Collective learning in a milieu approach: Conceptual elements and empirical evidence from Italy

The aim of the paper is twofold: a) it stresses the concept of collective learning from a theoretical point of view, and provides new insights into its definition; b) it provides a measurement of the presence of collective learning in three Italian milieux. An analysis of the definitions provided so far in the litterature on collective learning shows in fact an ambiguity between these two concepts. A parallel analysis of the two concepts is run, and similarities and differences underlined. One of the main distinguishing features of collective learning is embedded in the element of "club externality", while the elements of "continuity" and "dynamic synergies" represent the elements of similarities with the concept of learning. The paper explains these concepts in depth, and once the "public" nature of collective learning is emphasised, it moves into the problem of whether the public nature guarantees its exploitation. To reply to this question, the paper moves into the problem of which local spatial preconditions have to be present in a territorial setting to exploit collective learning. In this respect, the paper provides a logic framework of preconditions for a territorial system to move from specialised areas, through to "local districts", "milieux" and "milieux innovateurs", and provides a distinction between the concept of "milieu" and that of a "milieu innovateur", which is so far remained ambigous. The logic framework allows in fact to distinguish in a clearcut way among all these concepts. These reflections lead to some interesting empirical questions which are investigated in the empirical part of the paper. In particular, the empirical analysis replies to the following questions: ? is it true that collective learning is not the result of a cooperative behaviour, but of a collective process; ? if it is true that collective learning is the way of achieving new creative resources for SMEs in local areas. The empirical analysis is based on three Italian high-tech milieux. Descriptive and interpretative statistical instruments are used in this part of the paper.

El capital social como enfoque teórico en Dirección Estratégica

[EN] The objective of this research paper is to investigate, from a theoretical point of view, the strategic relevance of social capital. In recent years, academic literature in this field has witnessed remarkable growth, recognizing social capital as a key element for companies, due to its contribution to the creation of competitive advantages. However, it might be said that its development is still emerging, given the number of discrepancies among researchers regarding its definition, measurement, and its positive or negative impact on other variables. For this reason, a set of empirical studies that show the social capital effect on diverse types of organizational results have been reviewed, taking as a reference the definition and dimensions proposed by Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998). Additionally, different theoretical links between social capital and four related Strategic Management approaches are presented, such as the Intellectual Capital-Based View, the Knowledge-Based View, the Resource-Based View and the Dynamic Resource-Based View. A main conclusion drawn from this review is that social capital, being a knowledge-based resource, enables access to both internal and external resources and thus a firm’s competitive advantage and, consequently, its value creation can be generated from the combination of both areas. Going in depth and clarifying this strategic linkage are thus a challenge to address in future studies.[ES] El principal objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar la relevancia estratégica del capital social organizacional desde un punto de vista teórico. En los últimos años, la literatura académica relacionada con este concepto ha experimentado un notable crecimiento, reconociendo que el capital social es un elemento fundamental para que las empresas generen ventajas competitivas. Sin embargo, se podría afirmar que su desarrollo es todavía incipiente al existir multitud de discrepaciancias entre los investigadores acerca de su conceptuación, la medición de sus dimensiones o los efectos positivos o negativos que podría tener sobre otras variables. Por este motivo, tomando como referencia la definición y dimensiones propuestas por Nahapiet y Ghoshal (1998), se ha realizado una revisión de las investigaciones que, de manera empírica, han estudiado las relaciones entre el capital social y distintos tipos de resultados organizacionales. Igualmente, se exponen diferentes nexos teóricos encontrados entre el capital social y los principales enfoques en Dirección Estratégica como son Enfoque Basado en el Capital Intelectual, el Enfoque Basado en el Conocimiento, el Enfoque Basado en los Recursos y el Enfoque Basado en las Capacidades dinámicas. Se concluye que el capital social, como recurso basado en el conocimiento, podría permitir el acceso a otros recursos internos o externos, y que la creación de valor y la generación de ventajas competitivas de una empresa puede provenir de la combinación de ambos ámbitos. Así, futuros estudios deben encaminarse hacia la profundización y clarificación de este nexo estratégico

