Mario Volpe

Territorial capital as a company intangible

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to explore to what extent being located in a territory is value-relevant for a company. Second, to understand if a company is aware of, and how it can sustain, the territorial tangible and intangible assets present in the economic area in which it is located. Design/methodology/approach – The study presents an empirical multiple case-study, investigating ten mid-/large-sized Italian companies in manufacturing sectors. Findings – The results indicate that the sampled manufacturing companies are intertwined with the environment in which they are embedded, both in their home country and in host ones. The domestic territorial capital has provided, and still provides, enterprises with workers endowed with the necessary technical skills that they can have great difficulty in finding in other places. In turn, companies support territorial capital generation through their activities. Research limitations/implications – To increase the generalisability of the ...

Apertura internazionale e risorse economiche locali. Un’indagine sul radicamento territoriale di imprese multinazionali1

Questo articolo analizza le relazioni fra strategie di sviluppo internazionale delle imprese manifatturiere e il sistema delle risorse economiche locali, costituite da capitale umano, reti di fornitori e utilizzatori, nonche istituzioni. Lo studio cerca di verificare se e in quale misura le imprese piu aperte alle reti internazionali hanno sostenuto la riproduzione del capitale territoriale nella propria base domestica. La ricerca, condotta attraverso un insieme di casi studio di aziende manifatturiere venete di medio-grande dimensione, mette in luce l’insieme di possibili azioni praticate dalle imprese per favorire la sostenibilita delle risorse territoriali.

Italian North-East: In Search of a Lost Model?

At the beginning of this century an abrupt stop interrupted a long lasting development process in North East Italy regions, while the 2006 data show signs of a likely recovery. In this article the main macroeconomic features of the North East region are presented and commented, together with the changes in its industrial structure, its labour market, its international trade flows and system of innovation. Even it is too early to draw any sound conclusion, it is possible that a selection process is going on among firms; trade flows and innovation performances are still not entirely satisfactory, and in the Labour market good employment records are matched by poor productivity results. The tertiary sector, above all in its more advanced and metropolitan features, is on the whole underdeveloped. More research is needed to understand if a structural change is in progress.

Enabling Factors in Firms Adoption of New Digital Technologies. An Empirical Inquiry on a Manufacturing Region

This paper provides an analysis on the diffusion of the last generation digital technologies (Industry 4.0) in the Veneto region, one of the main manufacturing territory in Italy. Our attention focuses on factors that enable firms to adopt these technologies, with attention to three main aspects: the human capital endowment, the international openness, and the financial structure. Empirical analysis is based on a sample of firms that operate in manufacturing, construction and business services. Our analysis shows a heterogeneous diffusion of Industry 4.0 technologies across different industries, allowing the identification of distinct technologies frontiers among sectors. The logit regression shows a positive relation between the adoption of digital technologies and the openness to international markets, as well as with a highly skilled and highly educated human capital. The digital users show better productivity indexes than other firms, but at the same time financial performances are less clear. Hence, the firms that adopt new digital technologies have a more balanced financial structure, but they do not show higher profitability ratios than non-users. This result depends on a longer run return on investment and in a different distributive policy inside the firm.

Regional labour market mobility. A network analysis of inter-firm relatedness

Labour market rigidity is known to hamper the proper adjustment of an economy, thus, making it less resilient to shocks. This paper investigates the characteristics and resilience of the regional labour flow network in Veneto, a region famous for its industrial districts and the expertise of its workforce. A unique database of inter-firm worker mobility is used and the made-in-Italy relatedness to other industries is quantified. Descriptive results suggest that permanent-contract workers are more mobile within-sector than fixed-term contractors. The latter are more mobile across sectors. A finer disaggregation of the made-in-Italy industries shows that textile, food and woodwork are highly related to leisure-retail, logistics-wholesale and agriculture. These results can orient policy-making in getting faster labour reallocation. Network analysis establishes a number of stylised facts about labour flow networks, in particular, a hierarchical organisation of flows and a preference for workers to move from low-connected to high-connected firms and vice-versa, i.e. disassortativity. Unlike previous research, this paper identifies clusters of a non-spatial nature, that are, based on the intensity of labour flows. Regression analysis shows that labour mobility, both in and out, is beneficial for firms. However, being located inside labour clusters negatively affects firm performance. Interestingly, when these clusters include MNEs, they benefit. These results combined suggest that variety of connections prevails over standardisation.

Evolution of Commercial Relations with China and the Role of Italian Firms in Asian Area

This article analyzes the evolution of Italian firms in China over the past decade. We usea set of information sources to monitor the variety of ways in which firms develop international economic relationships: i.e. trade, direct investment, supply chain networks, offshoring.As regards foreign direct investment, we offered an insight into the Istat Outward-Fats dataset, that makes it possible to analyze economic consistency, performance and specificity ofthe pattern of internationalization of Italian companies resident in Asia, studying the role thatbranches play in the context of global value chains. Finally, through a study of panel data relatingto the Italian province, we propose an analysis of the impact of offshoring with Asia onemployment and productivity of local systems.

Vertical Specialisation and Regional Trade Integration: A Study on Italy and Northern African Countries

This paper uses a multistage approach to investigate the role of Italy in the Northern African countries, both in terms of trade and investment. In particular, we show that Italian import flows for two typically Made in Italy industries, namely textile and clothing on one hand, and leather and footwear on the other hand, are strongly related not only to export flows of the same sector, but also to a set of variables capturing features of the Italian and the foreign country. In this way, we supply a first result supporting the hypothesis of an international fragmentation of production. To offer this outcome additional strength, we endow the present contribution with information on the attractiveness of the Northern African countries, looking at the volume of inward FDI flows and stocks, but with no industry disaggregation, due to data unavailability. Although we start from a global perspective, we rapidly shift to consider only the Italian investments in the area, with a breakdown by outward region. Thanks to the availability of a detailed dataset made available by the Bank of Italy, we are able to provide further evidence on the Italian internationalisation in the North of Africa. Indeed, our second result highlights the remarkable heterogeneity across countries and the emergence of the major role played by Tunisia.