaneously account for gender diversity at the workforce and ownership level throughout different phases of the innovation process, from the decision to engage in R&D to productivity. Our results reveal that gender diversity is strongly related to firms’ performance, besides the traditional factors envisaged by the literature. However, some differences emerge according to the firms’ organisational levels. Indeed, workforce gender diversity seems to be relevant to all phases of the innovation process. By contrast, the positive influence of ownership gender diversity seems more narrowed as limited to the innovation development/implementation phase; moreover, increasing women’s participation beyond a certain threshold is negatively associated with firms’ productivity
Organizational changes and innovation: firm-level evidence from European countries
No full textIn this paper, we empirically explore the relationship between the implementation of major organisational changes and the technological innovation performance of firms in European countries. Indeed, firms adopting organisational innovations and devoting more resources to this aspect are supposed to be in a better position for generating and using new skills and technologies in a more efficient way. Despite this, up until now, firms’ organizational changes have received less attention in the empirical literature. Our results support that their role in the technological innovation process of firms may be crucial
Why growth rates differ? Path of innovation in Italian provinces
Full text linkThis paper analyses the way in which innovation and absorptive capacity affect the productivity of
Italian provinces. It builds on the Neo-Schumpeterian literature which investigates how technology
gaps explain development disparities between countries and regions. The study is carried out at the
provincial level, which allows a more fine-tuned analysis of the resource endowment linked to
knowledge generation and economic performance. Moreover, it distinguishes between two very
different types of innovation: those directly dependent on R&D and new knowledge generation which
are generally measured by the number of patents; and those relying on the adaptation of processes,
products and materials and thus mostly based on the exploitation of already existing knowledge,
which are here measured by a new index based on registered utility models and industrial designs.
Main results indicate a case of divergence in productivity levels instead of one of catching up among
the Italian provinces; moreover, they suggest that the main effort to get productivity gains in this
country has been carried out through a reduction of employment and of its related costs instead of via
increasing R&D and human capital
Exploring energy transition in European firms: the role of policy instruments, demand-pull factors and cost-saving needs in driving energy-efficient and renewable energy innovations
No full textThe transition toward more efficient and sustainable energy systems relies on the introduction by firms of innovations aimed at reducing the energy-environmental impact. In this paper, controlling for firms’ technological capabilities and taking into account the role of specific policy instruments, demand-pull factors and firms’ cost-saving needs, we carry out an in-depth analysis of the drivers motivating firms’ decision to engage in two main types of energy innovations, energy-efficient and renewable energy innovations, as compared to other environmental technologies. The empirical evidence, provided by using firm-level data from the Community Innovation Survey for different European countries, highlights the key role of firms’ cost saving needs as a motivation driving the introduction of both types of energy innovations, as well as of governmental subsidies and public procurement though only for renewable energy innovations. The influence of demand-pull factors is instead transversal between energy innovations and other eco-innovations
Local labour tasks and patenting in US commuting zones
Full text linkIn this article, we adopt a task approach to measure the local pool of capabilities which can more effectively spur innovation. By focusing on the core activities that workers undertake in their jobs, we build an abstract task intensity measure of occupations to proxy the ability in analysing and solving complex problems, as well as in coordinating and integrating people with different knowledge endowments, that should be especially relevant for the process of invention and innovation. We thus estimate the relationship between the local abstract intensity and the inventive performance, proxied by granted patents, of US Commuting Zones (CZs) during the period 2000–2015. The evidence provided, robust to a wide array of sensitivity checks, points to the extent of workers’ engagement in abstract tasks across CZs as a crucial determinant of the local inventive activity
- …
