Local firms’ strategies and cluster coopetition in Tuscany: the case of “Toscana Promozione” Agency

This study examines a new paradigm of coopetition strategy emerged in Tuscany, one of the most famous Italian area in the world for cultural and economic heritage. Nowadays, global success in business requires that firms implement both competitive and cooperative strategies (i.e. coopetition). This strategy, according to Ray Noorda (the founder of Novell – an American multinational software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah), considers the advantages arising when both cooperation and competition coexist in the same domains. In the last twenty years, articles related to coopetition investigated several aspect of this strategy; in contrast, industry level coopetition has been investigated less than the other features (Rusko, 2011). Giving the literature review, there is a lack in knowledge regarding the benefits of coopetition fostered by local governments with foreign governments. This study presents a new approach of industry-level coopetition through the qualitative case study of the economic promotion agency in Tuscany, Toscana Promozione. The paper presents a new paradigm of coopetition strategy in where firms are in a coopetition relationship with foreign competitors (and governments) thanks to the support of local authorities. The main result of the research is that the boundary between institution and entrepreneur must be clear, government and local authorities must enforce competitiveness to improve the environment in which firms cooperate with the institution and compete each other with their own strategy. However during economic downturn periods, government and local authorities should, also, consider the possibility to become promoter, and supporter, of emerging entrepreneurship

Local firms’ strategies and cluster coopetition in Tuscany: the case of “Toscana Promozione” Agency

This study examines a new paradigm of coopetition strategy emerged in Tuscany, one of the most famous Italian area in the world for cultural and economic heritage. Nowadays, global success in business requires that firms implement both competitive and cooperative strategies (i.e. coopetition). This strategy, according to Ray Noorda (the founder of Novell – an American multinational software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah), considers the advantages arising when both cooperation and competition coexist in the same domains. In the last twenty years, articles related to coopetition investigated several aspect of this strategy; in contrast, industry level coopetition has been investigated less than the other features (Rusko, 2011). Giving the literature review, there is a lack in knowledge regarding the benefits of coopetition fostered by local governments with foreign governments. This study presents a new approach of industry-level coopetition through the qualitative case study of the economic promotion agency in Tuscany, Toscana Promozione. The paper presents a new paradigm of coopetition strategy in where firms are in a coopetition relationship with foreign competitors (and governments) thanks to the support of local authorities. The main result of the research is that the boundary between institution and entrepreneur must be clear, government and local authorities must enforce competitiveness to improve the environment in which firms cooperate with the institution and compete each other with their own strategy. However during economic downturn periods, government and local authorities should, also, consider the possibility to become promoter, and supporter, of emerging entrepreneurship

Does Disaster Risk Relate to Banks’ Loan Loss Provisions?

We examine the relation between disaster risk and banks’ loan loss provisions (LLP). We propose a disaster risk measure based on the natural disasters declared as major disasters by the Federal Emergency Management Agency over a 15-year span. We theoretically support and empirically validate our measure using three different approaches, including the UN Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction, which relates disaster risk to natural hazard exposure, vulnerability and capacity, and hazard characteristics. Using more than 445,000 bank-quarter observations, we document that banks located in U.S. counties with higher disaster risk recognize larger LLP after controlling for other bank-level factors related to LLP. We employ several techniques to ensure the robustness of our findings, including difference-in-differences estimation and matched samples. In additional analysis, we explore the characteristics that better enable banks to recognize disaster risk in their LLP, and investigate the consequences of managing disaster risk through LLP. Our results are important, especially because of the increasing concern about disaster risk and because they inform the growing debate on the economic consequences of disaster risk and the ability of the banking system to proactively manage the resulting credit risk through LLP

Immune-related adverse events (irAEs) in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (aNSCLC): Platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) predicts the risk of development and relapse

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Real-world impact of the introduction of chemo-immunotherapy in extended small cell lung cancer: a multicentric analysis

