Hacer Ansal

New technologies and employment: industry and firm level evidence from Turkey

Here the authors investigate the impact of new technology on employment at country, industry and firm level using evidence from a study of the Turkish chemical and engineering industries. They conclude by attempting to outline policy considerations related to the long term negative impact of technology on employment in developing countries.

First domino tile in the social innovation process: Idea creation of university students

Interrelations between creativity, innovativeness and entrepreneurial skills of individuals have long been discussed in the literature. Due to the challenges regarding their measurement, most studies focused on the intentions rather than the outcomes. The idea generation that requires creativity is the first stage of social innovation. The young populations creative potentials in participating social innovation practices deserve a special attention as they play a critical role in the innovativeness and entrepreneurship of societies. This study aims to explore the factors that determine the creative intentions of university students that are important in generating social innovation projects. A structured survey based on the literature was conducted among 600 management and engineering students from 3 universities from the different percentiles of the Entrepreneurial and Innovative University Index for 2012 of the Turkish Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology. The survey included questions on the demographic characteristics, environmental factors, motivators, university/institutional context, perceptions and creative thinking attitudes. By conducting reliability and factor analysis, accuracy and validity of data is tested and the impact factors were identified. Findings reveal that visionary attitude, curiosity, exploration and learning, attitude for own creativity, self-esteem, perception about the learnability of creativity, university and social environment are components of creative thinking intentions of students and some of these factors vary by year of study and university.

Impact of technology on employment

Employment in any industry is impacted by the introduction of new technology whose objective is to increase productivity. The initial result of such technological introduction is the reduction of workers to some extent. At some point, the productivity from the new technology reaches a plateau. If the business requirements are increasing, it is possible that the firm or industry must start to hire new workers to meet the increased industry demands. The introduction of technological improvements starts the cycle anew. This paper presents a model and empirical data, which illustrates these employment cycles. The data presented in this paper is for several Turkish industries. The analytical model could apply to most industries, but additional empirical data will be needed to very this assertion.