1,721,090 research outputs found
Firms and innovation in the new industrial paradigm of the digital transformation
The unfolding of the digital transformation, often associated with the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, has been attracting increasing attention in diverse academic disciplines. The related research has already populated several special issues that represent important guideposts for future studies on the topic. However, a paper collection with an 'Industry and Innovation' perspective, dealing with how firms behave, innovate, and perform in the new industrial paradigm, is still missing. This special issue aims to fill this gap. The six research articles investigate how firms face digital transformation from three different angles, looking at its determinants, the patterns of its unfolding, and its techno-economic effects. The variety of the theoretical backgrounds, data sources, and empirical methodologies, along with the originality and managerial/policy relevance of their results, make the special issue a privileged point of view to investigate the new industrial paradigm
La valutazione delle politiche per l'innovazione: un confronto tra Italia e Paesi Bassi
This article provides new evidence on the relevance and impact of public support to innovation activities in the case of two European countries: Italy and The Netherlands, given the opposite industrial structure of the two countries. The empirical analysis is based on firm-level data drawn from the Community Innovation Surveys (CIS2 and CIS3). On the basis of the evidence presented in the paper the innovation policy model in Italy could be qualified as “diffusion oriented” whereas the Dutch model of innovation policy seems to be much more selective or “mission oriented”. In the Italian case, innovation policies reach a rather large section of the Italian business sector and support mainly the introduction of process innovation and the acquisition of new capital equipment. Instead, innovation policies in The Netherlands seem to be more focussed on product innovations, R&D activities and radical innovation projects. Part of the differences of these two models of technology policy can be explained by the different role played by regional and local authorities in supporting firms’ innovation activities. In both countries, no additional effects of public incentives on firms’ innovation performances have been found even if the reasons behind the lack of additionality are likely to be very different in the two countries
Going, Going, Gone. Innovation and Exit in Manufacturing Firms
This paper examines the effect of innovation on the risk of exit of a firm, distinguishing between different modes of exits. Innovation represents a resource and a capability that helps a firm to build competitive advantage and remain in the market. At the same time, the resources and capabilities of innovative firms make them an attractive target for the acquisition process of other firms, thereby increasing the likelihood of the exiting the market. We explore these effects empirically by linking data on innovation and exits for a large sample of manufacturing firms in the Netherlands. The results show that the effect of innovation on a firm's risk of exit differs according to the mode of exit and, in addition, it is shaped by the nature of the innovation. While a firm can lower its risk of failure by innovating in either products or processes, the introduction of a new product in the absence of innovation in the production process increases the risk of exit as a result of merger and acquisition.Mergers and acquisitions;Innovation;Competing risks model;Firm exit
Eterogeneita' degli agenti economici ed interazione sociale: teorie e verifiche empiriche
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Statistical Regularities in the Evolution of Industries. A Guide through some Evidence and Challenges for the Theory
Fundamental drivers of the evolution of contemporary economies are the activities of search, discovery and economic exploitation of new products, new production processes, new organizational arrangements within and amongst business firms. What are their marks in terms of statistical properties that such processes display? Three basic questions in particular are addressed in this work. First, are there distinct characteristics of the microentities (in primis, business firms) and their distributions which systematically persist over time? Second, how do such characteristics within the population of competing firms affect their relative evolutionary success over time? And in particular what are the ultimate outcomes in terms of growth and profitability performances? Third, amongst the foregoing statistical properties and relations between them, which ones are invariant across industries, and, conversely, which ones depend on the technological and market characteristics of particular sectors? In order to address these questions we proceed in a sort of “inductive” manner. I start by examining some basic features of the distributions of firms sizes, growth rates and profitability. Next, I consider some evidence on the underlying inter-firm heterogeneity - particularly with regard to technological innovativeness and productivity - and their relationships with corporate performances. Finally, the work recalls the basic elements of an evolutionary interpretation of the evidence. Together with important points of corroboration of such a view - including those regarding a profound heterogeneity of firms at all levels of observation -, one also facing standing challenges - in primis, concerning the purported role of markets as effective selection devices -.Industrial evolution, Size distributions, Growth rates, Heterogeneity, Fat tails, Market selection
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