Past Projects

• Taltech Industrial: Industrial Strategy and Competitiveness Studies at TalTech (01/10/20-30/06/24): The overall objective of the project is to strengthen the research excellence of Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) Estonia in (1) evolution of industrial value chains (clusters) in the era of the 4th industrial revolution (2) catching-up dynamics and windows of opportunities for upgrading along the global value chains and by applying (3) advanced data science methods in these fields. To reach this objective the project will bolster a strategic partnership between TalTech as the beneficiary and Bocconi University (UB-ICRIOS) Aalto University and Utrecht University (UU-UF) as the key knowledge providers. The network will allow 1) to co-create more socially-relevant research that will benefit industrialist’s policy makers and citizens; and will 2) foster policy learning and the development of more effective policies that meet the needs and expectations of the society; and 3) establish executive training system for improving the accessibility of the cutting-edge research for businesses and policy makers. 

  PI: Roberto Mavilia

  Project funded by the European Union (Horizon 2020 fund)

   

• CatChain: Catching-Up along the Global Value Chain: Models, Determinants and Policy Implications (01/05/18-29/02/24): the project is based on a research project integrated with a higher education agenda. It is designed to build and test a multidisciplinary approach bridging two streams of literature: one on catching–up and one on Global Value Chains (GVCs) in the context of the arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). It pays also particular attention to the role of different Business Models (BMs) in entering learning and upgrading for fostering a process of country–level catching–up from different sectoral perspectives. The main aims of the project are: 1) to identify whether and how a country should focus more on developing domestic trade networks to develop sophistication and upgrade before entering into (the more competitive environment of) GVCs; or whether it should improve its infrastructure and networks in regional value chains by implementing the RIS3 strategy to support economic transformation; 2) to identify the emerging Business Models underpinning the successful entering learning and upgrading in GVCs and export after analysing and validating meaningful case studies in different sectors and countries. 

  PI: Roberto Mavilia

  Project funded by the European Union (Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions) 

  Further information
  Press release

   

• SFR – Coping with the Expiration of Competitive Advantage in the 21^st Century (01/01/23-31/12/24): This project focuses on the expiration of competitive advantage which can cause freefall of firm performance in a very short period of time as in the case of Eli Lilly’s Prozac the “product of the century” losing 73% of its share of new prescriptions to generic products two weeks after its patent expiration and Copaxone causing nearly 12% drop in pre-market trading of Teva’s shares after losing patent protection to generic competitors. Despite the prevalence of this phenomenon strategic management research has offered limited insights into firms that lose their competitive advantage. There is virtually no research on how firms cope with the expected loss of their competitive advantage such as in the case of pharmaceutical firms that foresee the expiration of their key patents. We have three objectives: 1) to identify strategies that firms use to cope with the expected expiration of competitive advantage 2) to investigate the effectiveness of these strategies and 3) to study the interaction effect of these strategies e.g. between timing and strategies and combination of strategies. 

  PI: Dovev Lavie

  Project funded by the Strategy Research Foundation

   

• POLISS – H2020 IF:Smart Specialisation is a successful innovation policy concept which has become a cornerstone of the European cohesion policy and the European 2020 agenda. SmartSpec has the objective of fostering regional innovation and promoting sustainable and inclusive growth in the EU. SmartSpec also addresses several of the Sustainable Development Goals. However the early implementation of SmartSpec policies has raised concerns among scholars and policy makers who have pointed to a number of gaps in its conceptualisation design and implementation. POLISS (“Policies for Smart Specialisation”) will tackle these gaps with the aim of making the design implementation and evaluation of Smart Spec policies more effective in Europe. POLISS is a joint collaboration of 8 leading European universities and 14 partners spanning local governments development agencies international organizations research institutes and private companies. POLISS brings together a diverse set of actors from all the fields contributing to SmartSpec; therefore it adopts a multidisciplinary approach by integrating their insights and knowledge. Building on their expertise and everyday engagement with SmartSpec policies POLISS aims at: a) providing new systematic evidence and methodological tools to scholars policy makers and local practitioners for designing and assessing SmartSpec actions in EU regions and beyond; b) building a PhD programme where a new generation of experts in regional development and innovation policy will be trained and once graduated will be possibly employed in regional national and European private or public organisations that work on regional development and innovation; c) providing a forum for coordinating the vast community of researchers and practitioners working on local development and innovation which is often sparse and fragmented.

