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Abstract We conduct an extensive sign-and-significance meta-regression analysis of counterfactual programme evaluations from Italy, considering both published and grey literature on policies supporting firms’ investments. We spec...
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Abstract We conduct an extensive sign-and-significance meta-regression analysis of counterfactual programme evaluations from Italy, considering both published and grey literature on policies supporting firms’ investments. We specify a multilevel model for the probability of finding positive effect estimates, also assessing correlation possibly induced by co-authorship networks. We find that the probability of positive effects is considerable, especially for weaker firms and outcomes that are directly targeted by public programmes. However, these policies are less likely to trigger change in the long run.
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The Internet of Things (IoT) can trigger innovation processes
across all sectors of the economy. However, this
potential is not available to all regions. As with other
enabling technologies, the competences required to
develop...
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The Internet of Things (IoT) can trigger innovation processes
across all sectors of the economy. However, this
potential is not available to all regions. As with other
enabling technologies, the competences required to
develop IoT solutions are numerous and varied, ranging
from hardware to software and related services, and are
often provided by different companies. To map the application
potential of these technologies across European
regions, we use textual analysis to identify the NACE codes
associated with five main IoT domains. We identify clusters
of regions characterized by different mixes of competences
in IoT technologies and we discuss the policy implications
of our findings at both European and regional levels.
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The purpose of this article is to review cluster research and its evolution by considering the works of the most prominent researchers in the field over an extended period of time using a bibliometric analysis based on statistical...
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The purpose of this article is to review cluster research and its evolution by considering the works of the most prominent researchers in the field over an extended period of time using a bibliometric analysis based on statistical analysis and social network tools. The point of departure is an original database, created by the authors, consisting of 1586 academic articles about clusters or industrial districts that were published from 1989 to 2010 in international scientific journals. The article identifies a group of articles belonging to the main disseminators of the cluster concept. A backward citation analysis discovers further contributions, which are grouped into subcommunities via a clustering algorithm. The procedure enables not only the identification of local research communities based largely around sub-disciplines but also boundary spanners linking different communities of scholars scattered around the world. In so doing, we offer a picture of the origin and development of the cluster concept along with a new interpretation of the features that boosted the rhetorical power of cluster research: multi-disciplinary, cross-disciplinary and global dimension.
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The paper identifies different regional policy mixes, ranging from the more minimal to the more proactive or entrepreneurial and verifies their diffusion in the Italian regional enterprise and innovation policies. The empirical an...
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The paper identifies different regional policy mixes, ranging from the more minimal to the more proactive or entrepreneurial and verifies their diffusion in the Italian regional enterprise and innovation policies. The empirical analysis is based on an original database containing every enterprise and innovation programme that has been implemented in Italy from 2007 to 2013, and is carried out by means of fuzzy-set clustering techniques. The results show the existence of remarkable heterogeneity, partly reflecting the well-known North-South divide, with some regions adopting minimal policy mixes and other regions adopting different types of proactive mixes.
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Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are understood as collaborative devices that can be used to achieve both efficiency and innovation. For this potential to be realized, however, some significant obstacles to effective collaborati...
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Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are understood as collaborative devices that can be used to achieve both efficiency and innovation. For this potential to be realized, however, some significant obstacles to effective collaboration must be overcome, such as the cognitive distance that often separates public and private agents. In order to deepen our understanding of the collaboration problem, this article assesses the size and characteristics of cognitive distance by looking at agents operating in the construction industry in Italy and Slovenia. Our analysis detects the presence of different types of cognitive distance in different socio-economic contexts, suggesting that cognitive distance is not simply the outcome of individual intentionality but also of social context. We argue that there is constructive room for policies supporting the efficiency and diffusion of PPPs that will facilitate the emergence of context-specific intermediaries to smooth the progress of collaborative work.
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The forces of globalisation now impacting on local economies pose threats to the existing paradigm of competences and routines, yet simultaneously offer opportunities to integrate new knowledge and learning. This is particularly p...
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The forces of globalisation now impacting on local economies pose threats to the existing paradigm of competences and routines, yet simultaneously offer opportunities to integrate new knowledge and learning. This is particularly pertinent with respect to Europe's 'mature regions', which are undergoing a major economic restructuring by trying to shift from traditional manufacturing activities to hybrid activities that comprise a combination of manufacturing and a higher component of intangible inputs and related knowledge service activities. The objective of the article is to discuss the concept of 'place leadership' by looking at how the embedded skills, knowledge and cumulated learning of a place can be used by its institutional infrastructure to identify sustainable growth trajectories. In other words, its aim is to explore how the economic, social, institutional and cultural aspects of places shape the opportunities for upgrading and renovation drawing upon their historical specialisation. The conceptual contribution of the article draws on two case studies, in the West Midlands, UK and in Prato, Tuscany, where we study the processes of decision-making, forms of leadership and ultimately the nature of local leadership.
