Study of the interactions between innovation dynamics and job quality: a determining relationship at the heart of the changes in work at work in the European Union.

Summary This thesis studies the relationship between innovation and job quality. Innovation is considered as the main engine of economic growth, but technological changes induce important mutations in employment and work. Innovation is therefore at the heart of many concerns, and is at the center of recommendations made by public authorities and international organizations. Its multiple effects raise more and more questions, since the recent period is marked by an intensification of innovation dynamics, with the emergence of new technological cycles. It is a vector of transformations for employment that must be qualified. This thesis adopts a mainly empirical perspective, while relying on an institutionalist and evolutionist theoretical approach. The quality of employment is considered from a multidimensional perspective, including working conditions, working hours and duration, contractual quality and remuneration. Similarly, innovation is analyzed in its complexity in order to highlight heterogeneous effects according to the forms considered (strategy, type of innovation, degree of rupture and degree of novelty). The results of this study justify the interest of a specific field of study in economics on the links between innovation and job quality. While confirming that some innovations have positive direct effects on the quality of employment, this thesis shows that indirect effects as well as certain forms of innovation diffusion deteriorate the contractual quality of jobs and working conditions. Moreover, although innovation (whatever its form) is often associated with better contractual conditions (salary, stability, etc.), it nevertheless leads to an intensification of the pace and demands of employment. This work formulates a main recommendation in the context of the intensification of innovation dynamics and knowledge-based economic models - while calling for future work and improvement of the available data. In order to avoid a polarization of working conditions and a rise in inequalities, it is necessary to adapt redistribution and regulation systems to cope with the negative indirect effects of the diffusion of innovations.