BackgroundRecent clinical trials demonstrated longer survival in extended small cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients treated with immunotherapy in addition to chemotherapy. However, the magnitude of benefit is modest and the impact in real-world setting has to be fully established.MethodsWe collected clinical data and radiological imaging of patients affected by extended or relapsing SCLC and consecutively treated according to clinical practice between 2016 and 2023. As primary end-point, we compared pre-defined outcome indicators before and after the introduction of chemo-immunotherapy (May 2020): 6-month and 12-month progression free survival (PFS) rate, 12-month and 18-month overall survival (OS). Among those who were treated after May 2020, patients who did not receive immunotherapy according to treating physician’s choice were included in the analysis to minimize clinical selection bias.ResultsThe analysis included 214 patients: 132 (61.7%) were treated in an Academic cancer center and 82 (38.3%) in two community hospitals; 104 were treated before May 2020. Median PFS of the overall study population was 4.8 months (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 4.4-5.4), median OS was 7.1 months (95% CI: 6.3-7.7). Estimated PFS and OS were significantly longer in patients treated after May 2020 with hazard ratio (HR) for PFS and OS of 0.61 (95% CI: 0.46-0.81, p < 0.001) and 0.70 (95% CI: 0.52-0.93, p = 0.015), respectively. 6-month PFS rate increased from 27% to 40% (p = 0.04) while 12-months PFS raised from 1% to 11% (p = 0.003). 12-month and 18-month OS rate increased from 15% to 28% (p = 0.03) and from 2.1% to 12% (p = 0.009), respectively. After May 2020 the median number of hospitalization days per patient decreased significantly and the incidence of severe AEs was similar. Among patients treated with chemo-immunotherapy, the onset of immune-related AEs was associated with improved PFS and OS (HR 0.55, 95% CI: 0.35-0.89, p = 0.012 and HR 0.47, 95%CI 0.28-0.77, p = 0.002, respectively).ConclusionsThe real-world analysis shows a meaningful improvement of outcome indicators after the introduction of chemo-immunotherapy, with reduction of the duration of hospitalization, thus supporting the use of chemo-immunotherapy and the need for further biomarker research

Quasistatic delamination of sandwich-like Kirchhoff-Love plates

A quasistatic rate-independent adhesive delamination problem of laminated plates with a finite thickness is considered. By letting the thickness of the plates go to zero, a rate-independent delamination model for a laminated Kirchhoff-Love plate is obtained as limit of these quasistatic processes. The same dimension reduction procedure is eventually applied to processes which are sensitive to delamination modes, namely opening vs. shearing is distinguishe

Alcohol drinking and head and neck cancer risk: the joint effect of intensity and duration

Background: Alcohol is a well-established risk factor for head and neck cancer (HNC). This study aims to explore the effect of alcohol intensity and duration, as joint continuous exposures, on HNC risk. Methods: Data from 26 case-control studies in the INHANCE Consortium were used, including never and current drinkers who drunk ≤10 drinks/day for ≤54 years (24234 controls, 4085 oral cavity, 3359 oropharyngeal, 983 hypopharyngeal and 3340 laryngeal cancers). The dose-response relationship between the risk and the joint exposure to drinking intensity and duration was investigated through bivariate regression spline models, adjusting for potential confounders, including tobacco smoking. Results: For all subsites, cancer risk steeply increased with increasing drinks/day, with no appreciable threshold effect at lower intensities. For each intensity level, the risk of oral cavity, hypopharyngeal and laryngeal cancers did not vary according to years of drinking, suggesting no effect of duration. For oropharyngeal cancer, the risk increased with durations up to 28 years, flattening thereafter. The risk peaked at the higher levels of intensity and duration for all subsites (odds ratio = 7.95 for oral cavity, 12.86 for oropharynx, 24.96 for hypopharynx and 6.60 for larynx). Conclusions: Present results further encourage the reduction of alcohol intensity to mitigate HNC risk