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Given that recent studies highlight the potentially negative impact of 'new' or 'high performance' work practices on workers, the main objective of the present study is to investigate the effects of such work practices on workers' well-being for a northern Italy local production system. In addition, it is also important not to overlook the role of other firms' innovation activities and industrial relations. Thus, the empirical strategy aims to disentangle the role of innovation intensity in four different areas (technology, organization, training and ICT) and that of cooperative industrial relations at firm level on working conditions. The evidence is mixed. On the one hand, innovations have an overall positive effect on working conditions. However, this effect is weak and for specific organizational aspects, is negative. On the other hand, cooperative industrial relations are always positively and robustly linked to workers' well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological innovation is a key factor for achieving better environmental performances. Its role is even more relevant in local productions system, where innovation density, knowledge spillovers and externalities are concentrated in a circumscribed territory. The paper exploits new data for a sample of manufacturing firms in Northern Italy. New evidence is provided by testing a set of hypotheses, concerning primarily the role of environmental-devoted R&D, networking activities, quality/nature of industrial relations. The role played by environmental policy pressure, structural firm features and past firm performances is also investigated to account for more exogenous forces. We show that structural characteristics of the firm appear to matter less than R&D, induced policy costs and innovative-oriented industrial relations. Environmental auditing schemes also show some relevant correlation to innovation adoptions. R&D efforts appear to be associated to networking activities, which substitute for size-related economies of scale. Overall, endogenous factors driven by firm strategy or local idiosyncratic features matter more than exogenous and structural firm factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]