Training and Organizational Innovations: Empirical Evidence from the «ROLA» Survey

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relation between training on the topic of organisational innovations and changes in the firm, in tasks and in job positions. The research is based on the data of the ROLA Survey (2019), carried out by Fondimpresa in collaboration with INAPP that allows to carry out representative analyses on the employees trained by the interprofessional Fund. The results show that training on organisational innovations is associated with a higher probability that workers will experience changes first in the North, then in the South and in the Centre. In particular, differences emerge in job positions and in the firms. On the other hand, training is not related to changes in job duties. We note that the number of training hours is positively associated with the changes in job positions and duties in Northern and Central Italy, on the contrary, in Southern Italy it is not significantly correlated (despite the average hours for trained workers are higher than the ones in the other macro-areas). This result can be partly explained by differences between firms: probably in the firms investing more in training, the effects are more noticeable for workers after the training period. Furthermore, training courses are more likely to stimulate innovation processes. These findings merit further investigation