Francesco Ramella

The Innovation Paradox in Southern Europe. Unexpected Performance During the Economic Crisis

Abstract The international crisis has exerted a strong impact on the National Innovation Systems (NIS) of three Southern European economies: Italy, Portugal and Spain. These countries represent interesting cases for analysing responses to the crisis because they show a sort of innovation paradox: despite the weakness of their institutional systems and the defensive policies developed by governments, some of their companies have nevertheless been able to innovate even during the hardest years of the recession. In order to shed light on this paradox, three matters are taken into account: the distinctive features of the South European National Innovation Systems; the behaviour of governments and companies; the ‘generative dynamics’ and the ‘creative processes’ that have taken place during the crisis.

Negotiating local development: the Italian experience of ‘Territorial Pacts’

This study deals with a new policy for disadvantaged areas that has been introduced in Italy since the second half of the 1990s. This policy aims to promote local development based on partnerships between public and private actors. I present research carried out on thirty ‘Territorial Pacts’, analysing their impact at the local level. In some cases the results of the new policy were positive; in others they were very disappointing. Three key factors explain these different results. The first relates to the form of social interaction between local actors (the concertation factor). The second involves the presence or absence of policy entrepreneurs—namely, actors and institutions that ensured a strong and effective process management (the leadership factor). The third involves the political and organisational choices made in both the start-up and implementation phases of the pacts (the continuity factor).

Still a 'red subculture'? Continuity and change in central Italy

Abstract In the 1990s – otherwise a period of great political challenges and rapid transformation of Italian politics - electoral behaviour in central Italy remained surprisingly stable and reflected the continuity of communist political traditions in this region. This fact has been seen predominantly as an indicator of the persistence, not only of political fidelity to left-wing parties, but also of a ‘red subculture’. This article presents a critical reassessment of this interpretation, based on research carried out in 1994–97 in Valdelsa, a ‘red area’ of Tuscany. The study indicates several elements of continuity, but also many facets of change in the political subculture. The capacity of the local community to reproduce left-wing attitudes across generations is quite clear. However, modifications in local forms of economic development, in the political culture and in the links between the associations of civil society and the political system are even more apparent. The article chiefly addresses two aspects of these transformations: a) the change in patterns of participation and representation along generational and gender lines; and b) the relationship between the political subculture and civic culture among different social groups.

The ‘Enterprise of Innovation’ in hard times: corporate culture and performance in Italian high-tech companies

ABSTRACT This article deals with the strategies that Italian innovative manufacturing companies have deployed in recent years. Italy has, in fact, been hit particularly severely by the international crisis, which has induced a sharp decline in employment and a narrowing of the productive base. That said, we know very little about the strategies used by Italian entrepreneurs to cope with the economic downturn, especially the more innovative ones. To address this topic, the author has used a sample of over 400 Italian companies with European patents in the sectors of mechanical engineering and high technology (European Patent Office (EPO) companies), which were investigated by means of a panel survey: a longitudinal study carried out on the same companies at different times (2010 and 2012). The analysis conducted in this article has two main goals: (1) to describe the socio-economic and territorial characteristics of EPO companies and their strategies in the years of the crisis and (2) to examine the influence of a ‘collaborative corporate culture’ on company performance. What emerges from the research into EPO companies is the complementarity of resources useful for innovation and economic performance among (a) the internal and external relations of the organization; (b) the variety of knowledge and the cohesion of relationships and (c) the short and long networks of collaboration. In conclusion, successful company strategies are those which – thanks to a collaborative company culture – are able to exploit the ‘embedded complementarity of innovative resources’.

Society, Politics and Territory in Italy: What Is Left?

What is left of the relationship between politics and territory in Italy? What has survived of the two political subcultures of the Third Italy, the white one (Catholic) of the northeast (Veneto, Friuli and Trentino) and the red one (Communist) of central Italy (Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria andMarche)? A little and a lot. It depends on what you are looking at: the disappearance of the traditional parties and ideologies, or the legacy they have left in local societies; the strategies of parties and the personalisation of leadership, or the territorial persistence in voting behaviour. Whether you look at the recent breaks or at the long-term continuities, the fact remains that the territory is still a crucial vantage point for understanding the relationship between society and politics in Italy. Even in the era of Silvio Berlusconi. Even in the epoch of politics dominated by mass media. Territorial analysis has been widely used to study voting behaviour. Some Italian regions, in fact, demonstrated an extraordinary electoral continuity during the First Republic (that which emerged after the Second World War and entered into crisis in

Into the crisis: Fab Labs – a European story

Fab Labs are small workshops, open to the public, that offer tools and services for digital manufacturing, thus promoting social and economic innovation. On this basis, these workshops can be considered as ‘local collective goods’: created as part of the sharing economy, Fab Labs are able to generate external, tangible and intangible economies, useful for development. The aim of this article is to explore Fab Labs and their diffusion in Europe, with particular reference to the French and Italian situation. France and Italy are, indeed, particularly interesting cases, because whilst the official indicators describe their economies as not especially innovative, they also show a surprising development of the Fab Labs.

Empresas, inovação e território na alta tecnologia: o caso da Itália

Nas abordagens analiticas predominantes, as atividades inovadoras sao concebidas como sistemas de interacao, envolvendo uma pluralidade de atores, economicos e nao economicos, em que a dimensao geografica desempenha um papel importante. Mas, se, por um lado, o vinculo entre o territorio e a inovacao e geralmente reconhecido, por outro, a relacao especifica com as empresas e menos clara. Para abordar este topico, o artigo apresenta os resultados da pesquisa realizada com sistemas e empresas de inovacao de alta tecnologia e media-alta tecnologia, na Italia. Sao dois os objetivos: 1) revelar indutivamente – isto e, a partir de uma analise de micronivel - a relevância do territorio no desenvolvimento da inovacao em setores de alta tecnologia; 2) destacar as caracteristicas distintivas das empresas inovadoras e seus vinculos com o territorio.