How Europe's economies learn: a comparison of work organization and innovation mode for the EU-15

This article explores the link between the organization of work and innovation by developing national aggregate indicators for the EU member states of organizational forms and innovation modes (how firms innovate). The organizational indicators are constructed from the Third European Survey of Working Conditions results for 8081 salaried employees in 2000. The innovation mode indicators are calculated using the results of the third Community Innovation Survey (CIS-3) for innovation activities between 1998 and 2000. The analysis shows that in nations where work is organized to support high levels of discretion in solving complex problems firms tend to be more active in terms of innovations developed through their in-house creative efforts. In countries where learning and problem solving on the job are more constrained, and little discretion is left to the employee, firms tend to engage in a supplier-dominated innovation strategy. Their technological renewal depends more on the absorption of innovations developed elsewhere. These patterns remain when we divide the economies into manufacturing and services. Copyright 2007 , Oxford University Press.