Amplifying Quiet Voices: Challenges and Opportunities for Participatory Design at an Urban Scale

Many Smart City projects are beginning to consider the role of citizens. However, current methods for engaging urban populations in participatory design activities are somewhat limited. In this paper, we describe an approach taken to empower socially disadvantaged citizens, using a variety of both social and technological tools, in a smart city project. Through analysing the nature of citizens’ concerns and proposed solutions, we explore the benefits of our approach, arguing that engaging citizens can uncover hyper-local concerns that provide a foundation for finding solutions to address citizen concerns. By reflecting on our approach, we identify four key challenges to utilising participatory design at an urban scale; balancing scale with the personal, who has control of the process, who is participating and integrating citizen-led work with local authorities. By addressing these challenges, we will be able to truly engage citizens as collaborators in co-designing their city

National Systems of Innovation and Entrepreneurship: In Search of a Missing Link

The literature on national systems of innovation (NIS) has neglected the issue of entrepreneurship because of several incompatibilities between the two notions. The Schumpeterian legacy, the current person-centric view of entrepreneurship, and methodological problems related to treating entrepreneurship at the macro-level, have made it difficult to integrate entrepreneurship into the NIS perspective. At national level it is more appropriate to treat entrepreneurship as a 'property' (dimension) of NIS. In order to link NIS and entrepreneurship we must establish a common conceptual basis. Our argument is that the functional view of NIS and entrepreneurship presents a common basis for such an approach. We develop criteria for the entrepreneurial NIS which we define as being those that can change balance between individual and cooperative entrepreneurship; that enhance both the opportunity and skill aspects of entrepreneurship; and that can balance generation of uncertainty with support to business models and other organisations which pool uncertainty. From the NIS perspective, we explain entrepreneurship as a systemic phenomenon driven by complementarities between technological, market and institutional opportunities. This framework builds on three research traditions in the entrepreneurship/NIS literature (Schumpeterian, Kirznerian and Listian) which jointly form a multi-level, multi-dimensional framework for understanding entrepreneurship from a NIS perspective. This framework could be useful as a heuristic for empirical research on entrepreneurship. Finally, we analyse policies for entrepreneurship and find that they are highly dependent on underlying and previously discussed conceptions of entrepreneurship

The National Systems of Innovation Approach and Innovation by SMEs

The National Systems of Innovation (NSI) approach is a young but successful approach to help to understand how innovation and interactive learning evolve in national economies and how they propel economic prosperity and international competitiveness. The NSI approach has been embraced by policy makers all around the world, because this approach offers them the potential to derive more appropriate leads for innovation policy. In the Netherlands too, the drafting of innovation policy is increasingly based on the NSI concept. The main aim of this study is to add to the understanding of the NSI approach. The research questions addressed in this study include: What are the main concepts, value added and shortcom-ings of the approach? And: How does the NSI approach offer policy makers the potential to derive more appropriate leads for innovation policy towards SMEs?

Social Capital, R&D and Industrial Districts

The main idea behind this paper is that social capital is not, as generally suggested by the socio-economic literature, an individual attitude towards something which does not imply privately appropriable economic benefits. Actually, SC might and should be interpreted as a public component of an investment which implies private and public benefits entangled with each other. In order to put forward this idea, a dynamic theoretical model that assumes social capital as the public component of the impure public good R&D is developed. It shows that the ‘civic culture’ of the district area in which the firm works is not sufficient as an incentive to increase its investment in social capital, because this investment strictly depends on the economic convenience of investing in the impure public good. Social capital /networking dynamics might positively and complementarily evolve only if the opportunity cost of investing in innovation is sufficiently low. We consequently focus our attention on a specialized industrial district located in the Emilia Romagna region – the biomedical district of Mirandola (Modena) – characterised by a strong pattern of innovative activity. Using a proxy for innovative activity as dependant variable, we observe that R&D and networking/social capital arise as complementary driving forces for innovation outputs. When empirical evidence confirms that this complementarity plays a key role, and consequently strong links exist between market and non-market dynamics relating to firms, the role for policy actions targeted to social capital is larger. The policy effort should be targeted toward both market and non-market characteristics taken together, rather than solely to the production of (local) public goods (social capital) or innovation inputs as independent elements of firm processes. The input of SC alone is not sufficient to ensure innovation and growth: economic incentives matter. On the other hand, whenever SC dynamics are crucial for R&D private investments, the effect of economic incentives depends on the presence and degree of their complementarity.Social capital, R&D, Technological innovation, Industrial districts

