Innovation is sometimes the result of collaboration between different agents with complementary resources. When companies make formal agreements to collaborate in R&D they do so with different types of organizations, such as their competitors, suppliers, and customers, or universities and research centres. This paper focuses on attempting to understand the reasons that lead companies to cooperate with universities and research centres and the characteristics of the relationship that this involves. The empirical study is based on a sample of 747 Spanish firms that took part in some type of collaborative R&D project between 1994 and 1996. Results indicate that cooperation with centres is a nation-wide phenomenon involving basic research, conducted under the sponsorship of different research support schemes promoted by central and regional administrations.

This article analyses the connection between the use of advanced human resource management (HRM) practices, individually and as a system, with manufacturing flexibility. The results show a positive relationship between the implementation of advanced HRM practices and manufacturing flexibility. While most of the advanced HRM practices analysed show higher levels of implementation in flexible firms, no differences are observed in training efforts. Flexible firms are more prone to implement systems of advanced HRM practices.

This paper uses survey data on 965 Spanish manufacturing firms to examine the implementation of innovative management practices and the relationship of this with the organization of work and human resource management. The paper takes into account transformations in technology, quality management and the organization of work. Using cluster analysis, we identify the different paths that firms are following in order to improve their performance, finding that simultaneous transformations in several dimensions lead to greater success than partial transformation, or none at all.

We attempt to identify the factors that determine the use of production incentives for manual workers in Spanish manufacturing industry. Data relating to 629 manufacturing plants are used in the investigation. Our findings show that intensified competition, membership of a multinational firm and public ownership have a negative effect. Also, production incentives are associated with lower monitoring, narrowness of job description and teamwork. The evidence obtained rejects the hypothesis of a negative association between incentive payment and several features associated with internal labour markets. Finally, union influence is found to have a positive influence on the use of incentives. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 2002.