Innovation, work Organisation and Systems of Social Protection

Much of the core research on the determinants of innovation traditionally has focused on the role of formal processes of R&D and on the importance of the skills and expertise of scientists and engineers with third-level education. In research on national innovation systems there has been a parallel tendency to focus on the institutions and organisations responsible for the production and diffusion of formal scientific and technical knowledge. At the level of measurement these emphases are reflected in the classic definition of innovation developed in the Oslo Manual as technical product and process innovation (TPP), and at the level of innovation policies they can be seen in the continuing importance attached to increasing national R&D intensity. More recently there have been notable efforts to widen the scope of innovation research so as to more fully take into account the role of work processes, systems of labour market protection and more generally the impact of welfare state institutions. This chapter focuses on these changes in scope and seeks to identify key challenges for researchers in innovation studies. The chapter begins by examining how work organisation has been analysed in the developing field of innovation studies including the factors that account for the growing interest in the 2000s in measuring and analysing processes of organisational innovation. It is argued that a key challenge still facing researchers in innovation studies is developing an adequate understanding of the interdependencies between work organisation and processes of technical change and innovation. The chapter then turns to the analysis of national systems, arguing that there is a need for developing more robust typologies of innovation systems that integrate the role of labour market and welfare state institutions. A related challenge is developing multi-level governance frameworks that serve to clarify the interconnections between these social institutions at the levels of nations and regions. The chapter concludes by discussing the obstacles to putting work organisation and organisational innovation more firmly on the EU policy agenda.