1,721,004 research outputs found
Innovation in Industrial Districts: Evidence from Italy
No full textThe aim of this paper is to show that Italian manufacturing firms belonging to Marshallian industrial districts carry out a higher innovative effort than is usually acknowledged. The empirical analysis makes use of a panel of 1,218 district
and non-district firms belonging to traditional sectors. Data refers to the years 1992 and 1995. We have estimated an augmented Cobb–Douglas production function. The
estimates make it possible to empirically identify three different determinants of firms’ productivity: (i) the intentional innovative activity; (ii) the ‘‘district effect’’; and (iii) the joint district and innovation effect. The results show that firms’ membership in industrial districts and product innovations are key factors in explaining the productivity of firms working in traditional Italian sectors
Can a Marshallian Industrial District Be Innovative? The Case of Italy
No full textContributions to Economic
L’opinione dei laureati: la qualità percepita degli studi
No full textIl lavoro presenta un'analisi delle opinioni dei laureati sul titolo di studio appena conseguito volta a cogliere il modo in cui i laureati valutano la qualità del proprio percorso formativ
Le teorie dell’impresa basate su risorse, capabilities e competenze
No full textLo scopo del paper è quello di indicare alcune linee di ricerca che possono rivelarsi utili nella costruzione di una teoria dell’impresa basata sulle sue Risorse, Capabilities e Competenze (RCC). Se, da un lato, il focus sulle RCC dell’impresa ha consentito di evidenziare le principali limitazioni del paradigma contrattualista, dall’altro lato, una teoria positiva dell’impresa basata sulle RCC esita a prendere corpo, essendo la sua ‘operazionalizzazione’ ancora ad uno stadio preliminare. Al fine di progredire oltre in questa direzione, il paper suggerisce 3 linee di ricerca, ossia: (i) distinguere la natura dei diversi problemi sottostanti alla prospettiva contrattualista, problemi a cui una teoria alternativa dovrebbe essere in grado di dare una soluzione (Paragrafo 2); (ii) identificare quelle caratteristiche delle RCC che si presentano essenziali nel collegamento con le questioni chiave della teoria dell’impresa, ossia, esistenza, confini ed organizzazione (Paragrafo 3); (iii) valutare le implicazioni di possibili tentativi di ‘ibridizzazione’ delle due prospettive di indagine (Paragrafo 4). Il paper intende muovere i primi passi lungo queste tre direttrici di ricerca, fornendo al tempo stesso delle argomentazioni per giustificarne un ulteriore approfondimento
La dimensione spaziale degli spillover di conoscenza e la crescita della produttività manifatturiera nelle regioni europee
No full textInternationalization in Italian medium sized firms: does stage theory explain the observed patterns?
No full textThis paper examines the extent to which the theory on internationalization strategies explains the patterns observed in Italian medium sized firms in recent years.
We focus on stage theory because it seems most appropriate to explain the patterns of internationalization in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Stage theory (Cavusgil, 1980) assumes that the process of internationalization follows a prescribed path from lighter mode of entry (typically based on indirect export) to more intensive investment (typically in the form of foreign direct investments - FDI). Although this assumption has been challenged on both the theoretical and empirical levels, some studies (Gankema et al., 2000) have found out that stage theory can be applied to explain SMEs behavior. More information on the validity of this explanation would be of interest to both firms and policymakers.
Because of the lack of empirical evidence on the internationalization of Italian SMEs and the theoretical models explaining their international activities, this paper aims to analyze the characteristics and recent evolution in the patterns of internationalization among Italian medium sized firms and to assess the extent to which the observed patterns are compatible with the predictions of stage theory. The focus on medium sized companies is justified by their increasing role in the Italian manufacturing system (Brioschi et al., 2002; Balloni and Iacobucci, 2004; Coltorti, 2004).
The empirical analysis refers to 242 manufacturing companies and groups located in the North-East-Center of Italy (the so-called NEC regions or ‘third Italy’). This area was chosen because of its peculiarities in terms of the organization of manufacturing activities, which is based on industrial districts: i.e. local systems of small and medium sized firms, specialized in the same sector (Cainelli and Zoboli, 2004). The SMEs located in these regions have demonstrated remarkable ability to penetrate international markets through export (Menghinello, 2004), but found it difficult to develop stable forms of internationalization through productive or commercial units abroad. It is one of the aims of this paper to assess whether medium sized firms can change the internationalization patterns observed so far in Italian SMEs, from export to FDI.
We find that size does not affect average export intensity, but is important for FDI-based strategies. Size affects the “magnitude” and intensity of investment in foreign markets, but not the willingness to develop internationalization activities abroad: indeed, smaller companies experienced faster growth in terms of the number of foreign subsidiaries in the period considered. In general, investing abroad tends to be complementary to and not a substitute for export, within a gradual approach to internationalization. In terms of geographical span of operations, over time, FDI activities moved from closer to more distant locations, confirming a ‘process approach’ to internationalization driven by knowledge acquisition.
Overall, the evidence accords with the propositions based on stage theory; however, we also found some conflicting facts. When we looked at companies that in 2001 had not embarked on the process of internationalization, we found that the majority jumped directly to an FDI approach, rather than starting with a less intensive mode of internationalization, such as export. We did not expect the internationalization strategies of these firms, which we refer to as “Pioneers”, to be successful. However, this was only partially confirmed by the data as the majority of Pioneers survived in the same stage at the end of the period.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the current literature on the internationalization strategies of firms, with a specific focus on the stage theory hypothesis. We highlight the predictions of different approaches and discuss the problems that have emerged from empirical work. Finally, we list and discuss the hypotheses relating to firm behavior that can be deduced from stage theory. Section 3 describes the empirical methodology we use, and gives information on the data, the sample and the variables considered in the quantitative analysis. Section 4 discusses the results of the empirical analysis, and Section 5 provides some conclusions
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
La valorizzazione dei beni culturali e il ruolo delle regioni: "punti fermi" e "zone d'ombra"
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