Are employee-friendly workplaces conducive to innovation?

We find strong evidence that firms with employee-friendly workplaces achieve greater innovative success, particularly in industries where innovation is more difficult to achieve. Furthermore, employee-friendly firms were also more inclined to sustain R&D investment during the recent crisis. These findings are consistent with the view that an employee-friendly workplace helps to develop tolerance for failure, which encourages engagement in innovation. We find no support for alternative explanations, such as employee-friendly workplaces helping to attract and retain talented employees and reducing career concerns of executives, which could nurture innovation. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.