Alessandro Muscio

Understanding demand for innovation in the food industry

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on understanding how demand for innovation is articulated in low‐tech industries, dominated by SMEs, where innovation is often based on informal processes and uncodified knowledge, relying on intangible assets.Design/methodology/approach – The authors hypothesize that the problems found in the innovation area are exacerbated in a traditional industry. SMEs might have difficulty understanding what their requirements might be, let alone finding the optimal provider of technologies. The authors therefore expect to find three main forms of demand: real, latent, and potential. The specific case is the food industry in Apulia, Italy. First, focus groups identified general business and technology needs. Then in‐depth interviews were conducted with 87 firms, stratified in order to be representative of food firms in Apulia.Findings – The authors detected 285 different needs requiring an innovative solution. In most cases, firms understand the areas to be improved, but do not have...

How does the search for knowledge drive firms’ eco-innovation? Evidence from the wine industry

Abstract The importance of eco-innovations to food manufacturing has risen exponentially in recent years. In this paper we investigate the drivers of different types of eco-innovation in the Italian wine industry, a particularly relevant sector both in terms of its economic performance and its use of natural resources. We focus on the internal knowledge sourcing of firms and on the ‘breadth’ and ‘depth’ of their engagement with external agents when performing eco-innovation activity. We test our research hypotheses in the context of cleaner processes, end-of-pipe technologies and the use of organic input factors. The empirical evidence is based on a questionnaire survey administered to 334 Italian wine producers. The econometric exercise provides mixed results: both internal R&D and engagement with external agents have a significant effect on eco-innovations depending on the type of eco-innovation taken into account. Moreover, we find a non-linear relationship between external knowledge sourcing and eco-innovation activity.

The impact of hard and soft policy measures on new technology-based firms

ABSTRACT The impact of hard and soft policy measures on new technology-based firms. Regional Studies. Entrepreneurship policies in support of new technology-based firms fall into two main categories of intervention: hard measures (financial-type support such as loans and grants) and soft measures (counselling and business advice services). This study investigates the association between hard and soft support measures delivered to entrepreneurs, and the performance of the subsequently constituted new technology-based firms. The empirical framework analyses the outcomes of the Spinner Programme – a regional policy measure implemented in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna during 2000–06. The analysis finds that soft measures are positively related to a higher probability of exiting the market and to higher sales growth. The results also show that the magnitude of the effect of soft measures on growth is greater than the effect of hard measures.

Technological diversity in Europe: empirical evidence from agri-food research projects

ABSTRACT Technological diversity in Europe: empirical evidence from agri-food research projects. Regional Studies. Regional technological diversity is the capacity of regions to carry out research in multiple technology fields. Based on the analysis of 730 competitive research projects funded by the 7th European Framework Programme in agri-food, we show that the capacity to obtain funding and the regional degree of centrality in collaborative networks promote technological diversity. European programmes for research tend to encourage specialization in peripheral territories and technological diversity in central regions. This has challenging implications for a policy that wants to promote research excellence and, simultaneously, to reduce the wide regional variation in research and innovation performance across the European Union.

Dataset from a qualitative survey on Ph.D. entrepreneurship in Italy

This article describes questionnaire data on Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy) entrepreneurship in Italy. The data includes (i) information recently collected via a questionnaire survey on Ph.D. students; (ii) background information on Italian academic institutions attended by students. We present here some descriptive statistics of the variables included in the dataset. The database includes the responses of 906 students. Students provided information on their employment condition, on their family background and opinions on the Ph.D. course and the institution they attended. Information on regional characteristics and on university policies are also included.

The two sides of academic research: do basic and applied activities complement each other?

It is generally acknowledged that the cuts in government funding for research implemented in several European countries will induce academic researchers to increase their interaction with non academic entities to promote the acquisition of external funding for research. Indirectly this implies that there will be a shift in the focus of academic scientific activity from basic to applied research via private research contracts and consultancy work. The aim of our paper is to assess the extent of the trade-off between basic research and applied activity in academic research departments. We use data for the universe of Italian academic departments over the period 2006–2011 and estimate whether increased applied activity is substituting or complementing basic research activity. We provide empirical evidence of a strong substitution effect for life sciences departments and, to a lesser extent, for engineering and technology departments, while there does not seem to be evidence of a substitution effect for departments whose scientific activity revolves around basic science.