Sandro Montresor

Environmental innovations, local networks and internationalization

This paper investigates the drivers of the environmental innovations (EI) introduced by firms in local production systems (LPS). The role of firm network relationships, agglomeration economies and internationalization strategies is analysed for a sample of 555 firms in the Emilia-Romagna region, North-East of Italy. Cooperating with ‘qualified’ local actors – i.e. universities and suppliers – is the most important driver of EI for most firms, along with their training policies and IT innovations. The role of agglomeration economies is less clear and seems to depend on the EI propensity of more locally oriented firms playing in district areas, which might even turn agglomeration into dis-economies. Networking effects and agglomeration economies are instead found to strongly promote the adoption of EI by multinational firms, thus highlighting the importance of local-global interactions. We provide some interesting findings for particular kinds of challenging EI in fields as CO2 abatement and ISO labelling, generally extending the analysis EI driver by joining local and international factors.

Intersectoral innovation flows and national technological systems: network analysis for comparing Italy and Germany

Abstract The paper compares the innovative structure and performance of Italy and Germany by using the concept of the technological system which is defined as the result of the interaction of four different components: the industrial, the innovative, the commercial (domestic and foreign markets) and the institutional sub-systems. The analysis of the intersectoral innovation flows within the two national technological systems is based on an input-output database rearranged in vertically integrated sectors. Specific hypotheses have been formulated and valid proxies for the variables studied have been used. The final results have been obtained by using network analysis methodology and indicators. This called for a dicotornisation of the original matrices. These results take into account separately the existing differences between Italy and Germany in both absolute terms ( dimension effect ) and relative terms ( proportion effect ). The paper shows that Germany is characterised by a higher level of systemic connection both in absolute and (generally) in relative terms. The Italian technological system seems to be segmented in a dualistic structure where few high-tech sectors co-exist along with a pool of traditional ones, rather peripheral in the innovation flow network. The German system, on the contrary, appears to be homogeneous with a more evenly distributed structure of intersectoral innovation flows. The paper concludes by considering the effects of the introduction of other sub-systems: namely foreign market and public intervention. While the former introduces further elements of differentiation between Italy and Germany, the latter seems to perform a similar role in both systems.

Regional Innovation Policy and Innovative Behaviour: Looking for Additional Effects

This paper aims to evaluate the additionality of innovation policy in terms of innovative behaviours at the regional level. Innovative behaviours are identified both within and across firm and regional boundaries. The role of policy is evaluated for a sample of firms in the Italian region of Emilia–Romagna (ER), exploiting an original, survey-based data set. Propensity score matching is applied to investigate the effects of an innovation subsidy. Funded firms are found to be more likely to upgrade their competencies, compared with similar non-subsidized firms. On the other hand, in most cases, innovation cooperation with other business partners within or outside the region is not significantly affected by policy. Ultimately, the investigated innovation policy in the ER region seems to show what might be termed “cognitive capacity additionality”, rather than “network additionality”.

Financing constraints, R&D investments and innovative performances: new empirical evidence at the firm level for Europe

ABSTRACT The relationship between financing constraints, investments in research and development (R&D) and innovative performances has recently attracted renewed attention in the aftermath of a financial crisis that has led to problems of access to the credit on which innovation activities crucially rely. In spite of past developments in the theoretical analysis and in the data and methodologies for empirical investigation, some issues have remained unexplored to date. In this introduction to the special issue, we examine the contribution of the papers it contains, which provide new conceptualisations and empirical evidence at the firm level for Europe. Most previous research results, which were mainly based on extending models of financing constraints and physical investments to R&D investments, are confirmed, while new insights about this relationship are uncovered, in terms of the structural characteristics of the constrained firms, of the industries in which they operate, of their innovative activities and of the innovation outcomes they achieve.

Resources, capabilities, competences and the theory of the firm

The aim of the paper is to point out some investigation lines which might result useful in building‐up a theory of the firm based on its resources, capabilities and competences (RCC). While the focus on RCC has helped to address some limitations of the standard contractual paradigm, a positive RCC theory of the firm hesitates to take‐off as its operationalization is still at an early stage. In order to move further towards this task, the paper suggests to: distinguish the nature of the problems of the contractual perspective which an alternative theory should solve (Section 2); identify those RCC features which are essential in connecting them to the core issues of the theory of the firm, that is, existence, boundaries and organization (Section 3); evaluate the implications of any hybridisation attempt between the two firm perspectives (Section 4). The paper then moves some exploratory steps along these research directions, providing some arguments about the opportunity to pursue them further.

