Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a significant source of employment for many people in developing and developed economies. However, one of the significant constraints that SMEs face is...

A systematic literature review on SME financing: Trends and future directions

Torn between digitized future and context dependent past – How implementing ‘Industry 4.0’ production technologies could transform the German textile industry

This paper investigates the effect of related and unrelated variety on regional growth in West Germany. In particular, we analyze the role of regional absorptive capacity and new business formation for these effects. We find that West German regions benefit from both types of varieties. The positive effect of unrelated variety on growth is more pronounced in regions with higher levels of absorptive capacity in terms of R&D activities and with higher levels of new business formation. Such moderating effects cannot be found for related variety.

Related Variety, Unrelated Variety, and Regional Growth: The Role of Absorptive Capacity and Entrepreneurship

Sustainability transitions in manufacturing: the role of intellectual property

This paper studies the relationship between the innovation performance of European regions and their resilience. By exploiting a novel dataset that includes patents and trademarks at the regional (NUTS2) level for the 2008–2016 period, the paper addresses two research questions: (1) are innovative regions more resilient? (2) which type of innovation is more conducive to resilience? We frame the relationship between resilience and innovation within the Schumpeterian notion of innovation as a ‘creative response in history’. Overall, we find that a stronger performance in innovation is associated with a better performance in employment both during and in the aftermarket of the 2008 financial crisis. We argue that learning capabilities built over time by regions make them more effective in adapting and recovering during major shocks. While the crisis may have created an opportunity for less developed regions to move ahead, this opportunity has in fact been grasped mainly by those already having a strong regional system of innovation in place.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s40888-020-00195-4.pdf

Are innovative regions more resilient? Evidence from Europe in 2008–2016

This paper aims to analyze access to bank financing by small firms belonging to business groups compared to independent firms. We consider Italian manufacturing firms during the severe credit-crunch during 2010–2012 caused by the financial crisis and subsequent domestic recession. We expect belonging to a business group to facilitate access to bank financing as the result of two different mechanisms: (i) the implicit guarantee provided by group belonging (affiliation effect) and (ii) the transfer of resources via the internal capital market (portfolio effect). The empirical evidence confirms our hypotheses. Belonging to a business group facilitates access to bank financing, while the presence of an internal capital market, which substitutes for both the decision to obtain bank financing and the amount borrowed, makes firms that are part of a business group less dependent than independent firms on this type of financing.

Small firms and bank financing in bad times

A large body of the literature showed that related variety at local level is more relevant than unrelated variety for explaining the innovation performance of firms. Knowledge relatedness is usuall...

Local variety and innovation performance in the EU textile and clothing industry

This paper analyzes how and to what extent firms’ external relations, such as belonging to a local cluster or a business group, affect the probability of firm survival and economic performance afte...

/pdf/agglomeration-networking-and-the-great-recession-4vgv1ud1tr.pdf

Agglomeration, networking and the Great Recession

The literature on business groups played a significant role in the debate over the evolution of Italian industrial districts The diffusion of business groups in industrial districts resulted in a 

Spatial networking and firms’ organization. The case of Italy

Scopo principale di questo lavoro e quello di fornire un quadro sulla presenza dei gruppi d’impresa nelle regioni del Nordest, con particolare riferimento alle imprese manifatturiere ubicate nelle aree distrettuali. Il distretto industriale come il gruppo rappresentano due modalita alternative di fare networking. L’idea di fondo e che sia il distretto sia l’appartenenza al gruppo hanno supportato le imprese durante la crisi economico-finanziaria permettendo la sopravvivenza anche di quelle meno performanti. Le analisi presentate sono in linea con le nostre ipotesi. Dopo lo shock causato dalla Grande Recessione del 2008, le imprese sopravvissute sono state quelle localizzate all’interno dei distretti o quelle appartenenti ai
gruppi di impresa.

Valentina Giannini

Papers

Small firms and bank financing in bad times

Local variety and innovation performance in the EU textile and clothing industry

Agglomeration, networking and the Great Recession

Spatial networking and firms’ organization. The case of Italy

Gruppi di impresa e distretti industriali nel nordest