40,744 research outputs found

    Enhancing the Competitiveness of the European Construction Industry in the Digital Economy

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    Funding bodies in general, and the European Commission in particular, have for over a decade funded project centred Research and Technology Development (RTD) efforts. While these have traditionally operated in isolation with little co-operation and cross-fertilization of results, a crucial requirement has emerged, following the latest advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), to have a more concerted and co-ordinated action aiming at a better integration, standardisation, dissemination and exploitation of the results from these projects across the European regions and countries. This has been clearly identified as a key requirement within the European Information Society and Technology (IST) Programme. In that respect, based on the promising results and achievements realized by the leading Construction IT community in Europe, a cluster project involving six IST funded projects has been set-up in order to achieve a better integration of research results in the area. This project, ICCI (IST-2001-33022), is targeting a specific sector: the Construction industry, and is addressing a wide spectrum of issues ranging from ICT implementation and deployment to organizational, social, and legal aspects. The paper gives (1) a background description of the context in which ICCI operates, (2) its aims and objectives, (3) the research results achieved to date by its partners within their respective IST project, and (4) a road map identifying areas of collaboration and expected impacts in the European Construction digital economy

    Going for growth: our future prosperity

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    Romania -- Systematic Country Diagnostic: background note-agriculture (English)

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    Agriculture plays a significant socio-economic role in Romania and its transformation to a modern, vibrant, and market-oriented sector is central to fighting poverty, promoting social inclusion, and reducing the urban/rural development divide. Most of Romania\u27s poor live in rural areas and earn their living from agriculture or agriculture-related activities. In 2016, eight out of ten people who were at risk of poverty or social exclusion lived either in rural areas or in towns and suburbs that were predominately rural. Using microdata from the 2013 Household Budget Survey (HBS), this report finds that individuals living in rural areas are 16.5 percent more likely to be poor than those who live in urban areas. Also, those living in rural areas and working in agriculture are 27 percent more likely to be poor. There are large variations in poverty rates and in the risk of poverty or social exclusion across regions in Romania. The risk of poverty or social exclusion is significantly higher in the northeast, southeast, west Oltenia, south Mutenia, and the west regions compared to that in Bucharest-Ilfov, the northwest, and center regions

    State of the Industry 4.0 in the Andalusian food sector

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    The food industry is a key issue in the economic structure of Andalusia, due to both the weight and position of this industry in the economy and its advantages and potentials. The term Industry 4.0 carries many meanings. It seeks to describe the intelligent factory, with all the processes interconnected by Internet of things (IOT). Early advances in this field have involved the incorporation of greater flexibility and individualization of the manufacturing processes. The implementation of the framework proposed by Industry 4.0. is a need for the industry in general, and for Andalusian food industry in particular, and should be seen as a great opportunity of progress for the sector. It is expected that, along with others, the food and beverage industry will be pioneer in the adoption of flexible and individualized manufacturing processes. This work constitutes the state of the art, through bibliographic review, of the application of the proposed paradigm by the Industry 4.0. to the food industry.Telefónica, through the “Cátedra de Telefónica Inteligencia en la Red”Paloma Luna Garrid

    Smart Specialisation – Towards a New Generation of Regional Innovation Strategies

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    Inteligentna specjalizacja stała się jednym z zasadniczych wątków współczesnych koncepcji zarządzania rozwojem regionalnym. W oryginale oznacza sztywny podział ról między regiony–liderzy innowacji i pozostałe regiony. Te pierwsze specjalizują się w tzw. technologiach ogólnego zastosowania i/lub ich kombinacji (np. bioinformatyce), drugie zaś w tzw. „koinwencji zastosowań”, czyli w imporcie technologii ogólnego zastosowania i wdrażaniu ich w jednym lub kilku obszarach regionalnej gospodarki. Tego typu koncepcja niesie ze sobą pewne niebezpieczeństwo, bo – jak wynika z doświadczeń międzynarodowych: 1) wysoki poziom innowacyjności wymaga wyrównanego poziomu konkurencyjności kompetencyjnej i technologicznej; 2) szybkość konwergencji konkurencyjności kompetencyjnej jest wyższa niż szybkość konwergencji konkurencyjności technologicznej, czemu również sprzyja dotychczasowy charakter międzynarodowego transferu technologii między liderami innowacji i pozostałymi regionami, ograniczający się (najczęściej) do technologii mniej lub bardziej przestarzałych. Stąd adaptacja koncepcji inteligentnej specjalizacji wymaga od każdego z regionów podwójnego wysiłku: a) znalezienia takich nisz technologicznych, w których mogą osiągnąć rolę lidera innowacji, i tym samym specjalizować się w rozwijaniu technologii ogólnego zastosowania; b) znalezienia takich sektorów / grup pokrewnych sektorów, gdzie mogą się specjalizować we wdrażaniu technologii rozwijanych przez innych liderów innowacji. Procedura określania takich obszarów inteligentnej specjalizacji uwzględnia przewagi konkurencyjne województwa, jego podstawowe zasoby (konkurencyjność technologiczną i konkurencyjność kompetencyjną) i potrzeby modernizacyjne jego bazy społeczno-ekonomicznej oraz globalne uwarunkowania

