The objective of my proposal is to push the frontier of our understanding of how the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) affects the internal organization of firms and thus firm productivity, employees’ careers and wages; how ICT adoption affects the organization of firms’ global value chains (GVC) and thus domestic employee outcomes; and how ICT adoption affects the foreign sourcing of innovation and thus domestic innovation. Existing research gives only partial answers to these questions as it provides limited insights into the economic mechanisms behind the effects of ICT adoption and the organization of GVC. Research is impeded by lack of data with exhaustive information on ICT, GVC, and firm and employee outcomes. My proposal will change that. I will assemble novel, comprehensive data sets with specific information on firms’ ICT use, GVC, balance sheets, and patents, as well as all employees’ characteristics, tasks, and wages. I will break new ground by developing theory and conducting theory-based empirical analyses that both identify causal effects and shed light on the economic mechanisms behind them. My proposal consists of three parts. Part 1 exploits unique features of my data to study how ICT adoption induces firms to reorganize employees. I will analyse changes to task complexity and autonomy, careers and wages within employees over time to explore complementarities between higher availability of information due to ICT and employee knowledge. Part 2 quantifies the effect of ICT adoption on offshoring, and, for the first time, studies how ICT adoption and offshoring jointly affect the task complexity and autonomy, careers and wages of employees, testing the predictions of task-based models. Part 3 evaluates the effect of ICT adoption on offshoring of research and development (R&D), a key determinant of growth, and derives and tests novel conditions under which foreign R&D complements or substitutes domestic innovation.

Promoting labour mobility across Europe is a central objective of the Europe 2020 Strategy and it aims to tackle increasing labour and skill shortages in the EU. Cross-border labour mobility is expected to benefit both individual citizens, employers and the aggregate economy. In addition, intra-EU mobility is a means to foster European integration. Although migration into OECD countries increases, driven largely by people moving within the EU, migration into and within Europe is still short of target levels. Despite a favourable legal framework for mobility, migrants still face a wide range of problems and obstacles that hamper cross-border labour mobility. Employment prospects for immigrants are below those of natives and overqualification, i.e. employment below skill levels, is widespread in most European countries. Consequently, the growth potential of immigrants is far from realised. Little is known about transnational mobility patterns and the length of migration episodes as well as about retention processes of foreign employees. There is considerable scope to make existing labour mobility more efficient and beneficial for all parties involved. GLOMO’s focus is on global mobility into EU countries and within the EU and its impact on careers. The policy making white papers and research suggest that the future Europe will witness even higher and more natural mobility. To assure that Europe is ready for it, our objectives are (a) to systematically generate knowledge about the mobility phenomenon and its implications (success factors, effects and added value); (b) provide trainings to (further) develop early-stage and senior researchers understanding the complex multidisciplinary phenomenon of mobility, and (c) suggest relevant implications for individuals, organisations, the European societies and economies. The joint research and training programme will be conducted within an interdisciplinary and intersectoral network of experts in the field.