Innovation public policies and competitiveness of the italian Industrie

Technical and organizational innovation are crucial factors for the competitiveness of every country. Italy, characterized by a prevalence of small and medium-sized companies, generally appears more dynamic in the innovation of processes than in the innovation of products, showing a wide lack of managerial culture. One must ask if the Italian industrial structure is compatible with sustained innovative dynamism and why only very few innovative companies grow to the point of becoming important international oligopolists in their markets. In the vast majority of industrial sectors in highly industrialized countries sustained dynamic innovation is based on the coexistence of an oligopolistic core of large companies surrounded by small and medium-sized companies. In Italy the fundamental problem is the weakness of this oligopolistic core. Moreover, the financial context and the low level of managerialism of small and medium-sized companies lead to low incentives for growth and do not encourage strategies of leading to innovation. The general objectives which derive from this analysis regard: a) the need to increase the capacity of industry and to introduce innovative products, processes and systems of organization in industrial sectors b) strengthening and spreading innovative skills for technology which present high learning opportunities c) developing support structures for industrial research. In the aforesaid context, speaking of reinforcing applied research and collaboration between universities and industry assumes a great importance.