Flexible labor and innovation performance: Evidence from longitudinal firm-level data

Haibo Zhou, Ronald Dekker, Alfred Kleinknecht

Research output: Journal PublicationArticlepeer-review

121 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Firms with high shares of workers on fixed-term contracts tend to have higher sales of imitative new products but perform significantly worse on sales of innovative new products (" first on the market" ). High functional flexibility in " insider-outsider" labor markets enhances a firm's new product sales, as do training efforts and highly educated personnel. We find weak evidence that larger and older firms have higher new product sales than do younger and smaller firms. Our findings should be food for thought to economists making unqualified pleas for the deregulation of labor markets.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)941-968
Number of pages28
JournalIndustrial and Corporate Change
Volume20
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2011
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Economics and Econometrics

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