مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Labour market flexibility continues to be a highly debated topic, be it in economics, politics, or in general society. Especially after the sharp rise in unemployment in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s many labour market economists call for increasing labour market flexibility in order to improve the adaptability and mobility of businesses and employees (Brodsky, 1994; OECD, 1994; Siebert, 1997). Accordingly, the potential impact of labour market flexibility on employment, growth, profits, or productivity has been discussed for a long time.

At the same time, the need for more employment security, especially since the recent financial crisis, continues to grow. This trade-off between flexibility and security is reflected in the concept of “flexicurity” proposed by the Prime Minister Rasmussen of Denmark in the 1990s and further discussed by Wilthagen and Tros (۲۰۰۴) and Heyes (2013). This trade-off also significantly affects innovation projects. FollowingAcharya et al.(2010), labour security encourages employees to engage in more radical and risky innovations activities, in particular, costintensive projects associated with high risks.

Thus, the relationship between labour market flexibility and innovation activities has gained more and more attention in recent years.2 However, existing studies only focus on the impact of numerical and functional aspects of labour market flexibility such as part-time work or flexible working contracts. Wage flexibility, in contrast, has hardly been explored in previous studies, mainly due to the lack of data (Zhou et al., 2011, p. 3).3 In addition, the majority of previous studies do not provide a sufficient analysis on company level (Freeman, 2005; Zhou et al., 2011).4