Rinaldo Evangelista

Sectoral Patterns Of Technological Change In Services

This article provides a comprehensive picture of the characteristics of innovation in services, using the results of the 1993–95 Italian innovation survey in services. Technological change does play a role in services: around one third of service firms have introduced a technological innovation in the period 1993–95. Process innovation, innovative investment and the acquisition and internal development of software represent the most important channels through which service firms innovate. R&D activities represent an important innovation source only for a small number of science and technology-based service industries. The sectoral analysis highlights the variety of innovative patterns, which should discourage any simple generalization about innovation in services. Accordingly, a sectoral taxonomy is proposed in which service industries are clustered according to the overall innovative performance of firms, the nature of the innovation activities carried out, the different knowledge bases underlying the innovation processes, and the different patterns of interaction through which service firms innovate.

Looking for Regional Systems of Innovation: Evidence from the Italian Innovation Survey

The empirical target of this article is two-fold: exploring the variety of regional innovative patterns in Italy; and assessing whether innovation systems can be found, and how they operate, at a sub-national scale. The empirical analysis is based on an in-depth analysis of the data provided by the first Community Innovation Survey (CIS). The article shows that the traditional north-south distinction does not give full account of the wider spectrum of regional patterns in Italy. In particular, regional innovative patterns differ not only according to the specific strategies and technological performances of firms, but also according to the relevance of systemic interactions and the presence of contextual factors favourable to innovation. However, proper regional systems of innovation are found only in a few well-defined areas. In most regions, systemic interactions and knowledge flows between the relevant actors are simply too sparse and too weak to reveal the presence of systems of innovation at work.

The Impact of Innovation on Economic Performance in Services

This article empirically explores the relationship between innovation and economic performance in services at the firm level. The empirical analysis is based on a unique longitudinal firm-level data set, which matches the Italian Community Innovation Survey (CIS II) data (1993–1995) and a set of economic indicators provided by the Italian System of Enterprise Account (1993–1998). In particular the empirical analysis aims at assessing whether the presence of innovation and the amount of resources devoted to innovation are able to explain the economic performance of firms in the service sector. The results presented show that innovating firms out perform non-innovating firms in terms of productivity levels and economic growth. Productivity is also found to be linked to the amount of innovation expenditures, especially those devoted to the acquisition and internal development of new software.

Innovation, employment and skills in services. Firm and sectoral evidence

In this article the employment impact of innovation in the heterogeneous universe of services is investigated, using data provided by the 1993–1995 Italian innovation survey (CIS II). The empirical evidence presented shows that the “direct” impact of innovation on employment varies greatly according to the type of innovation strategy pursued by firms, across industries and according to the level of qualification of the labour force. High skilled and qualified jobs do replace low skilled jobs. Among small firms and in less than half of the service sectors considered the net effect is positive, particularly in industries which have a strong scientific and technological base. The negative impact of innovation on employment is on the contrary concentrated among large firms, capital intensive industries and in all financial-related sectors (banking, insurance and other financial services). In the latter industries the labour-saving effect of innovation seems to be linked to the widespread use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) which have contributed to rationalise and increase labour productivity in an important section of services. In the case of Italy, an overall negative impact of innovation on employment has been found. This result is clearly affected by the de-specialisation of the Italian economy in the knowledge intensive services. From an innovation-policy perspective two lines of actions can be envisaged: one enhancing efficiency in the technologically laggard service sectors and a second one aiming at creating the conditions for the emergence and growth of knowledge-intensive branches. The evidence presented suggests that both these lines of policy action are important but also that the second one is likely to be more rewarding in terms of employment growth.

Nature and impact of innovation in manufacturing industry: some evidence from the Italian innovation survey

Abstract Using data on more then 22,000 manufacturing firms participating to the second Italian Innovation Survey, fresh evidence is presented on the number of firms involved in innovation, the total expenditures devoted to innovation and the quantity and quality of innovating output. The most important innovation expenditures are investment in new machinery and R&D. The existence of major cross-industry differences are however confirmed. Within the group of innovating firms, the small ones do not emerge less innovative than the large ones. However, data clearly show that small firms introducing innovations are a minority and that they account for only a small share of total innovation expenditure of the Italian manufacturing industry. The paper also quantifies the share of new products and processes on total sales showing that a substantial part of sales in the manufacturing industry (62%) is made of unchanged products and processes and only 1.2% of total sales is made of entirely new products. It is also shown that only to a limited extent the innovation patterns highlighted in this article reflect the peculiar characteristics of Italian industrial structure. Most of them are common to most of the European countries which have taken part to the Community Innovation Survey (CIS).

