International audienceThe paper describes the dynamics of employment at a firm and sector level in the French industry and examines how far technological innovation can give account of it. We use a firm sample of 15,186 firms, over the 1986-1990 period. The two facts we want to explain at a firm level and a sector level are the net change in employment and the micro turmoil (transfers between competing firms). Innovating firms and sectors create jobs more than others over medium run (5 years). Process innovation is more job creating than product innovation at the firm level, but the converse is true at the sector level. This puzzle is probably be due to substitution effects (creative destruction)

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This paper provides a mapping of quality of work and measures its evolution between 1995 and 2005 by using European Working Conditions Surveys. With a multilevel modelling, we assess the sensitivity of observed trends to "composition effects" and "country effects". Results suggest a decreasing trend in the quality of work: working conditions have deteriorated, while work has become more intense and less complex. In Germany and Italy all indicators have worsened while other European countries have more mixed results.

The purpose of thc study is to chiiriicterire different slylcs of work orgmiziitio~i in French lirms and theis current ch;inges and to link tiiein to the use of spccific technologies and to firms performancc. Tile data which are used arc of two kinds : il labor fmce survcv (1 470 blue collar) and a business survey (7 089 firms). We show that two main variables create differences among firms' organiz8tios dcvices : the intensity of communication within the workshop and the level of autonomy of workcrs (facing technoiogicid and hierarchical constraints). The use of advanced technologies and thc skill of the labor force :lie positively linkcd to both organizational variables. Theiefore."communicating organiriaion" isnd or&?:anizalionai innovation seem to aim at crcaling conditions for ilidividuill and collcctivc lcaining or? new technologies. They also enhance the ability of the firm lo adapt to changing market conditions through lcchnolagical innovi~tion and invenlory reduction, These views iiie supported by ecunometric estimation. KEY W O R D S : Organization o f Production, Learning, Technological Innovation, Empirical study JEL Classification: L 2 3 . 0 3 3 "Because economic institutions are conil,lex, the)' do not lend thenlselves easily to quantitative measuremenr. Even in the respects in which they do, the data very ofren are not routinely collected by riationul stutistical oflices. As a res~rlt the .statistical al,pronch which has beconre the bread rtnd butter of applied economics is not straighffbrbvardly alq~licable" R. C . 0. Matthews (1986, p. 917) *This rebearch has been funded by thcCummissaiia1 Gtntrei du Plitn,and conducted when the authon were at the lclstitut Nationiil dc la Statistique et des Etudes Ecunumiqurs (INSEE). The research assistance of Guv BROUSSAUDIER and Luis MlOTTl is eralefullv acknowlcdzcd. ~~~~ ~ ~ Corresponding nutho;: Nathillic CREENAN. Centre d'~;udea dc 1'~mploi: "Le Descartcs I , 29 piornei~ade Michel-Simon, 93166 Noisy-le-Grdnd Cedcx, France,Tel. 45 9 2 6 8 0 0 , F a n 4 9 31 0 2 4 4 Downloaded by [Florida State University] at 21:

In this paper, we use a French matched employer-employee survey, the COI survey, conducted in 1997, to describe the general features of organizational change in manufacturing firms with more than 50 employees. In a first section, we explore the methodological issues associated with the building up of a statistical measure of organizational change, we describe the COI survey and we present the set of firm level and employee level variables that we have selected to investigate organizational change. In a second section, we present the results of two correspondence analysis, one conducted on a sample of 1462 firms from the COI survey and the other one conducted on the sample of 2049 blue collar workers affiliated to those firms.On one hand, using the firm level section of the survey, we show that all types of new organizational practices are positively correlated with one another. On the other hand, at the blue collar level, three main dimensions discriminate between jobs: the intensity of involvement in information processing and decision, the intensity of constraints weighing on the content and rhythm of work and the orientation of information and production flows: either pushed by colleagues or pulled by the market. We also find that blue collars cannot develop a high level of involvement in information processing and decisions and have at the same time their work rhythm fixed by heavy technical constraints whereas high time pressure imposed on work rhythm by the market is positively correlated with such an involvement.Finally, if we correlate firm level and worker level variables, we find that an increase in the use of "employee involvement " and "quality" practices by the firm is positively correlated both with a higher level of blue collars' involvement in information processing and decision and with a higher level of technical constraints, production flows being pushed by colleagues rather than pulled by the market.The mapping of firm level responses stemming from our first correspondence analysis has been used to select 4 firms in different areas of the statistical universe and belonging to the "machine and equipment" sector. Post-survey interview carried out with executives from these firms and plant visit are used to check the quality of our statistical data and to better understand our descriptive results.