Flexible labor and innovation in the Italian industrial sector

Is Flexible Labor Good for Innovation? Evidence from Russian Firm-level Data

“…Fixed-term employment contracts' impact on companies' innovation activity varies under different circumstances. Scholars' opinions about the nature of this impact also vary: some believe that the increased use of such contracts encourages companies' innovation activities, while others hold the opposite opinion [Franceschi, Mariani, 2014;Bentolia, Dolado, 1994]. The latter's arguments are based on the premise that since companies are not very much interested in investing in training their temporary employees (if at all) [Acemoglu, Pischke, 1999;Booth et al, 2002], these employees therefore remain low-skilled and frequently change jobs, such companies' specific levels of human capital and innovation activity also remain low [Al-Laham et al, 2011].…”

“…There is no consensus among scholars regarding which of the above effects prevails. Some cite data that suggest fixed-term employment contracts negatively affect companies' innovation activity [Franceschi, Mariani, 2014;Bentolia, Dolado, 1994;Autor et al, 2007;Dolado et al, 2012;Cappellari et al, 2012]. Others, on the contrary, provide evidence in favour of a positive correlation between these phenomena [Malgarini et al, 2011;Bassanini, Ernst, 2002а, 2002bScarpetta, Tressel, 2004;Zhou et al, 2011;Jacob, 2010;Ichino, Riphahn, 2005;Zhou et al, 2010;Bartelsman et al, 2010;Nicoletti, Scarpetta, 2003].…”

The relationship between R&D, the absorptive capacity of knowledge, human resource flexibility and innovation: Mediator effects on industrial firms

“…The nonsignificant mediator effect of temporary employment is also relevant by itself. Contrary to other scholars (e.g., Beugelsdijk, 2008 , Franceschi and Mariani, 2016 , Grinza and Quatraro, 2019 , Kato and Zhou, 2018 , Michie and Sheehan, 2005 ) that found a negative association between temporary employment and innovation with some limitations, our research explores the mediator effect. Mediator effects are closer to causal relationships than associative measures such as correlations ( Hayes, 2018 , Pieters, 2017 ).…”

“…Although other studies (e.g., Bhattacharya et al, 2005 ) used direct measures of HR flexibility related to employees’ attitudes, behavior, and skills, our measures of internal and external HR flexibility are more classic (see for instance the flexible firm’s analysis of Atkinson, 1984 ) but also more quantitative and objective than measures based on manager or employee perceptions. In addition, other scholars have already used training expenditure by employee as a proxy for HR internal flexibility (e.g., Arvanitis, 2005 ) and have used the percentage of temporary employees (e.g., Franceschi & Mariani, 2016 ) and the hire of external R&D experts (e.g., Martínez-Sánchez et al, 2011 ) as measures of HR flexibility.…”

“…For instance, new product development teams perform worse when there are poor labor relations. As a consequence, several authors (e.g., Beugelsdijk, 2008 , Franceschi and Mariani, 2016 , Kato and Zhou, 2018 , Martínez-Sánchez et al, 2011 ) find a negative relationship between the use of temporary employees and the firm’s innovation performance. Training, recruitment, and hiring costs are lower for temporary than for permanent core employees, and firms can manage knowledge accordingly.…”