1,720,965 research outputs found
Evaluating cooperative behaviours in innovation networks: a pre-specified blockmodeling analysis.
No full textCollaboration networks linking firms, universities and local governments have since the 1990s been considered the loci of innovation. In recent years, a number of policy interventions were put in place to favor the development of such innovation networks throughout Europe. In Italy for instance, an increasing number of technological districts was established by fiat in mid-2000. The paper takes the
perspective of behavioral additionality to evaluate to what extent the institution of technological districts has persistently altered the patterns of collaboration among
actors so favoring innovative behaviors. Our aim is to present a dynamic social network analysis to identify the changes occurred in the pattern of collaborations over
time by using secondary data related to the co-participation of actors in research
projects undertaken by an Italian district in the period 2005-2012. In particular, at each time point, a pre-specified blockmodeling is proposed as a strategy to verify
the distance between the observed data and an expected ideal core-periphery configuration
From core-periphery to small-words: managing innovation networks in strategic, high-tech districts
No full textThis study uses social network analysis to investigate the topology and evolution of collaboration
networks in a policy anchored, high-tech district in Italy. The district involves
lead firms from strategic industries such as defence, military, transports, energy, and aerospace along with public and private institutions. The governance of the district is based upon an active and formal management of project
partnerships. The authors use pre-specified block-modelling to identify the structural configuration of
collaboration at each time point from 2005 to 2013, tracing the evolutionary path of collaboration within
the district. Empirical results show that collaboration initially took a core–periphery configuration
characterized by a single, small bridging core of research organizations. After the year 2009, this core-
periphery configuration cannot explain the data anymore, signalling a structural change occurred at the
level of the network as a whole. An assessment of the district management strategy is provided
Collaboration dynamics and knowledge transfer in innovation networks: a pre-specified blockmodelling analysis
No full textCollaboration networks linking firms, universities and local governments have been considered the loci of innovation
since the 1990s. In recent years, a number of policy interventions were put in place to favor the development of such innovation networks throughout Europe. In Italy, for instance, an increasing number of Technological Districts (TD) was established by the government in mid-2000. The paper probes this public policy with the lens of network analysis to understand the evolutionary patterns of research collaborations within a TD located in Southern Italy. Yearly changes in the network of co-participation in R&D projects between 2005 and 2012 are examined. The main assumption of the study is that knowledge transfer between specialized research groups is an essential precondition of innovation. We use pre-specified blockmodelling to explore whether this process is occurring testing a core-periphery model, in which the core is defined by the actors that similarly bridge specialized research groups. Results show that the core-periphery model
explains the collaboration network between organizations particularly well at the early stages of the TD development.
Over time, however, cores rapidly increase, indicating an intensification of collaboration in projects within the district an
the emergence of new hubs. Moreover, cores progressively change their composition: from a structure dominated by public research centers to the inclusion of public and private research centers, firms as well as international partners
Assessing the role of technological districts in regional innovation policies: a network analysis of collaborative R&D projects
No full textAs highlighted in systemic approaches to innovation, regions play an increasingly important role in designing and implementing place-based innovation policies. A wide debate has emerged on the limits and validity of different policy models, for example, between “platform” and “district-based” approaches or between a “corporatist” and an “evolutionary” Triple Helix. Within the EU Cohesion Policy framework, a number of technological districts (TDs) have been established since 2005 in the Italian “Convergence” regions to foster competitiveness, innovation, and research industry linkages. TDs have become critical actors in knowledge and technology transfer processes, and a significant amount of funding has been devoted to their development in the National Operational Programme for Research and Competitiveness (PON-R&C). In this work, we use methods drawn from social network analysis to locate TDs within the wider collaboration networks established through the PON-R&C programme. We highlight the specificity of TDs within the general policy and assess their ability to promote organisational and sectoral heterogeneity among project participants. We find that different network architectures coexist under the same policy umbrella and relate this variety to the ideal models identified in the literature
Assessing structural changes of R&D collaboration networks through Social Network Analysis: a case study
No full textA Pre-specified Blockmodeling to Analyze Structural Dynamics in Innovation Networks
No full textIn recent decades economic theory has highlighted the benefits produced by networks of organizations in fostering innovation. A number of public policies were put in place to favor these innovation networks throughout Europe. The top-down institution of a number of specialized technological districts in Italy has been one of the main outcomes of this new wave of policies, in mid-2000. The aim of this paper is to explore what impact the institution of technological districts had on collaborative patterns over time. Using a pre-specified blockmodeling, observed network configurations obtained by the co-participation to R&D projects undertaken by organizations involved in a technological district are compared with a theoretical core-periphery structure in a 8-years time interval. The analyses of networks over time show that collaborative patterns have evolved from a core-periphery structure towards a complete network in which each research group is connected with the others
Quali-quantitative methods for the analysis of a regional innovation experience: the case of Imast Technological District
No full textThis work aims at exploiting the potentials of both qualitative and quantitative methods to
understand whether social and cognitive proximity overlap in regional innovation networks. The
showcase of IMAST Technological District in Campania region is examined. First we undertake
an ego-centered network analysis of the actor-by-project collaboration network to derive social
proximity measures and trace their changes over the period 2005-2013. Second, we adopt a
lexical correspondence analysis on qualitative in-depth interviews gathered from managers of all
public and private research institutions and firms in the district. Finally, we triangulate these social
and cognitive proximity measures to understand to what extent these two dimensions overlap over
time. Results highlight the importance of interpreting network collaboration data in the light of their
social context
A relational approach to evaluate Network Based Policies for innovation: the case of Italian Technological Districts
No full textIn recent decades economic theory has highlighted the benefits produced by networks of organizations for knowledge creation and information diffusion, especially in high-tech sectors. Innovation networks can be defined as groups of interconnected organizations, including universities, research organizations, business and government agencies that share scientific research and technological developments.
In particular, we can consider Italian technological districts as a ”network” of public and private entities involved in R&D sector. The aim of this paper is to propose a strategy to evaluate the impact of network-based policies for innovation.
The evaluation of these policies is undertaken in the framework of behavioral additionality to capture the persistence of changes in regional systems after policy interventions. Network analysis will be used to empirically investigate whether the institution of TDs has structurally altered the patterns of research collaborations.
Collaboration network established among actors in a technological district located in Southern Italy is analysed starting from publicly funded R&D projects
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
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