Does innovation foster training investements? Evidence from a local production system

The main objective of the present work is to verify the relations between innovative strategies and the training activities, deepening the understanding of the relations between technological and organisational innovations and the training activities implemented by the firms. The firm level analysis is based on a unique ‘two-periods’ panel dataset which include data on manufacturing firms for an Italian, highly industrialised, local production system (the Milan area). The results suggest that the firms use specific training activities in accordance with the innovation introduced. As a whole it emerges that the upskilling phenomenon is more related to the organisational changes than to technological innovation. In addition, the contextual introduction of organisational and technological change does not seem to favour more training activities.