    The potential link between corporate innovations and corporate competitiveness:Evidence from IT firms in the UK

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    Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a thorough empirical investigation of the potential link between corporate innovations and corporate competitiveness in the context of the UK IT industry. Design/methodology/approach: This research uses a panel of 216 UK IT firms for the period from 2000 to 2016. The sample data for this study were extracted from the Worldscope, extracted from the Datastream database from Thomson Reuters. For the analysis of the data, the generalised method of moments model is applied. Findings: The results of this study provide empirical evidence that there exists a strong, positive link between corporate innovations and corporate competitiveness. Such evidence further reinforces the common view in the current literature of strategic management that because of the nature of their business, firms in the IT industry need to enhance their innovative capacities on a continual basis because of their critical role on these firms’ success and survival. Also, it is found that when the proxies for corporate innovations are lagged by two periods, their impact on corporate competitiveness becomes relatively more significant. However, when they are further lagged, i.e. by three periods, such an impact turns out to be relatively less pronounced. Research limitations/implications: The data gathered for this paper was restricted to IT-oriented firms in the UK. Using a secondary database (Datastream), the paper considered the period of 2000-2016. Originality/value: The research makes a significant contribution to the current debate on the relationship between information technology, innovation and performance, referred to in the literature as the productivity paradox, by studying the problem in the IT industry. It supports organisations from the sector in their efforts to deal with the dynamic nature of technological innovations and of the context where they operate. Methodologically, the way the study has measured the concepts of innovation and performance and the lessons learned from their analysis has also brought value to the research

    Impact Of The Manufacturing Sector On The Export Competitiveness Of European Countries – A Spatial Panel Analysis

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    The purpose of this paper is to determine how changes in the export competitiveness of the EU economy (measured by exports and net exports) depend on changes in the competitiveness of processing industries, on the basis of manufacturing data from 19 EU countries over years 1995-2009 and using a spatial panel data model. The determinants of export competitiveness are selected in the light of predictions from international trade theory, growth theory and the theory of innovation. In particular, the paper explores how the size of foreign demand, the value of domestic demand, the level of ULC in the sector, the degree of openness of the sector to foreign markets, labour productivity and intermediate consumption in a sector affect the export competitiveness of the European economies selected. The results from spatial data models lead to a conclusion about the statistical significance of spatial dependencies in export competitiveness modelling. The analysis indicates the different determinants of export competitiveness, both if it is measured by export value and if it measured by net exports. The authors hope that the results will be a voice in the discussion on enhancing the competitiveness of European industrial sector

    Infrastructure networks and the competitiveness of the economy

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    This paper aims to examine how technical infrastructure networks may contribute to improving the competitiveness of the Hungarian economy. Consequently, our main question will be to establish how certain networks or sectors can promote competitiveness of the entire economy rather than how they could be more competitive in their own field. In the macroeconomic or regional sense competitiveness is interpreted as the entirety of safeguards and preconditions that provide a long term basis for success in a competitive market environment. The review of the economic, social, institutional and facility preconditions of competitiveness has highlighted that practically every component must be backed by a good system of relations: both strong, balanced internal relations promoting co-operation and external relations to assure outward linkages. Despite the above correlation, it would be a fallacy to assume that infrastructure networks as linking elements in general are factors per se improving competitiveness. In accordance with the level of development of the economy, the key forms of activity and the realistically attainable objectives, different linkages and service needs become key for the development of the economy in different stages
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