The Adoption of ICT in Small And Medium-sized Family Business. The Role of Younger Generation

The aim of this paper is to understand if the involvement of younger generation in small and medium-sized family firms can encourage a process of technological innovation, realized through the introduction and use of Information and Communication Technology. Younger entrepreneurs, that we call digital successors, compared to their predecessors, has a higher level of education and, living in an era dominated by electronics and digital information, should be able to exploit the new technologies in business organization and management. The new generation has skills, energy and innovative spirit necessary to start the process of technological innovation. From the methodological point of view, this work is based on a qualitative research involving two case studies. In both the family firms analyzed the involvement of the younger generation promoted the adoption of ICTs. This study is proposed as an initial moment of reflection to better identify some hypothesis to be tested with further investigations and a quantitative analysis.ICT, digital entrepreneur, family business, small and medium enterprises, technological innovation, generational change

Technological Innovation and Urban Processes

Technological innovation pushes transformatioin, rennovation and urban regenaration of areas and services. Special attention is given to the major urban centres, for the most related to nationale and/or Ue policy (Ce, 2003; Ce, 2004). A number of important questions are emerging between the reinforcement of the bigger areas, both metropolitan and urban, and the smaller centres. Moreover, according with different institutional actors it would be better more balanced process of anthropization because environmental and social reasons (APAT, 2004). In Calabria there are very few towns with more then 15.000 residents, often they are isolated and in the internal land. It requires to connect these areas by network, to push the diffusion of innovation and technology, to build up the “educated technology†(Del Nord, 1991). As said in other place (Aragona, 2003), the region is becoming to partecipate to the global village and the Ue (Ue, 1994; 1995; 1996) have policies and areas of implementation (Information Society, POR Calabbria 2000-20006; RIS+ 2001-2002). The paper faces a number of questions continuing such a topic. How are changing some of these areas that have implemented the technological innovation? Which impact are making the strategies and the choices on the spatial, functional and social context. The social effectiveness related to the quality life, said by Gasparini (1990) does it better? Could it be the outcome due to the absence of concentrated localization as is the case of other territorial areas marked by the “reticular†network (Dematteis, 1990)? Above all it requires to evaluate, said that the technological facilities are present enough, the role plays by the innovation as engine for both the cultural and awareness growth. Push for and knowledge that overcomes the mere informatization and suggestes the e-government: a formation and information path dedicated to build up new tools for local action and planning in the global competition. Identification of new settlements and spatial criteria (Appold et al., 1990), construction of urban spaces as signs of the past (Augè, 2004) but also signals of a new development and of social choesion, new citizenship (Cacciari, 1991).

Defining the dimensions of engineering asset procurement: towards an integrated model

Procuring engineering asset management is a critical activity of all types of government, with optimal approaches to procurement still in need of identification. This paper advances a novel approach of exploring the procurement of engineering assets across a number of dimensions: Project rules, organisational interaction rules and complexity. The dimensions of project rules are held to include cost, quality and time. The dimensions of organisational interaction rules are held to be collaboration, competition and control. Complexity is seen as in the project itself, in the interaction between organisations or in the business environment. Taken together these dimensions seem salient for any type of engineering asset, and provide a useful way of conceptualising procurement arrangements of these assets