The Collective Action as Potential Driver of Bottom-up Reconfiguration from Captive to Relational Value Chain : the Case Study of the Northern District in Sierra Leone

In recent decades, the increasing growth rate of the African cashew business has involved a large number of corporate actors such as global retailers, processors and exporters in cashew supply networks. The increasing role of agro-food supply chains enables African countries to enhance their position in global markets and to sustain local development and growth, by encouraging a higher market-orientation in the governance of global value chains. In this paper, an exploratory analysis based on a questionnaire involving 319 smallholder farmers in the North of Sierra Leone is conducted in order to explore the role of collective action in driving the potential bottom-up reconfiguration of cashew value chain. A change from captive to relational governance is expected to positively support the local industry upgrading, to reduce transaction costs and information asymmetries, and to increase the local development and growth by enhancing employment creation and poverty alleviation

Cross-border acquisitions and technological spillover: evidence from European regional clusters

Purpose – Relying on mergers and acquisition transaction-level data set and adopting a more regionspecific approach with a focus on industry-region pairs, this paper aims to examine how cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) have an effect, in terms of technological spillover and collaboration, on European regional clusters. Design/methodology/approach – Adopting an industry-region pair approach, this study is based on a quantitative analysis of regional clusters belonging to 262 European regions and 25 patenting industries. Different thresholds of industrial specialization are used to identify clustering industries within a region. Invention performance at the regional cluster level is defined through two sets of different measurements to assess the impact of CBAs on invention quantity performance and internal and external technological collaboration. Findings – The results reveal that CBAs have a positive and significant impact on the number of patents as well as the number of internal and external technological collaborations and that this effect is persistent over time. Furthermore, through exploring the interindustry technological spillover effect of CBAs registered in the same region of a cluster but outside the cluster itself, the authors found that CBAs in a regional cluster are inclined to produce technological spillovers within the cluster but no significant effects in the other industries of the region. Originality/value – This paper is an attempt to empirically explore CBAs and technological spillover in European regional clusters. Therefore, it contributes to the debate, thanks to the use of an industry-region pair approach

Factors driving the share and growth of Chinese entrepreneurship in Italy

Chinese entrepreneurship may represent an important growth lever for a manufacturing country like Italy. Chinese are both, one of the fast growing ethnic communities in Europe and one of the most entrepreneurial. The development of ethnic enclave further contributes to support the increasing role of migrant entrepreneurship on local development. In the last decade, Chinese community is expanding at regional level and its entrepreneurial attitude is strongly increasing compared to natives in despite of economic crisis. However, since Chinese entrepreneurs are not homogeneously distributed, looking at spatial and industrial dependence is crucial to better understand the Chinese entrepreneurship growth strategies and to suggest policies supporting and exploiting local network externalities potentially influencing the regional development. In this perspective, this study focuses on the role of Chinese community size and its capacity to stimulate entrepreneurial specialisation rather than diversification across industries as well as the industrial specialisation of the local system in driving the share and growth rate of Chinese micro-entrepreneurship

MERENDERO EL PINO DE TEROR [Material gráfico]

Copia digital. Madrid : Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Subdirección General de Coordinación Bibliotecaria, 201

Knowledge space oddity: How to increase the intensity and relevance of the technological progress of European regions

This work contributes to previous research on the relationship between specific features of a regional knowledge space and the technological progress of the region. In particular, the main element of originality of this work is to have singled out the determinants of the technological progress intensity and relevance. We acknowledge the importance of knowledge assets for new knowledge production, and we identify path-dependent processes that allow a region to become increasingly competitive in terms of innovation potential. In particular, adopting an evolutionary view of regional development, we describe the regional knowledge space through four crucial characteristics: 1) technological knowledge base, 2) technological cumulativeness, 3) technological diversification , and 4) technological relatedness. We then measure to what extent each of the knowledge space's characteristics differently affects the technological progress intensity and relevance of the region. A longitudinal study of 269 European regions over the period 1996-2012 was organized using data from REGPAT and Eurostat databases. Results show that technological relatedness affects positively both the intensity and relevance of the technological progress of European regions and that the other components of the knowledge space show a different impact on the two features of the technological progress. Finally, implications for EU policies supporting and stimulating regional technological progress are discussed

Stereotypical versus experiential destination branding: the case of Milan city

In the last decades several contributes have tried to provide theoretical solutions and models for meas-uring the value of a place, a destination, a city. Specifically, some of them have explored the role sev-eral factors and different stakeholders play in the place branding evaluation and perception process. However, no conclusive findings are documented and several aspects need to be further investigated. In order to extend the understanding of city branding, this study focuses on the perceived image of Milan and performs a gap analysis by exploring specific factors and specific types of stakeholders. Based on target’s provenance and degree of knowledge of city, stereotypical and experiential percep-tions of Milan are measured with respect to nine main city attributes as summarized by literature back-ground and compared to the brand values of some important European cities. The findings highlight a mismatch between the stereotypical and experiential perception at different levels and provide the framework to inspire more effective marketing policies for the improvement of city’s image

Factors driving the share and growth of Chinese entrepreneurship in Italy

Chinese entrepreneurship may represent an important growth lever for a manufacturing country like Italy. Chinese are both, one of the fast growing ethnic communities in Europe and one of the most entrepreneurial. The development of ethnic enclave further contributes to support the increasing role of migrant entrepreneurship on local development. In the last decade, Chinese community is expanding at regional level and its entrepreneurial attitude is strongly increasing compared to natives in despite of economic crisis. However, since Chinese entrepreneurs are not homogeneously distributed, looking at spatial and industrial dependence is crucial to better understand the Chinese entrepreneurship growth strategies and to suggest policies supporting and exploiting local network externalities potentially influencing the regional development. In this perspective, this study focuses on the role of Chinese community size and its capacity to stimulate entrepreneurial specialisation rather than diversification across industries as well as the industrial specialisation of the local system in driving the share and growth rate of Chinese micro-entrepreneurship