• GOTAM Cities – H2020 IF: We live in a rapidly urbanising world where the most part of the world population both in advanced and emerging economies live and work in cities. These dense agglomerations of individuals generate significant economic benefits which have been widely investigated and documented in the economic literature. It has been indeed observed that despite densely populated urban areas might show high wages and locational costs they still attract most innovative activities and skilled workers. In such a global race the European Union (henceforth EU) is apparently lagging behind in comparison with the US and other Anglo-Saxon economies (e.g. Canada and Australia) despite the several policy initiatives put in place since the launch of the Lisbon Strategy including the Europe 2020 Strategy and the 2009 Blue Card Directive all of them aiming at attracting the best and the brightest to the European Union. These declared ambitions could be frustrated even further since the EU along with other countries is experiencing a widespread backlash against immigration. The diffusion of such anti-immigration sentiment is also worrisome because the recovery from the Great Recession of 2008 is far from being in sight for many EU regions while the access to a diverse set of skills via high skilled immigrants could boost the innovative sectors needed for economic growth. The general aim of the GOTaM project is to understand how talents are attracted to cities and how they impact on the innovative performance and overall prosperity of the cities in destination countries. The project will be hosted by ICRIOS and the principle investigator will be given a contract with Bocconi for the duration of the project.

• Knowledge Diversity Building by Inventors - H2020 ITN:Why do some inventors build up knowledge in a broad variety of technological areas while others stick to their field of expertise? Recent research has shown that inventor teams involving an individual with diverse knowledge are more likely to introduce breakthrough inventions. In the light of a general trend towards specialization and teamwork this finding raises concern about an undersupply of breakthrough inventions and warrants policy intervention to stimulate individual knowledge diversity. However to design effective policy instruments we need to know how highly skilled knowledge workers make decisions regarding the scope of their expertise throughout their careers. To this end the proposed research aims to explicate the mechanisms driving knowledge diversity. The researcher will be supervised by prof. Alfonso Gambardella. decisions of individual inventors

• Technological change industry evolution and employment dynamics – PRIN:The aim of this project is to develop an integrated analysis of the anatomy and dynamics of innovation processes and the ensuing patterns of industrial change and employment dynamics starting from the modes in which new knowledge is incorporated in business firms all the way to the processes of innovation-driven “Schumpeterian” competition. This project will be carried out using advanced statistical and econometric methodologies applied both at the firm and sectoral level of analysis. Crucially large scale datasets deriving from different sources will be merged. Empirical results will be interpreted at the light of comprehensive theoretical models able to account for the economic impact of technological change the emergence of product and process innovation and the presence of different institutional regimes within the labour market.

• Entrepreneurs As Scientists: When and How Start-ups Benefit from A Scientific Approach to
  Decision Making - PRIN:In this project Bocconi University Politecnico di Milano and Politecnico di Torino will collaborate to study the implications of a scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision making. Entrepreneurs using a scientific approach select information and make decisions about their business mirroring the approach used by researchers when developing and testing theories in scientific research. We focus on three questions 1 What is the impact of a scientific approach on the decision of an entrepreneur to select/develop a business idea 2 Which contingencies influence the adoption of the scientific approach 3 What are the effects of the scientific approach in later-stage entrepreneurial firms.

STRATEGY

SUSTAINABILITY

• Golden For Sustainability 

INNOVATION

• SmartEIZ (Horizon 2020): Strengthening scientific and research capacity of the Institute of Economics Zagreb as a cornerstone for Croatian socioeconomic growth through the implementation of Smart Specialisation Strategy. 

ORGANIZATION

• LEAN THINKING OBSERVATORY:The Lean Thinking Observatory intends to generate an organic set of rigorous and relevant knowledge on the dissemination of Lean Thinking principles and methodologies in Italian enterprises, with the aim of playing an active and growing role in the national and international debate, also proposing itself as an interlocutor in the process of formulating proposals to policy makers.The Observatory's main sponsors are Auxiell and Banco BPM.

• LEAN IN MIDDLE MARKET FIRMS:This research is about lean transformations in Middle Market firms. Its aim is to provide novel insights about how Middle Market firms’ owners and managers can grow their business and sustainably create wealth for themselves and their employees through lean transformations. In many cases, the survival and prosperity of these firms depend on how they are managed. Transitioning to lean systems through lean transformation  processes is an enormous opportunity available to anyone to better manage them.The project is sponsored by Ohio University's National Center for the Middle Market
• Global Observatory on the Evolution of the Sustainable Enterprise - G.O.E.S.E. (Bando PRIN 2010-11)

ENTERPRENEURSHIP