Economic Crisis, Innovation Strategies and Firm Performance. Evidence from Italian Firm-level Data

Several empirical works have shown the robust and positive relation between growth and innovation at macroeconomic level and between firm economic performance and innovation at microeconomic level. However, the economists have had less opportunities to study such linkages during severe global downturns of the economic cycle. Moreover, the present disruptive economic downturn has forced the firms to implement survival strategies. One of such strategic behaviour regards the way of intervention on product and process areas through innovative actions. Focusing the attention on the micro level, the present work provides an empirical analysis on the basis of more than 500 Italian manufacturing firms located in Emilia-Romagna region, with the aim of disentangling the relations between pre-crisis innovation strategies and firm economic performance during the crisis as well as the linkages between the innovative actions taken to react to the recession's challenges and the economic performance in the recession. The results suggest the existence of strong relationships between past innovative activities and the capacity to react to the challenges brought by the crisis through innovative actions along product, process and organization/HRM dimensions, although the role of complementarities among past innovative activities does not emerge robustly. When the dependent variables are performance indicators the impact of pre-crisis innovation strategies emerges as robust for technological and organizational spheres, while intense innovative activities before the crisis on spheres like ICT, training and environment are detrimental for performances in the crisis. It seems that when the crisis hits those firms in a process of quite radical transformation and change, then the negative economic consequences of the recession are worse than in the case of firms on a more stable, less dynamic path.innovation strategies; economic crisis; firm performance

Diffusion and usage of public e-services in Europe: An assessment of country level indicators and drivers

We analyze the state of the art of indicators on eGovernment, eHealth, eProcurement and ePartecipation. We survey the main methodological properties of these indicators, and uncover the principal stylized facts and trends; at the same time, we highlight their heuristic limits and potential inconsistencies. Finally, we address empirically the issue of the explanation of the indexes scores – i.e. how the supply of the various eServices in each country is affected by political, institutional and socio-economic differences, and is followed by actual usage. The econometric analysis uncovers the importance of broadband penetration and higher education as drivers for most of the types of eServices and users (citizens and businesses). Moreover, a corruption-free and agile public sector shows up to be an important pre-condition for more effective supply and usage. Despite severe data limits and the complexity of the underlying diffusion phenomena, our study of eServices availability and usage across European countries is a first empirical contribution aimed at disentangling broad empirical trends – with their correlates - from unresolved methodological issues. As such, this work appears useful to inform the policy debate and practice, in a phase characterized by a prospective reorientation of public eServices provision

Diffusion and usage of public e-services in Europe: An assessment of country level indicators and drivers

We analyze the state of the art of indicators on eGovernment, eHealth, eProcurement and ePartecipation. We survey the main methodological properties of these indicators, and uncover the principal stylized facts and trends; at the same time, we highlight their heuristic limits and potential inconsistencies. Finally, we address empirically the issue of the explanation of the indexes scores – i.e. how the supply of the various eServices in each country is affected by political, institutional and socio-economic differences, and is followed by actual usage. The econometric analysis uncovers the importance of broadband penetration and higher education as drivers for most of the types of eServices and users (citizens and businesses). Moreover, a corruption-free and agile public sector shows up to be an important pre-condition for more effective supply and usage. Despite severe data limits and the complexity of the underlying diffusion phenomena, our study of eServices availability and usage across European countries is a first empirical contribution aimed at disentangling broad empirical trends – with their correlates - from unresolved methodological issues. As such, this work appears useful to inform the policy debate and practice, in a phase characterized by a prospective reorientation of public eServices provision

Diffusion and usage of public e-services in Europe: An assessment of country level indicators and drivers

We analyze the state of the art of indicators on eGovernment, eHealth, eProcurement and ePartecipation. We survey the main methodological properties of these indicators, and uncover the principal stylized facts and trends; at the same time, we highlight their heuristic limits and potential inconsistencies. Finally, we address empirically the issue of the explanation of the indexes scores – i.e. how the supply of the various eServices in each country is affected by political, institutional and socio-economic differences, and is followed by actual usage. The econometric analysis uncovers the importance of broadband penetration and higher education as drivers for most of the types of eServices and users (citizens and businesses). Moreover, a corruption-free and agile public sector shows up to be an important pre-condition for more effective supply and usage. Despite severe data limits and the complexity of the underlying diffusion phenomena, our study of eServices availability and usage across European countries is a first empirical contribution aimed at disentangling broad empirical trends – with their correlates - from unresolved methodological issues. As such, this work appears useful to inform the policy debate and practice, in a phase characterized by a prospective reorientation of public eServices provision

Drivers and impediments for innovation in Europe

The EU 2020 strategy relies on innovation as the core driver of economic dynamics. The present Forum discusses the strategies established by the European Commission and the member states for the intensifi cation of innovative activities. Analyses of often neglected aspects of innovation policy, such as measurement of intangible investments, service innovation and a regional innovation system complement the picture

The role of a regional government in the development of telecommunications

Bianchi Annaflavia. The role of a regional government in the development of telecommunications. In: NETCOM : Réseaux, communication et territoires / Networks and Communication Studies, vol. 8 n°2, octobre 1994. pp. 418-424

Post-elezioni che fare? Mission (im)possible.

Elezioni: due no, il primo al sistema dei partiti italiano, il secondo alla politica di austerità. La credibilità verso i primi e verso la seconda non ha più ragion d’essere. E’ un bene? E’ un male? Anzitutto sarebbe bene riconoscere che l’austerità è stata bocciata dagli elettori, e con essa la politica germanocentrica dell’Europa rigorista. E questo è un bene. Poi, riconosciamo anche che il centro-sinistra, quello tradizionale, e la sinistra che la voleva condizionare da sinistra, altrettanto tradizionale, non ha raccolto le ragioni del dissenso che si è incanalato invece in un non-partito. Se sia un male, lo dimostreranno i mesi che seguiranno. Ora vi è una “Mission (im)possible!!!” da compiere. Realizzare un programma che – al di la della protesta – accumuni Italia Giusta e MoVimento 5 Stelle. Sapranno dialogare i nostri eroi per dare un governo al Paese, ed evitare governissimi, governi tecnici, governi del Presidente, e frittura mista ? Ecco alcune azioni su cui sarebbe essenziale convergere

The Industrial System in Emilia-Romagna, Its Innovation Strategies and the Crisis Phase

The paper proposes to rethink about the Emilia-Romagna regional economic system trying to go beyond the sterile opposition between the decline thesis and the transformation thesis. One of the reasons why is the fact that this regions was frequently addressed as a relevant case of successful matching of strong competitiveness of the production system and robust medium-long period social cohesion. The aggregate result comes out of two diverging paths: on one hand, the industrial sectors, pulled by external demand, show value added growth higher than national average, accompanied by employment increase; on the other hand, the service sectors constraint the economic growth with their negative productivity dynamics, compensated by a high employment intensity growth. Three factors (pillars) are at the basis of the higher performance of the Emilia-Romagna industrial sectors: positive labour productivity trends accompanied by increasing real wages, high innovation intensity of the production system shown by specific input variables of techno-organisation innovation, an institutional system of labour relations between management and employees within the firm and od social regulation of conflicts which favours dialogue with trade union and the sharing of confrontation procedures apt to support the innovation activity. The limited service performance might result from poor integration with industrial sectors, not high adoption and diffusion of innovations, and specific lower technology productivity (the “Baumol disease”), creation of low skill employment. This source of distress is exacerbated by a macro-economic cause, related with the unbalanced growth - external component of demand vs. internal component - underlined by the internal consumption stagnation and related to unequal income distribution and compression of remunerations and wages in service sectors