Organizational change, skill formation, human capital measurement: evidence from Italian manufacturing firms

By merging three rich firm level data sets, this paper provides some evidence on the determinants of work-based training within the Italian manufacturing industry over the period 2001-2006. In particular, we focus on two sets of key drivers that characterize organizational change: innovation and internationalization commitment. The role of innovation is analyzed by looking at both its technological and its organizational aspects, while firms’ foreign expansion is captured by exports, offshoring and the purchase of business services from abroad. Our evidence seems to show that innovation impacts more on work-based training than international activities. In particular, both technological and organizational aspects play a positive and significant role on training intensity. Training becomes more heterogeneous the more firms invest in capital equipment, R&D and new organizational practices, while no significant effect is found with respect to export and production offshoring. Our results seem to be in line with the capital-skill complementarity hypothesis and the recent literature that emphasizes the link between techno-organizational change and the development of human skills on the job.