Local labour market diversity and business innovation: evidence from Irish manufacturing businesses

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Date
2012-09-25
Authors
McGuirk, Helen
Jordan, Declan
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
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Abstract
This paper estimates the effect of diversity within local labour markets on business-level innovation. Using survey data and Irish census data, the paper explores whether the diversity of human capital at county level is associated with higher innovation output. Diversity in age, nationality and educational attainment is measured using an index of heterogeneity and its effect on business innovation is estimated using an innovation production function approach. It is found that diversity in nationality and educational attainment is positively associated with the probability of a business product innovating. The findings also suggest that greater external labour market diversity and greater levels of internal third-level education may be substitutes. Where a business is in a diverse location, it may not require higher levels of educational attainment among its workforce to source knowledge for product innovation.
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Keywords
Business development , Educational attainment , Human capital , Innovation , Labor market , Labor standard , Manufacturing
Citation
McGuirk, H. and Jordan, D. (2012) Local labour market diversity and business innovation: evidence from Irish manufacturing businesses, European Planning Studies, 20:12, 1945-1960, DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2012.722918
Copyright
© 2012 Taylor & Francis. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in European Planning Studies on 25 Sep 2012, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09654313.2012.722918