The new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) represent an important challenge for SME. Especially in the context of local productive areas, this topic may be relevant as a new opportunity of competitiveness for the system as a whole. In this working paper, the focus is on the...

This paper will discuss two fundamental concepts of industrial policy devel-oped by Sebastiano Brusco: the role of real services to support district firms and the role of real services needed to transform groups of isolated firms into systems of firms; and the promotion of widespread changes at...

In the first months of 2003, the Presidency of the National Research Council (CNR) entrusted to the CERIS the realization of an innovative information system concerning Public and Sme’s R&D institutions in Italy. The system - at first called Re@Search, then become Ricerc@.it - had to satisfy...

Along the last two decades Italian industrial districts have been touched by two main phenomena: internationalization of production and international migration. While the first has been extensively studied, the latter has not received the same degree of attention. This paper shows that...

The new information and communication technologies represent both an important challenge and an opportunity for small and medium enterprises. In case of the industrial districts, low-price technologies, easy to implement and flexible to use could give a new impulse to the competitiveness of...

This paper aims to provide a detailed socio-economic analysis of the town of Carbonia yielding insights which could serve as a stimulus and reflection, in order to guide policy makers to the adoption of public policies that could relaunch the town and the territory, making them more competitive...

Agriculture has always played a key role in our society, it has changed and adapted during the years until now with the award of a multifunctional role of agriculture in the wider socio-economic context. Among the non-agricultural activities is the '"Social Agriculture" which, although not yet...