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The purpose of this paper is to identify actions and guidelines for enabling and fostering the Industry 4.0 adoption, as well as to understand the role of three ecosystem actors in these actions (i.e. companies, educational organizations and regional policy makers).

52 semi-structured expert interviews in the Tyrol-Veneto cross-border macro-region were carried out and interpreted using the innovation ecosystem concept. In particular, drawing from this latter, six ecosystem building blocks were identified and used to analyze the interviews' content.

The findings allow not only to build a comprehensive framework for action to support Industry 4.0 adoption, but also to confirm the importance of exploring Industry 4.0 through the lens of the ecosystem concept. Indeed, the authors show that R&D activities should be complemented with interorganizational actions, such as training and networking, and that all ecosystem actors should be involved in the Industry 4.0 adoption.

This is among the few studies that adopt the innovation ecosystem perspective to explore best practices for Industry 4.0 adoption, thus overcoming the weakness of existing papers based on a firm-level perspective. It also complements previous ecosystem-based research on Industry 4.0 by exploring the technology adoption side, rather than the technology provision one, and by considering the adoption of a wide set of technologies.

The aim is to discuss the role of social capital in alleviating poverty in the rural setting of Africa by viewing it as an individual and collective asset.

The authors use primary data from a survey on rural households living in three different districts in rural Africa. The authors design a social complexity index giving evidence on the poverty alleviation effect of complex patterns of civic participation at district level.

Results support the view that social capital may mitigate poverty only if a rural household simultaneously participates in a plurality of social communities. Such mitigation is reinforced if she also lives in a socially complex district, whereas on the contrary the social complexity of a district, per se, is not enough to alleviate poverty.

This paper contributes to advance the knowledge of African rural areas and to identify potential developments of poverty policies in Africa based on diversified social capital as a valuable ingredient for poverty alleviation policies. This paper also contributes to the debate on social capital by showing that diversified social capital has a prevailing individual nature rather than a collective one.

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive vision of the formation of intra-metropolitan clusters triggered by the deindustrialization of an urban area, namely, the district of Porto Marghera in the metropolitan area of Venice and propose possible regeneration scenarios based on intra-metropolitan clustering.

This paper adopts a multi-disciplinary approach and relies on both descriptive and qualitative evidence to show the economic transition occurred in the area of Porto Marghera in recent years.

Evidence shows the rise of two potential clusters in the KIBS and the creative industries in a well-delimited fringe area placed at the boundary between the urban centre and the core of the deindustrialized zone. Such clustering processes have been, however, characterized by two different and in some way alternative paths. The former stems from the combination of two autonomous entrepreneurial ideas that complemented one to each other. The latter relies on university-industry collaboration and on the presence of places of informal exchanges that proved to support personal networking, knowledge exchange and business opportunities.

This paper suggests that local development policies could leverage on the presence of social entrepreneurs to substitute the creation of amenities and the provision of public goods in fragile territories.

This paper shows that, in presence of specific spatial conditions, deindustrialization can stimulate the formation of new intra-metropolitan through both top-down and bottom-up agglomeration process.

The paper aims at assessing the role of the different stages of the employment process in gauging workers' willingness to upskill themselves at the end of a seasonal employment contract by investing in further training.

The paper analyses data from a dedicated survey administered to a sample of seasonal employees. Through a regression analysis it explores the different stages of the employment process (job search, selection on the job activities), making a distinction between monetary and nonmonetary components of the investment in training.

Results show that all stages matter, but they do not have the same importance. Ex-ante motivations and work experience, notably the level of perceived workload and organizational commitment, are the main factors affecting workers' willingness to acquire industry-specific skills through training.

So far, the literature has extensively dealt with the poor levels of training in seasonal employers, but it did not analyse worker’s willingness to invest in training over the different stages of the worker experience. This paper fills this gap by separately testing the relative importance of such stages and identifying the most important phases of the employment process.

This paper applies an original construct of “subjective risk intelligence (SRI)” to the small business context. By leveraging on its multidimensionality, it aims to shed light on the existing ambiguities in the analysis of the relationship between the entrepreneurial attitude towards risk evaluation and firms’ financial stability.

The empirical investigation refers to the Italian context, where an ad hoc survey has been administered to a sample of small businesses. Based on both a linear and a semiparametric regression, results show a significant relationship between SRI and firm’s financial structure, and that such relationship is basically nonlinear.

Evidence shows that entrepreneurs with a high level of risk intelligence run highly leveraged firms. Moreover, in the light of the non-linearity of such relationship, higher levels of risk intelligence are associated with a greater capacity of the entrepreneur to govern the financial balance of the enterprise only up to a certain threshold. Over this threshold, risk intelligence generates overconfidence leading the entrepreneur to a reckless behaviour in taking financial risks.

From a theoretical point of view, the paper contributes to the literature by shedding lights on the complexity of the relationship between risk intelligence and small businesses. From a policy point of view, findings suggest that, to train new entrepreneurs, the educational system aims should focus on the development of two specific “soft skills”: the ability to manage emotions and the ability to glimpse opportunities even in uncertain situations.

This paper proposes adequate strategies that companies, public administrators and organisations in the education industry can undertake to successfully face the challenges of digital transformation in a regional innovation system. This research considers stakeholders that operate in the Tyrol–Veneto macroregion (the Tyrol, South Tyrol and Veneto areas), a significant case of moderately innovative European macroregion.

