Industrial R&D in Italy: What are new dynamics of exploitation and exploration?

Abstract

This paper aims at exploring the dynamics of industrial R&D activities in large companies. Through the use of four case studies of the largest R&D centers of Italian firms operating in different industrial sectors (telecommunications, automotive, rubber and plastics, and semiconductors), we try and compare the different approaches that private R&D centers have chosen in the recent past, to face the challenges of growing complexity in their research areas and increasing constraints in budgets devoted to R&D activities. The difficulties Italian companies face in the management of their R&D investments have to do with the specificities of a fairly weak national innovation system as well as with challenges that are common to other national and industrial contexts.