Measuring the regional dimension of innovation. Lessons from the Italian Innovation Survey

The aim of this paper is to assess whether and to what extent data gathered by the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) are able to grasp regional specificities in the innovation process, and to propose a specific set of technological indicators which can be used for such a purpose. The evidence presented, based on the Italian case, shows that CIS data, and the set of proposed indicators, are able to quantify the contribution of the different regions to the National System of Innovation, to identify the different technological profiles of regions and to measure the technological performances of regional systems in a broad sense, that is taking into account the basic structural characteristics of regional industries, the innovative performances of firms and the density and quality of systemic interactions between the main institutional actors. Some suggestions on how to improve the CIS framework for analysing the regional dimension of innovation activities are also provided.

Innovation in the service sector. Results from the Italian Statistical Survey

Abstract This acticle provides fresh empirical evidence on the relevance and nature of innovation activities in the service sector. The evidence can be summarized as follows: Technological innovation is quite a diffused phenomenon in market services: more than one-third of surveyed firms have introduced technological innovations during the period 1993–95. The amount of financial resources devoted to innovation varies widely across service sectors. Financial, computing and software, engineering, and telecommunication services are the most innovative service sectors. Most service firms can distinguish between innovations in services and in processes. Process innovation emerges as the most diffused typology. Service firms rely on a wide range of innovation sources. The acquisition and development of software and investment in machinery are the most cited. Investment, R&D, and software are the major components of firms’ innovation expenditure. Major obstacles for introducing technological innovation are of an economic nature, that is, cost and risk too high. The two most important objectives of firms’ innovation strategies consist of improving service quality and reducing cost. Technological information is drawn mainly from in-house production departments as well as from outside suppliers of equipment, materials, and components. Public and private research institutions as well as patents and licenses play a very marginal role. Finally, in the near future the importance of technology for firms’ performance is expected to increase in service industries.

Firm size, sectors and countries as sources of variety in innovation

This paper aims at providing a comprehensive empirical appraisal of the nature, extent and sources of variety in innovation in industry across Europe. The results presented in the empirical section of this paper are based on a unique database (SIEPI) containing data drawn by the second Community Innovation Survey (CIS2) for 10 countries, 22 manufacturing sectors and three firm-size classes. This database has allowed us to look beyond the sectoral aggregate statistics provided by Eurostat and explore in detail the differences in innovation processes both within and across European countries and manufacturing industries. Further, the SIEPI database has been used to identify the determinants of the variety in innovation across Europe. In particular, the analysis focuses on the relative importance of sector-specific, context-specific and firm-size factors in driving firms’ innovative behaviours and performances.

PRODUCT AND PROCESS INNOVATIONS: HOW ARE THEY DEFINED? HOW ARE THEY QUANTIFIED?

This paper considers the alternative meanings attributed to the terms product and process innovation, and demonstrates, on the basis of the SPRU database on innovations in Great Britain, how the total number of product and process innovations varies according to the definition adopted. Only 3.1% of the innovations monitored can be univocally labelled as either products or processes, whilst as many as 96.9% of them fall into a grey zone. The authors conclude that these terms, although useful tools of analysis, should be defined more precisely in the studies of the economics of technological change.

The Impact of Innovation on Employment in Services: Evidence from Italy

This article investigates the employment impact of innovation in services, using the data gathered through the 1993-95 Italian innovation survey. The empirical evidence shows that the impact of innovation on employment varies greatly across industries and according to the level of qualification of the labour force. Among small firms and in less than a half of the service sectors considered, the employment impact of innovation is positive, particularly in industries that have a strong scientific and technological base. A negative impact of innovation on employment is, on the contrary, found among large firms, capital-intensive industries and in all financial-related sectors (banking, insurance and other financial services). In these industries the labour-saving effect of innovation seems to be linked to the widespread use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) which displace the least qualified employees. In the case of Italy, an overall negative impact of innovation on employment is found. It is argued that this result is affected by the Italian economys specialisation in the most traditional service industries.