Hosting, producing and brokering: How collaborative spaces engage with local innovation ecosystems

In recent years, we have witnessed a proliferation of settings reflecting a culture of collaboration and openness, such as coworking spaces, incubators/accelerators, makerspaces, and creative hubs. Such settings are labeled as “collaborative spaces”, as they are expected to facilitate collaborative relationships both among their users and with external actors, thus favoring creativity and innovation at the individual, organizational, and territorial level. Recent studies recognize that collaborative spaces sustain collaboration among multiple local actors and, thus, favor open and participative innovation processes. However, the question of how collaborative spaces engage with their local innovation ecosystem is still left pending. The present study aims to fill this gap. Drawing on an interpretive review and a qualitative multiple case study, our paper identifies three forms of engagement - i.e., “hosting”, “producing”, and “brokering” - that can be enacted by collaborative spaces through a complex set of specific actions. We suggest that brokering embraces and enables both hosting and producing to activate a “virtuous cycle” that couples inbound and outbound innovation processes, as the hosting of external actors (and externally produced activities) favors the production of activities by and within collaborative spaces, after which these activities are projected outward, and so forth

Dibattito su Storie di imprese

Storie di imprese (TAO Digital Library, 2010), dedicated to the organizational transformations of five enterprises (Fiat Auto, Finmeccanica, Ciba Specialty chemicals, Zurich, Poste Italiane) during the 2000-2010 decade, stimulated a wide debate. This publication, which collects the commentaries and discussions of three seminar that took place in different Universities with the participation of scholars from different disciplines, continues the reflection about the crucial question: How do enterprises change

Innovation modes and performance in Italian manufacturing micro-small enterprises

Small firms can innovate in different ways ranging from intensive and continuous in-house investment in product innovation to intermittent process innovation by purchasing new production equipment. Analysis of innovation patterns at the bottom of the size distribution is a neglected area of research indeed the European Community does not include firms with under 10 employees within the Community Innovation Survey (CIS3). Recent research has shed more light on this type of firm. de Jong and Marsili (2006) have demonstrated, by conducting a survey on the population of SMEs in The Netherlands, that a taxonomy can be effectively used to map the different innovative behaviours of micro-small enterprises. The paper draws on this stream of research and addresses a still unexplored issue regarding the innovative behaviour of a specific cluster. The paper will contribute to understanding the innovation behaviour of micro and small enterprises in two ways: by better specifying the innovative pattern of the cluster of specialized suppliers and by identifying the innovation mode that is related to firm performance. The empirical test was conducted by means of a survey on a sample of 182 Italian micro-small enterprises in the metal-mechanical sector

Gli spazi collaborativi per l'imprenditorialità: riflessioni ed evidenze empiriche sul loro impatto

Il capitolo esplora la relazione tra spazi collaborativi e imprenditorialità. In particolare, cercha di riflettere sul loro impatto in avvio o rafforzamento di esperienze imprenditoriali. Più specificamente, dopo un inquadramento della definizione di imprenditorialità, presenta i sui principali modelli teorici impiegati per spiegare i processi di innovazione, molti dei quali si fondano su dinamiche tipiche degli spazi collaborativi. A partire da tali modelli, il capitolo individua le dinamiche attraverso le quali gli spazi collaborativi possono impattare sull’imprenditorialità. Grazie ad alcune evidenze empiriche, raccolte attraverso l’analisi e lo studio di sei spazi collaborativi italiani, geograficamente distribuiti da nord a sud, mostra che gli spazi collaborativi possono supportare l’imprenditorialità del proprio territorio offrendo sia attività e servizi per lo sviluppo di start-up, sia spazi di lavoro per liberi professionisti, lavoratori da remoto e imprese. Infine, nelle conclusioni si sintetizzano alcune delle principali implicazioni teoriche ed empiriche delle evidenze raccolte

La gestione strategica delle risorse umane

Dopo la discussione di un caso di apertura, il capitolo affronta il legame tra la strategia, le risorse umane e il vantaggio competitivo nelle imprese turistiche. Vengono illustrati i principali processi di gestione delle risorse umane, le best practices e i legami di complementarità tra pratiche di HRM. Si descrivono attori e ruoli coinvolti nella gestione delle risorse umane e si discute dell'e-'HRM. ll capitolo si chiude con alcuni case studies di approfondimento tratti dal settore turistico