DYNACOM
Status: ended
Title
Dynamic Capabilities, Growth and Long-Term Competitiveness of European Firms: A Diagnosis and the Implications for EU Policies (DYNACOM)
Assignment
European Commission DG XII
Coordinator
Franco Malerba
Keywords
innovative firm
competences
technological diversification
Research outline and main results
This project aimed at interpreting the organisational and management mechanisms ruling the knowledge accumulation process and the development of competences both within firms and in the relations between firms. These conceptual instruments applied to an empirical analysis of distinctive competences of European firms and to the related impact on competitive performances. In this project CESPRI analysed the technological diversification processes of electronics firms in Europe, U.S.A. and Japan, using a data-set related to patent applications to European Patent Office and data related to economic activity, size and age of firms. The main aim of the research was testing empirically two contrasting hypothesis. On one side, several theoretical considerations supported the hypothesis that large innovative firms extended the range of used technologies by keeping a long-term diversified technological outline. On the other side, the increasing process of knowledge codification and the importance, for the purpose of competitiveness, of concentration on core competences may lead to specialisation and to concentration of innovative efforts, in a limited set of key technologies. The analysis preliminary results pointed out how large innovative firms, though having a high-level technological diversification in the long-term, tended to be relatively specialized in a few basic technologies. On the contrary, new and small innovative firms started high-skilled innovation and kept this outline in the long-term. The analysis also pointed out that small firms are a basic source of innovation in new and growing technological fields and that different innovating patterns can coexist within the same technological area.
Researchers involved in the project
S. Breschi, A. Lezzi
Partners
Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" (Italy),
Libero Istituto Carlo Cattaneo (Italy),
Centre de Recherche en Economie Industrielle Internationale (France),
University of Reading (Gran Bretagna).
Last updated June 12, 2009
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