Does innovation drive economic resistance? Not in Italy, at least! (original) (raw)
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This paper connects the literature on obstacles to innovation to the concept of regional economic resilience by empirically assessing the relationship between the intensity of firms’ engagement in innovative activities and self-reported obstacles to innovation during the unfolding of the latest economic and financial downturn. The analysis is grounded on a unique dataset on firm-level accounting data (CAD) and information from two waves (2008-10 and 2010-12) of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) for a representative sample of firms in the Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The main results support the existence of severe deterring barriers in the region, and suggest that during the economic and financial crisis after 2008 firms’ uncertainty about the market demand became dominant.
Looking for Regional Systems of Innovation: Evidence from the Italian Innovation Survey
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EVANG EL I STA R., IAMMAR I NO S., MASTROSTEFANO V. and SILVANI A. (2002) Looking for regional systems of innovation: evidence from the Italian innovation survey, Reg. Studies 36, 173-186. The empirical target of this article is two-fold: exploring the variety of regional innovative patterns in Italy; and assessing whether innovation systems can be found, and how they operate, at a sub-national scale. The empirical analysis is based on an in-depth analysis of the data provided by the rst Community Innovation Survey (CIS). The article shows that the traditional north-south distinction does not give full account of the wider spectrum of regional patterns in Italy. In particular, regional innovative patterns diVer not only according to the speci c strategies and technological performances of rms, but also according to the relevance of systemic interactions and the presence of contextual factors favourable to innovation. However, proper regional systems of innovation are found only in a few well-de ned areas. In most regions, systemic interactions and knowledge ows between the relevant actors are simply too sparse and too weak to reveal the presence of systems of innovation at work.
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The paper investigates the features of regional innovation systems in Italy, looking not only at factors directly related to technology and codified knowledge but also to uncodified knowledge that is usually embedded in virtuous entrepreneurial environments. To this end, two principle components, representing respectively regional innovative and entrepreneurial environments, have been obtained from a large set of variables. By clustering regions in homogeneous groups, at least four different geographical systems of innovation can be observed. The paper concludes looking at the difference of economic performance between groups.