Innovation, employment and skills in services. Firm and sectoral evidence

By Rinaldo Evangelista, M. Savona. 2003

244 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this article the employment impact of innovation in the heterogeneous universe of services is investigated, using data provided by the 1993–1995 Italian innovation survey (CIS II). The empirical evidence presented shows that the “direct” impact of innovation on employment varies greatly according to the type of innovation strategy pursued by firms, across industries and according to the level of qualification of the labour force. High skilled and qualified jobs do replace low skilled jobs. Among small firms and in less than half of the service sectors considered the net effect is positive, particularly in industries which have a strong scientific and technological base. The negative impact of innovation on employment is on the contrary concentrated among large firms, capital intensive industries and in all financial-related sectors (banking, insurance and other financial services). In the latter industries the labour-saving effect of innovation seems to be linked to the widespread use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) which have contributed to rationalise and increase labour productivity in an important section of services. In the case of Italy, an overall negative impact of innovation on employment has been found. This result is clearly affected by the de-specialisation of the Italian economy in the knowledge intensive services. From an innovation-policy perspective two lines of actions can be envisaged: one enhancing efficiency in the technologically laggard service sectors and a second one aiming at creating the conditions for the emergence and growth of knowledge-intensive branches. The evidence presented suggests that both these lines of policy action are important but also that the second one is likely to be more rewarding in terms of employment growth.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Management of Technology and Innovation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2827819127444e09f50e11556a96e08324db606f

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Citations in the corpus

Firm Growth : a Survey (2007, unknown): “Similarly, Geroski and Gugler (2004) compare the distribution of growth rates to the normal case and comment on the fat-tailed nature of the empirical density.”
Profits, R&D and Innovation: a Model and a Test - IPTS WORKING PAPER on CORPORATE R&D AND INNOVATION - No. 5/2010 (2010, unknown): “4 In European countries market services represent the largest sector of economic activity and have shown an innovative behaviour that is not so different from manufacturing industries (see Bogliacino and Pianta, 2009a,b, 2010; Crespi and Pianta, 2007, 2008; Miles, 2005; Evangelista and Savona, 2003;”
The firm-level employment effects of innovations in high-tech US manufacturing industries (2011, background): “While many recent studies have focused on CIS questionnaire data having a short time dimension (see for example, Antonucci and Pianta 2002; Evangelista and Savona 2003; Peters 2004; Harrison et al. 2005) it has been observed that panel studies of the impact of innovation on employment are rather r”
Two decades of research on innovation in services: which place for public services? (2013, methodology): “Drawing on the Italian version of the CIS2, Evangelista (2000) and Evangelista and Savona (2003) consolidate the taxonomy of Soete and Miozzo, distinguishing between three homogenous sectoral technological trajectories in services: 1) The “technology users” that bring together weakly innovative…”
Innovation in services: a review of the debate and a research agenda (2009, methodology): “In Evangelista and Savona (2003) this typology is used to assess the impact of different innovation trajectories on the level of employment and the quality of skills.”
Patterns of Technological Innovation in Knowledge‐Intensive Business Services (2006, background): “, 2001 ; Evangelista and Savona, 2003 ; Vermeulen et al.”
Measuring innovation in a ‘low-tech’ service industry: the case of the Dutch hospitality industry (2011, background): “…1990; Quinn, Doorley, & Paquette, 1990; Rada, 1987), reverse product cycle introduced by Barras (1986, 1990) and various sectoral taxonomies of the service firms’ and sectors’ technological behaviour (Evangelista & Savona, 2003; Soete & Miozzo, 1989) inspired by the original work of Pavitt (1984).”
Modes of innovation in knowledge-intensive business services evidence from Lombardy (2009, background): “knowledge-intensive service activities (Evangelista and Savona 2003; Tether et al. 2001; Hollenstein 2003; Tether 2005; Freel 2006).”
Business model innovation and business concept innovation as the context of incremental innovation and radical innovation. (2015, background): “The technological innovation pattern of hotels is suppliers-dominated (Castellacci, 2008; Evangelista, 2000; Evangelista & Savona, 2003; OrfilaSintes et al., 2005; Pavitt, 1984).”
THE INNOVATIONâ€ EMPLOYMENT NEXUS: A CRITICAL SURVEY OF THEORY AND EMPIRICS (2016, unknown): “Focusing instead on services, Evangelista and Savona (2003) investigate the employment impact of innovation, with data from the second wave of the Italian Community Innovation Survey (1993-1995). The authors estimate a binary logit model taking advantage – differently from most contributions – of a ”
Innovation, productivity and growth in US business services: a firm-level analysis (2008, background): “Additionally, Evangelista and Savona (2003) report that service firms which spend more on innovation per employee, and those introducing service innovations, are more likely to report a positive impact of innovation on total employment.”