This study undertakes explorative research based on a qualitative method. It adopts a place-based multi-stakeholder approach to emphasise the role of three categories of stakeholders (companies, educational system and regional governments) in facing digital changes. More precisely, interviews with 60 stakeholders from the Tyrol–Veneto macroregion were conducted and examined via both text mining analysis and content analysis. First, correspondence factor analysis was performed using IRaMuTeQ software to identify homogeneous subsets of concepts (pillars–i.e., macroareas of strategic actions). Second, two coding phases were implemented using NVivo software to detect strategic fields of action and specific strategic actions undertaken to address the challenges of digital transformation.

The results highlight that digital transformation is a pervasive challenge of regional innovative system that requires a multifaceted set of strategic actions falling into three main pillars. The first pillar, named “culture and skills”, includes three strategic fields of action as follows: digital education, talents and digital culture. The second pillar, named “infrastructures and technologies”, points out the need of information, interaction and artificial intelligence as key strategic fields of action. The third pillar, named “ecosystems”, highlights the importance of investing in medium- to long-term visions, partnerships and life quality. In brief, this study shows that standalone interventions are insufficient to tackle digital transformation from a systemic perspective. Moreover, this study outlines the potential contribution of each category of stakeholder to foster the digitalisation of the Tyrol–Veneto macroregion.

This study highlights the importance of developing digital culture and skills before investing in digital infrastructure and technology in a moderately innovative macroregion. Companies should alter their vision before reconfiguring their business models, invest in smart working and establish contacts with start-ups. In addition, this study recommends that public administration should mainly invest in digital education and partnerships, while, in terms of education and training organisations, it suggests providing digital skills to several cohorts of both students and workers. Policy implications call for the creation of new occasions of cooperation among stakeholders by fostering “table talks” as strategic and policy actions and by making more financial resources available to encourage the digital transformation processes.

The results of this study may be adapted to the characteristics of other regional innovative systems and used as a reference point in terms of the improvement of business, market and local development.

This paper investigates the relationship between labour hoarding practices and training investments during severe economic downturns focusing on the case of Italy during the Great Recession.

Data come from the 2010 Italian wave of Continuing Vocational Training Survey (CVTS). Econometric estimates plug a proxy of labour hoarding into the probability function that firms provide either off-the-job or on-the-job training. A bivariate selectivity probit model is also used for robustness sake.

Results show that labour hoarding should not be considered as an enhancer of training investments when considered as a standing-alone practice in presence of severe and deep economic downturn. However, labour hoarding does not penalize off-the-job training investments if it occurs in an innovative firm or in a firm that perceive specific skill requirements in the workforce during the recessionary period.

The paper contributes to the debate on the role of labour hoarding during severe recessions by showing that it cannot be functional to re-oriented firms’ investments aimed at upskilling their workforce. It is only compatible with new training courses that accompany the workforce across a technological transition. Policy implications deals with the suitability of job retention schemes or state-financed furlough during recessions, as occurred during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the attitude of European firms towards human resource management (HRM) configuration and HRM practices on a country-level basis. Assuming the persistent relevance of institutional framework, the paper investigates the applicability of the varieties of capitalism (VoC) theory to these domains in European countries and their evolution between 1999 and 2005.

The paper selects and groups together variables that are related to both HRM configuration and HRM practices using data coming from the survey performed in 2005 by the Cranfield Network on International HRM. Then, a hierarchical cluster analysis among 16 European countries is performed. Relevant varieties are obtained through the combined application of two stopping rules.

Evidence shows that the evolution of HR policies over time is in line with an extended VoC approach that divides Europe in four VoC. One of these varieties (the “State” model), however, is not validated after a robustness check.

For HR managers, the implementation of common personnel policies within the same variety of capitalism could represent a potential fertile ground for beneficial interactions and mutual learning among HR functions. In particular, the classification suggested in the paper does matter if an intervention on HRM practices is accompanied by a change in the participation of the HR department to the decision-making process and/or in the delegation of responsibilities between the HR department and the line management.

The authors’ results contribute to the debate on the relationship between HRM and institutional context in two ways. First, they show that an extended VoC framework can explain the differentiation among European countries with regard to HRM domains. Notably, the correlation between the structure of the HR function and the intensity of HRM practices generates a clusterization of European countries based on at least three models of capitalism. Second, it emerges from the analysis that a substantial shift occurred with respect to the previous wave of the survey together with an increase of similarities between countries.

This contribution aims to clarify the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an issue of governance and a strategic tool more than a mere communication activity, with a potential impact on both organizations and their economic and financial performance.

The paper provides an overview of the literature contribution on CSR and its impact on value, offering a new conceptual model useful both for managers and relevant stakeholders in assessing, through an integrated approach, the company performance.

The analysis focuses on how CSR investments can create value for companies and for stakeholders in general. This can occur if the related benefits exceed the related costs, generating a favorable balance toward what we called the virtuous cycle of CSR. This cycle is made up of four steps – decision, design, action and result – that define a potential value creation path that a responsible firm can take, assuming that it integrates a social agenda into its competitive strategy and assuming that the market appreciates real and effective social efforts of companies.

Because the descriptive chosen approach, the research could be enriched with a quantitative analysis to test the proposed propositions further.

This paper fulfils the need, identified in the major literature, of a temporary ceasefire on corporate social performance and its link to financial performance, focusing on tools and instruments that can practically modify the companies' approach to CSR and the evaluation processes of its impact on business, strategy and disclosure.