Networks cultivating values: insights from five culture-based regeneration projects in Italy

This contribution aims at improving the understanding of the conditions and dynamics that facilitate processes of culture-based urban regeneration via social innovation. It presents and discusses the outcomes of an in-depth investigation of five projects taking place in large cities in Italy dealing with the reuse and regeneration of urban spaces through creative and innovative practices. Research findings demonstrate the centrality of the network dimension in sustaining and shaping processes of urban regeneration through social innovation and cultural production. Networks are led by social entrepreneurs having a strong territorial focus that “cultivate” new values for the local community by reusing and mobilizing publicly owned vacant or abandoned material assets

The eGovQual Methodology: Information Systems Planning as Research Intervention

In this paper we discuss eGovQual a methodology for planning eGovernment initiatives in public administrations with specific attention to the strategic planning and preliminary operational planning phases. The key elements of the methodology are the multidisciplinary approach, which considers social, economical, organizational, juridical and technological issues in the identification and ranking of eGovernment projects, and the quality-driven strategy which considers the assessment of actual and future target quality values for services, processes, organizational systems, and technologies. eGovQual aims to satisfy a real need of constituencies and stakeholders involved in eGovernment projects, confirmed in the context where the methodology has been developed and tested such as the eGovernment for Mediterranean Countries (eG4M) project and former preliminary experiences in the Italian Public Administrations by the interactions with local authorities during the on the field experimentations. A structured process is needed, that provides a clear perspective on the different facets that eGovernment initiatives usually have to challenge, and disciplines the complex set of decisions to be taken.The available approaches to eGovernment provide usually only one perspective to public managers and local authorities on the domain of intervention, either technological, or organizational, or juridical, or social. Our aim is to provide a methodology supporting in a structural fashion the choice of the optimal eGovernment plan, considering all the above mentioned perspectives. The quality driven construction of the eGovernment plan is initially influenced by the social, juridical and organizational perspective, while achieves subsequently its final shape when considering the economic and technological perspectives. The results of the interventions carried out are described at a glance

Knowledge exchange and the third mission of universities : Introduction: the triple helix and the third mission – Schumpeter revisited

Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950) is well known as an economist, among other things, for his seminal contribution explaining long-term economic growth in terms of innovation and technological progress. He identified innovation at the heart of upswings in the so-called ‘Kondratiev waves’ that profile socioeconomic development trends over long periods. He saw innovation as a dynamic process of ‘creative destruction’ in which new orders arise with the obliteration of the old. This process he attributed to the entrepreneur – the innovator who, in the Schumpeterian paradigm, would in effect count as a history maker. For all its significance as a landmark in the literature of innovation and economic development, Schumpeter’s contribution falls short of providing a theory of innovation. However, he has left behind a long-standing tradition of innovation studies to grapple with this shortfall. The quest continues in the form of innovation systems and evolutionary theory, in which the Triple Helix features as a strand

An Architecture Driven Methodology for Transforming from Fragmented to Connected Government: A Case of a Local Government in Italy

Connected government implies that citizens and enterprises can interact with government as with a single entity rather than with a number of different public authorities. In countries characterized by a highly fragmented system of Local Government, connected government at the local level can be achieved only through a process of progressive integration on a wider area of systems of local government already integrated at the local level. In the chapter, the author argues that this process should be based on a maturity model and a reference model that define the technological and organizational conditions that allow the establishment of more and more integrated aggregations of municipalities. With reference to a study funded by the Region Lombardia (Italy), the chapter introduces the concept of Integrated System of Local Government (ISLG) and describes the process that leads to the establishment of ISLGs as an intermediate step toward connected government at the local level. Moreover, the chapter discusses the conditions that can induce different aggregations of municipalities to comply with a set of standard requirements in the implementation of their integration processes

Using Data Envelopment Analysis to Assess the Relative Efficiency of Different Climate Policy Portfolios

