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University – industry collaboration in R&D: the role of labor market rigidity
Author(s) -
Williams Christopher,
Allard Gayle
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
randd management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.253
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1467-9310
pISSN - 0033-6807
DOI - 10.1111/radm.12282
Subject(s) - workforce , rigidity (electromagnetism) , labour economics , business , robustness (evolution) , economics , economic growth , engineering , biochemistry , chemistry , structural engineering , gene
We investigate how R&D university – industry collaboration (R&D UIC) is influenced by labor market rigidity. While it is well‐established that an educated and skilled workforce will facilitate R&D UIC, another aspect of these alliances has been under‐researched: the role of labor market rigidity, in particular the difficulties employers face in hiring and firing workers. We hypothesize that the size of the R&D labor pool in a country will encourage R&D UIC, and that the ease with which employers are legally allowed to hire and fire will directly and indirectly influence R&D UIC. Integrating data from various sources, we test our model on a sample of 73 countries for which information on the size of the R&D labor pool and labor market regulations are available. We also conduct a robustness test using a different proxy for R&D labor pool on a larger sample of 109 countries. Results confirm the strong link between a country's R&D labor pool and R&D UIC, as well as direct negative impacts of hiring and firing rigidity and an indirect negative impact of hiring rigidity. The findings have implications for managers, policy makers, and researchers of R&D collaboration between universities and industry.