Why it Pays Off Not be Mobile: the U.S. and Japanese Game Industry


Speaker


Abstract

This paper focuses on the effects of labour market designs on innovation in the game industry. The game industry is an interesting case since it is structured differently between the best performing countries, the U.S. and Japan, contrasting to the expectation that new industries are in need of open labour markets. This raises two issues: Why can different patterns of labour markets be observed? How do they affect innovation? We first introduce contrasting approaches on the systematic relations between the structure of labour markets and the dynamics of innovation. We secondly present an empirical case which is based on the analysis of individual mobility of about 50.000 U.S. and Japanese game developers. This research is supplemented by field research and interviews with developers and publishers.
 
Contact information:
Barbara Krug               Pierre-Olivier Legault Tremblay
Email Email