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The severe economic effects deriving from the international crisis, in combination with increasing constraints on public spending, bring new challenges for industrial policies. Decision-makers arc required to find a balance betwee...
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The severe economic effects deriving from the international crisis, in combination with increasing constraints on public spending, bring new challenges for industrial policies. Decision-makers arc required to find a balance between short-term measures aimed at counteracting financial distress of firms and loss of employment, and long-term strategies in support of innovation. This is particularly urgent for manufacturing regions, such as the Italian ones, which need to pursue structural change. The paper discusses the new policy tools that some Italian regions are designing in order to promote this goal: the innovation poles. Such poles arc being designed and implemented in a number of major Italian regions, mostly through a top-down identification of specific technological and territorial targets. Drawing on the evolutionary and local development literature, the article stresses the importance of a preliminary scouting process in order to identify appropriate policy targets, and applies it to an Italian case study. In so doing, close attention is paid to the shape and extent of existing patterns of cooperation on innovation, so as to find out where the insertion of policies in favour of networking might be fruitful and desirable.
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The diffusion of system-based innovation policies calls for the development of an appropriate evaluation framework. Such a frame requires a careful definition of the unit of analysis and evaluation, since evaluation based on the s...
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The diffusion of system-based innovation policies calls for the development of an appropriate evaluation framework. Such a frame requires a careful definition of the unit of analysis and evaluation, since evaluation based on the sum of individual additional results cannot assess appropriately the emergence of system effects. Moreover, it requires experimenting with new tools for measuring the relational effects of the new policies. The paper aims to contribute to this challenge, proposing an analysis of the inner structure and the organization of regional innovation systems in terms of network relations, and considering its results for their potential contribution to the evaluation of innovation policies in a systemic perspective. The empirical application focuses on a set of policies implemented by the Tuscany Region in Italy. It highlights that the same policy intervention may lead to the emergence of different relational architectures connecting the world of research and that of production, depending on the different relational context (technological/sectoral and territorial) in which they are grounded. These two aspects - the structure of the relations and the context in which they develop - must be carefully combined in order to identify the effects of policies aimed at promoting innovation.
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The fast rise of 'made in China' in international markets has raised concern among industrial districts in Italy and elsewhere. The challenge comes from a rich variety of factors of development, including local entrepreneurial and...
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The fast rise of 'made in China' in international markets has raised concern among industrial districts in Italy and elsewhere. The challenge comes from a rich variety of factors of development, including local entrepreneurial and public resources. Building on results of fieldwork research on specialised towns and industrial clusters in Guangdong (China), and on investigations of Italian industrial districts, we consider the classification, along various axes, of both the business reactions from agents of districts facing the challenge and their systemic outcomes in terms of local developmental capacities. In particular, delocalisation and relocalisation outcomes are distinguished. The latter offer positive collective prospects, and are related to district internationalisation strategies and actions, targeting localities and clusters which could develop district-like processes. These relations have a core represented by trans-local public goods. Long-term cluster-to-cluster investments in production and trade joint projects may arise together with and around such a core. They help the growth and variation of division of labour at a trans-local scale. Some general requirements and dynamic aspects in the governance of such public goods are suggested and discussed, with illustration from an Italian-Chinese case of trans-local and cluster-to-cluster strategies.
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While innovation policy mixes combining several policy instruments have been advocated as a response to complex problems, there is very little evidence of their effectiveness compared to that of individual instruments. By consider...
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While innovation policy mixes combining several policy instruments have been advocated as a response to complex problems, there is very little evidence of their effectiveness compared to that of individual instruments. By considering a set of Italian regional policy programmes implemented in 2011-2014, we analysed a policy mix composed of: (ⅰ) technology and innovation advisory services, the aim of which is to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to gain a better awareness of their innovation needs and of how to address them; and (ⅱ) innovation vouchers, which are used to subsidise SME purchases of knowledge-intensive services. To draw causal inferences on their differential effectiveness, we adopted a propensity-score-matching approach extended to multiple treatment levels. We found that advisory services are more effective than innovation vouchers and as effective as policy mixes in increasing SME propensity to innovate and engage in R&D collaborations. Conversely, policy mixes are more effective than each individual instrument in increasing productivity. Hence, merely providing SMEs with technology and innovation advice is not sufficient to elicit productivity improvements; SMEs also need to act on such advice by working with external providers of knowledge-intensive services in order to implement efficiency-producing changes.
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