Does the ageing workforce hamper the innovativeness of firms? (No) evidence from Germany

Birgit Verworn and Christiane Hipp

International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management, 2009, vol. 9, issue 2/3, 180-197

Abstract: Due to demographic changes, the personnel structure of the workforce in countries like Germany and Japan will change considerably in the next few years. At the same time, companies need creative and skilled human resources to innovate. We analysed data from the 2001 German Community Innovation Survey to explore the impact of personnel structure (share of older employees, skills shortages, share of highly skilled employees) on innovation input and output. Overall, we did not find support for a negative effect of a high share of older employees in a company on innovation output. However, companies with a high share of older employees tended to invest less in further training (considered innovation input). This contradicts the call for lifelong learning. In accordance with our propositions, a high share of highly skilled employees had a positive effect on innovation input and output. Companies which experienced skills shortages were more likely to invest in further training. However, they were, somewhat surprisingly, more innovative than companies which did not suffer from skills shortages.

Keywords: ageing workforce; innovativeness; training; skill shortages; Germany; innovation; demographic change; workforce demographics; older employees; human resources management; HRM. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=23452 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijhrdm:v:9:y:2009:i:2/3:p:180-197

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().