Francesca Gambarotto

Mapping the Evolution of "Clusters": A Meta-analysis

This paper presents a meta-analysis of the “cluster literature” contained in scientific journals from 1969 to 2007. Thanks to an original database we study the evolution of a stream of literature which focuses on a research object which is both a theoretical puzzle and an empirical widespread evidence. We identify different growth stages, from take-off to development and maturity. We test the existence of a life-cycle within the authorships and we discover the existence of a substitutability relation between different collaborative behaviours. We study the relationships between a “spatial” and an “industrial” approach within the textual corpus of cluster literature and we show the existence of a “predatory” interaction. We detect the relevance of clustering behaviours in the location of authors working on clusters and in measuring the influence of geographical distance in co-authorship. We measure the extent of a convergence process of the vocabulary of scientists working on clusters.

The peripheralization of Southern European capitalism within the EMU

ABSTRACT The paper discusses the problem of the Southern European (SE) capitalism and its difficult path into the EMU (European Monetary Union), looking at the remote causes of the crisis that hit these economies. For this reason, we consider European countries as a set of asymmetrically integrated variety of capitalism. The institutional configuration chosen by Europe to aggregate the many varieties of capitalism not only reduced the political autonomy of the single states, but effectively hindered the specific coordination mechanism of Southern European (SE) capitalism which was importantly based on state intervention as a structural element and on inflationary policies. Despite the deep market-oriented reforms this change caused both structural and macroeconomic unbalances. The aim of the paper is to integrate some principles of the variety of capitalism and the dynamics of institutional change with some insights inspired by the work of Arrighi to supply a synthetic and ‘alternative’ perspective on the difficult role that Southern countries are experiencing in Europe.

Dreams of Silence: Employee Voice and Innovation in a Public Sector Community of Practice

Abstract Employee silence plays a crucial role in the evolution of public services because it stops communication, opportunities to modify routines and knowledge sharing. The case study presented in this paper highlights employee silence as outcome of a bottom-up innovation introduced into the University of Padova. Using a questionnaire, we collected information about silence and voice to an ICT community of practice. The results are that silence due to fear of top management is less important than silence due to fear of sharing knowledge and information among colleagues. We conclude by suggesting innovation adoption difficulties in public services not only as a management deficit, but also as a governance problem.

Territorial Rooting as an Element of Well-Being

The paper discusses the relevance of the idea of rooting as proposed by Simone Weil and builds a social economic framework to study its role in our life. Rooting is connected to the need of belonging and to have an identity. These elements are identified in some different areas of research—social psychology and social economy—to analyze how this need of the person is taken into account. Then, a theoretical framework to study rooting is presented developing the concept of plural utility and capabilities. The end is to discuss one of the neglected dimensions of human needs in the context of modern society. Finally, some conclusion concerning both individual choices related to rooting and well-being will be proposed.

When Periphery Becomes Core: The Long Stay in Padua of Roberto Camagni

Padua. It was the first half of the 1980s when Roberto arrived. At the Faculty of Political Sciences you breathed a thick air produced by the local political climate. Roberto used to tell us that at that time Padua was a place very unwilling to dialogue and to design international research activity.

Cognitive distance in public procurement and public–private partnerships: An analysis of the construction sector:

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are understood as collaborative devices that can be used to achieve both efficiency and innovation. For this potential to be realized, however, some significant obstacles to effective collaboration must be overcome, such as the cognitive distance that often separates public and private agents. In order to deepen our understanding of the collaboration problem, this article assesses the size and characteristics of cognitive distance by looking at agents operating in the construction industry in Italy and Slovenia. Our analysis detects the presence of different types of cognitive distance in different socio-economic contexts, suggesting that cognitive distance is not simply the outcome of individual intentionality but also of social context. We argue that there is constructive room for policies supporting the efficiency and diffusion of PPPs that will facilitate the emergence of context-specific intermediaries to smooth the progress of collaborative work.

Does Space Matter for Labour Markets and How? A Critical Survey of the Recent Italian Empirical Evidence

This paper aims to analyse the relationships between firms’ location decisions and local labour markets functioning in a spatial economics perspective. In this way we are able to show that spatial factors are crucial to the design and implementation of labour policies since firms’ and employees’ decisions depend on a set of socio-economic elements deriving from clustering dynamics and inter-industry interactions. In the paper we organise the existing literature on local labour markets by distinguishing two main approaches: on the one hand are studies on ‘travel to work areas’ and other functional partitions of the territory identified in light of the commuting behaviour of workers and the functional specialisation of firms (as in the classical tradition of Italian industrial districts). On the other hand are studies which take for granted the standard division of sub-national units of land and either measure a series of indicators of labour market performance or examine the effects of centripetal and centrifugal forces of firms’ location on local employment and wages. In conclusion, the paper demonstrates the existence of a strict causality relation between a given analytical framework and the consequent economic policy instruments implemented by the public authority.

Globalizzazione ed evoluzione dell’identità distrettuale: quale ruolo per il capitale sociale territoriale?

Scopo del presente lavoro e quello di richiamare l’attenzione sul concetto di capitale sociale, elemento fondante la definizione teorica di distretto industriale. I processi in atto - globalizzazione e crescita della struttura digitale dei sistemi economici - stanno modificando radicalmente la struttura locale delle relazioni produttive tra imprese; da un lato le imprese cercano nuove reti di relazioni per poter ampliare i loro mercati di sbocco, dall’altro sono impegnate nella creazione di un nuovo vantaggio competitivo. La riflessione e centrata sull’impatto di questi cambiamenti sull’organizzazione produttiva locale e sul ruolo giocato dagli attori pubblici e privati. Viene brevemente presentato il caso studio di Montebelluna.