Within the political, scientific and economic debate on climate change, the process of evaluating climate policies ex-ante, during and/or ex-post their lifetime, is receiving increasing attention from international institutions and organisations. The task becomes particularly challenging when the aim is to evaluate strategies or policies from a sustainability perspective. The three pillars of sustainability should then be jointly considered in the evaluation process, thus enabling a comparison of the social, the environmental and the economic dimensions of the policy’s impact. This is commonly done in a qualitative manner and is often based on subjective procedures. The present paper discusses a data-based, quantitative methodology to assess the relative performances of different climate policies, when long term economic, social and environmental impacts of the policy are considered. The methodology computes competitive advantages as well as relative efficiencies of climate policies and is here presented through an application to a sample of eleven global climate policies, considered as plausible for the near future. The proposed procedure is based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a technique commonly employed in evaluating the relative efficiency of a set of decision making units. We consider here two possible applications of DEA. In the first, DEA is applied coupled with Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) in order to evaluate the comparative advantages of policies when accounting for social and environmental impacts, as well as net economic benefits. In the second, DEA is applied to compute a relative efficiency score, which accounts for environmental and social benefits and costs interpreted as outputs and inputs. Although the choice of the model used to simulate future economic and environmental implications of each policy (in the present paper we use the FEEM RICE model), as well as the choice of indicators for costs and benefits, represent both arbitrary decisions, the methodology presented is shown to represent a practical tool to be flexibly adopted by decision makers in the phase of policy design.Climate, Policy, Valuation, Data envelopment analysis, Sustainability

The link between the diversity of productive models and the variety of capitalisms

Prepared within the framework of the ESEMK project supported by the EU (FP6, Priority 7, CIT-CT-2004-506077 The European Socio-Economic Models of a Knowledge-based society), this paper discusses the linking between the variety of capitalism and the diversity of organisational forms for firms. This linking is illustrated through the case of the car industry. First part presents the works based on the hypothesis of an institutional isomorphism between the macro-level and the organisation. Second part tries to link analytical grids which integrate the diversity of institutional forms at the macro, meso and micro-levels.car industry, institution, institutional isomorphism, organisation of the firm, productive models, sector, variety of capitalism

The Emilian Model Revisited: Twenty Years After

In the early 1980s Emilia-Romagna drew wide attention as a case of successful industrialisation based on small and medium-sized firms clustered in industrial districts intermingled with social cohesion and integration assured by the hegemonic role played by the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in the region. Twenty years after, the Emilian economy seems to have regenerated its competitive advantage. This resulted from important changes involving both the industrial structure and the governance structure. As to the former, a restructuring of local industry led to the formation of business groups, the rise of lead firms, the emergence of distant networks, the introduction of computer-based technologies, and an increasing variety in the evolutionary paths of the various districts. As to the latter, the disappearance of a Communist political subculture and the transformation of the ruling party from the PCI into fistly the PDS and then the DS brought about a change in the governance structure which was marked by an increased reliance on business associations in both designing and managing industrial policies. As a result, these shifted towards a market-driven approach, focused on induvidual firms and, above all, lead firms rather than industrial districts.Emilia-Romagna; Industrial Districts; Lead Firms; Business Associations; Governance; Industrial Polocies

Evolution in Regional Planning: The Italian Path

Focus of the paper are the models and practices of regional spatial planning activated in Italy in the most recent years, in order to evidence the innovation occurred and the challenges that regional planning institutions are facing. Compared to a theoretical and legislative framework that tends to separate the different types of regional planning (spatial, landscape, development planning), the experimental framework is characterized by pluralistic approaches in which a balance between a normative and a strategic nature of the territorial plan is searched, in order to introduce perspectives of economic and social development. In a continuous process of institutional reflexivity and learning, the regional institutions have now achieved that the notion of 'region' has become more about social interaction than geographical location. For that, interesting experiences of intraregional and interregional cooperation are developing, as called Interregional table of PadanoAlpine-Maritime Macro Area in Northern Italy, a place-based approach generating supra-local shared visions that are of a certain interest