Outsourcing and innovation: Evidence for a local production system of Emilia-Romagna

Summary The paper investigates how innovation relates to outsourcing for firms located in a specific local production system. A set of theoretical correlations between innovation related variables and outsourcing decisions is formulated by drawing on a heterogeneous body of literature. Correlations are tested with respect to a representative sample of firms of a localproduction system in Emilia–Romagna: Reggio Emilia. The main result of the paper is that, in the district–like context investigated, where networking intertwines with market mediated mechanisms, the firm’s innovativeness correlates positively with the complexity of the outsourcing strategies. Once the firms’ embeddedness is controlled for, the ‘dualistic’ argument that innovative firms do not outsource in order to avoid the impoverishment of their capabilities is not guaranteed. On the contrary, according to a ‘developmental’ argument, being innovative in Reggio Emilia requires the outsourcing of ancillary activities, in order to refocus on the business core and, though to a lesser extent, of supporting production activities in order to tap-into the external providers and benefit from their own competences. Confirming the results of other previous studies, the particular set of network interactions which make up the social capital of Reggio-Emilia thus seems to make the outsourcing-innovation relationship viable by attenuating the risks of firms getting locked in unbalanced and dependency relations from their suppliers.

Techno-globalism, techno-nationalism and technological systems: organizing the evidence

Abstract This paper deals with the globalization process, and with the tension between national, super-national and sub-national forces it entails in the field of technology. The concept of technological system (TS) is proposed as a useful starting point to analyze the consequences that globalization has for a variety of different technological aspects. A taxonomy is then put forward to distinguish its implications for those elements of a TS which are more related to the state from those which are closer to the idea of nation. Interesting results are obtained by allocating the contributions of a growing, but not yet conclusive, body of literature to more specific technological aspects, such as: ‘techno-territoriality’, pertaining to physical distances and spaces, ‘techno-sovereignty’, related to governance structures and policy making, ‘techno-citizenship’, about strategic behaviors and accountability, and ‘techno-nationality’, concerning socio-cultural sharing phenomena. The application of this taxonomy shows that globalization has reduced the relevance of national (and more local) technological aspects much less than is generally maintained. This is particularly true for techno-nationality. Indeed, a certain communality of language and culture within a country, along with its historically formed institutional setting, is an important enabler of the innovative process and induce different technological styles and performances. ‘Techno-national systems of innovation’ therefore still matter.

Outsourcing, Delocalization and Firm Organization: Transaction Costs vs. Industrial Relations in a Local Production System of Emilia Romagna

This article investigates the firms’ decisions to outsource, taking into account the impact of their embeddedness in a specific regional context on the relative entrepreneurial decision. It focuses on the role of industrial relations, as a factor that could interfere with the entrepreneurs’ decision of resorting to market relationships in discovering and exploiting new business opportunities. We study a local production system in Emilia Romagna (Northern Italy), i.e. the province of Reggio Emilia (RE), whose firms are characterized by a district kind of environment and where entrepreneurship develops in the presence of ‘thick’ industrial relations. The empirical part of the study shows that the role of transaction costs in explaining the outsourcing is blurred, while industrial relations have a stronger explanatory power. Furthermore, it seems that RE firms generally use outsourcing and international delocalization in complementary ways; however, the correlation depends on the activity and the nature of the delocalization channel. Outsourcing strategies appear to be affected by the pattern of socio-economic development in the region where the firms are located. In particular, the entrepreneurial decision to externalize a part of the production process seems to be related to the specific participatory, formal and informal mechanisms involved in regional development.

The automobile technological systems: An empirical analysis of four European countries

The aim of this paper is to study the automobile industry of the most important European countries (France, Germany, Great Britain and Italy) from a sectoral, system perspective. The main relationships within and between the building blocks constituting the automobile technological system are mapped and evaluated, both in cross-sectional and in temporal terms. The importance of the sectoral TS as the unit of our analysis appears evident at both levels. Some general sectoral properties emerge, which however hold in the four countries to a different extent, thus suggesting how the institutional set-up works as a differentiating element. A sustained process of change in the various elements of the automobile TS is detected, nevertheless resulting in a relatively stable path of development. The countries considered reveal different patterns of motor vehicles trade specialisation in different geographical areas, with changes over time. Also foreign direct investments show the existence of very different trajectories and outward/inward balances.

Outsourcing and Structural Change: Shifting Firm and Sectoral Boundaries

The paper aims at investigating the structural change implications of outsourcing. In trying to bridge the organizational/industrial and the sectoral/structural analysis of outsourcing, it discusses the rational and the methodological pros and cons of a “battery” of outsourcing measurements for structural change analysis. Their functioning is then illustrated through a concise application of them to the OECD area over the ’80s and the early ’90s. A combined used of them emerges as recommendable in checking for the role of outsourcing with respect to that of other structural change determinants.