Innovation Led-Employment at Regional Level in Europe

Miranda, Bruno Alexandre Peixoto

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/29953

Use this identifier to reference this record.

Name:	Description:	Size:	Format:
DM_BrunoMiranda_MGIE_2024.pdf		1.45 MB	Adobe PDF	Download

Send Feedback

Authors

Miranda, Bruno Alexandre Peixoto

Advisor(s)

Braga, Vitor Lélio

Braga, Alexandra Maria da Silva

Abstract(s)

The impact of innovation on employment has been studied since the dawn of economics, yet it continues to attract the attention of both academic researchers and policymakers. And despite this long-standing interest, the field remains characterised by theoretical and empirical divergences, with most research focusing on the inputs and outputs of innovation to explain this relationship, often ignoring other factors related to innovation. Furthermore, few empirical studies analyse this relationship at the regional level. Therefore, the main objective of this master's thesis is to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the impact of innovation on employment at the regional level, while also identifying pathways that lead to higher employment rates in European regions. To achieve the above purpose, this master's thesis is divided into 2 papers/chapters with the following specific objectives, respectively: (1) identify and explore the factors that drive and/or best explain innovative employment in European regions; (2) examine the conditions under which innovation activities, higher education and collaboration promote employment in European regions. The first paper is based on the quantitative analysis of data from the Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2021, using a multivariate technique (Linear Regression) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The second paper also uses a fsQCA, but with quantitative data from the Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2023. The results of the first paper suggest that business process innovators are a necessary condition for Employment in innovative SMEs. Furthermore, to achieve high employment rates, the combinations of sufficient conditions are diverse and complex, but generally associated with Sales of product innovations new to the market and to firm, business process innovations and collaboration between firms in the region. The findings of the second paper show that business process innovators are a necessary condition for regional employment growth, while sufficiency analysis identifies two pathways: one where Business Process Innovators alone drive regional employment, and another combining Population with tertiary education and Innovative SMEs collaborating with others. This master's thesis contributes to the theoretical development of innovation and employment by offering a more comprehensive understanding of which factors affect employment at the regional level, as well as the combinations of conditions that lead to high regional Employment rates. Moreover, the finding that business process innovations act as both a necessary and sufficient condition is a significant contribution to the literature, providing new insights into how this specific innovation activity influence employment outcomes at regional level.