IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ecinnt/v17y2008i4p331-354.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

New Technology, Work Organisation, And Innovation

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Hempell
  • Thomas Zwick

Abstract

While a positive link between information and communication technology (ICT) and firm performance is well documented, the exact channel remains unclear. We propose an innovative link: ICT fosters product and process innovations by facilitating employee participation and outsourcing. Employee participation is enhanced by horizontal employee communication and ICT training, whereas outsourcing is spurred by easier communication between firms and costs savings. Our results from a large and representative data set of firms in Germany show that ICT use is associated with an increase in both types of flexibility, accordingly. The implications for innovation activities differ, however, employee participation is strongly positively associated with product and process innovations. In contrast, outsourcing allows firms to 'buy' innovations in the short run, but reduces innovative capacity in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Hempell & Thomas Zwick, 2008. "New Technology, Work Organisation, And Innovation," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 331-354.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ecinnt:v:17:y:2008:i:4:p:331-354
    DOI: 10.1080/10438590701279649
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10438590701279649
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/10438590701279649?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Janz, Norbert & Ebling, Günther & Gottschalk, Sandra & Peters, Bettina & Schmidt, Tobias, 2002. "Innovationsverhalten der deutschen Wirtschaft: Indikatorenbericht zur Innovationserhebung 2001," The Annual German Innovation Survey, Key Figures Reports 111699, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    2. Gottschalk, Sandra & Janz, Norbert & Peters, Bettina & Rammer, Christian & Schmidt, Tobias, 2002. "Innovationsverhalten der deutschen Wirtschaft: Hintergrundbericht zur Innovationserhebung 2001," ZEW Dokumentationen 02-03, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schricke, Esther, 2013. "Occurrence of cluster structures in knowledge-intensive services," Working Papers "Firms and Region" R1/2013, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI).
    2. Kubitzki, Sabine & Anders, Sven M., 2005. "Branchenspezifische Besonderheiten im Innovationsverhalten des Ernährungsgewerbes: Eine empirische Analyse des Mannheimer Innovationspanels," German Journal of Agricultural Economics, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Department for Agricultural Economics, vol. 54(02), pages 1-11.
    3. Maaß, Frank & Führmann, Bettina, 2012. "Innovationstätigkeit im Mittelstand: Messung und Bewertung," IfM-Materialien 212, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn.
    4. Carl Benedikt Frey & Atif Ansar & Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, 2014. "Defining and measuring the 'Market for Brands': Are emerging economies catching up?," WIPO Economic Research Working Papers 21, World Intellectual Property Organization - Economics and Statistics Division.
    5. Hempell, Thomas & Zwick, Thomas, 2005. "Technology Use, Organisational Flexibility and Innovation: Evidence for Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 05-57, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Alexandra Schröter, 2008. "Perspektiven der Innovationspolitik in den neuen Bundesländern," ifo Dresden berichtet, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 15(02), pages 40-52, 04.
    7. Katharina Kaps & Silko Pfeil & Thomas Sauer & Matthias-Wolfgang Stoetzer, 2011. "Strategische Ausrichtung und Innovationstätigkeit von KMU im Raum Jena," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 64(09), pages 40-48, May.
    8. Rammer, Christian, 2011. "Bedeutung von Spitzentechnologien, FuE-Intensität und nicht forschungsintensiven Industrien für Innovationen und Innovationsförderung in Deutschland," ZEW Dokumentationen 11-01, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Kinne, Jan & Axenbeck, Janna, 2018. "Web mining of firm websites: A framework for web scraping and a pilot study for Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 18-033, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:ecinnt:v:17:y:2008:i:4:p:331-354. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/GEIN20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.