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Why Do Employees Participate in Innovations? Skills and Organizational Design Issues and the Ongoing Technological Transformation

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Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics

Abstract

There is a recent and growing literature on the consequences of the ongoing technological transformation on skills. Most of the time it views technological progress as an exogenous shock that impacts the relative demands for labor with different skills. This chapter takes as a starting point that the technological transformation is the results of organizational choices. Hence it reviews a literature relating to what is going on upstream rather than downstream in the innovation process. In particular, it addresses how organizations take advantage of new technological opportunities to reform their designs, how they create work environments that favor innovative work behavior, and why employees engage their resources by participating to innovation.

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Acknowledgments

Responsible Section Editor: Marco Vivarelli

The chapter has benefitted from valuable comments of the editors and of anonymous referees. Financial support from the OECD and the H2020 Beyond4.0 (grant number: 822296) project is gratefully noted. There is no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cnam Ceet, Lirsa and Tepp, Noisy-le-Grand, France

    Nathalie Greenan

  2. Cnam Ceet and Lirsa, Noisy-le-Grand, France

    Silvia Napolitano

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  1. Nathalie Greenan
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  2. Silvia Napolitano
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Correspondence to Nathalie Greenan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. UNU-MERIT & Princeton University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Klaus F. Zimmermann

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  1. Department of Economic Policy, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy

    Marco Vivarelli

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Greenan, N., Napolitano, S. (2021). Why Do Employees Participate in Innovations? Skills and Organizational Design Issues and the Ongoing Technological Transformation. In: Zimmermann, K.F. (eds) Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_233-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_233-1

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