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Social Capital, R&D and Industrial Districts

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  • Cainelli, Giulio

    (Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit)

  • Mancinelli, Susanna

    (Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit)

  • Mazzanti, Massimiliano

    (Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit)

Abstract

The main idea behind this paper is that social capital is not, as generally suggested by the socio-economic literature, an individual attitude towards something which does not imply privately appropriable economic benefits. Actually, SC might and should be interpreted as a public component of an investment which implies private and public benefits entangled with each other. In order to put forward this idea, a dynamic theoretical model that assumes social capital as the public component of the impure public good R&D is developed. It shows that the civic culture of the district area in which the firm works is not sufficient as an incentive to increase its investment in social capital, because this investment strictly depends on the economic convenience of investing in the impure public good. Social capital /networking dynamics might positively and complementary evolve only if the opportunity cost of investing in innovation is sufficiently low. We consequently focus our attention on a specialized industrial district located in the Emilia Romagna regionthe biomedical district of Mirandola (Modena) characterised by a strong pattern of innovative activity. Using a proxy for innovative activity as dependant variable, we observe that R&D and networking/social capital arise as complementary driving forces for innovation outputs. When empirical evidence confirms that this complementarity plays key role, and consequently strong links exist between market and non-market dynamics relating to firms, the role for policy actions targeted to social capital is larger. The policy effort should be targeted toward both market and non-market characteristics taken together, rather than solely to the production of (local) public goods (social capital) or innovation inputs as independent elements of firm processes. The input of SC alone is not sufficient to ensure innovation and growth: economic incentives matter. On the other hand, whenever SC dynamics are crucial for R&D private investments, the effect of economic incentives depends on the presence and degree of their complementarity.

Suggested Citation

  • Cainelli, Giulio & Mancinelli, Susanna & Mazzanti, Massimiliano, 2005. "Social Capital, R&D and Industrial Districts," AICCON Working Papers 17-2005, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
  • Handle: RePEc:ris:aiccon:2005_017
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    Cited by:

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    2. Riccardo Crescenzi & Luisa Gagliardi & Marco Percoco, 2013. "The ‘Bright’ Side of Social Capital: How ‘Bridging’ Makes Italian Provinces More Innovative," Advances in Spatial Science, in: Riccardo Crescenzi & Marco Percoco (ed.), Geography, Institutions and Regional Economic Performance, edition 127, pages 143-164, Springer.
    3. Massimiliano Mazzanti & Roberto Zoboli, 2006. "Examining the Factors Influencing Environmental Innovations," Working Papers 2006.20, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    4. Massimiliano Mazzanti & Roberto Zoboli, 2007. "Environmental Efficiency, Emission Trends and Labour Productivity: Trade-Off or Joint Dynamics? Empirical Evidence Using NAMEA Panel Data," Working Papers 2007.40, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    5. Andrea Ascani & Luisa Gagliardi, 2015. "Inward FDI and local innovative performance. An empirical investigation on Italian provinces," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 35(1), pages 29-47, February.
    6. Waleed Omri & Audrey Becuwe, 2014. "Managerial characteristics and entrepreneurial internationalization: A study of Tunisian SMEs," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 8-42, March.
    7. Riccardo Crescenzi & Luisa Gagliardi & Marco Percoco, 2013. "Social Capital and the Innovative Performance of Italian Provinces," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(4), pages 908-929, April.
    8. Gurrieri, Antonia Rosa, 2008. "Knowledge network dissemination in a family-firm sector," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2380-2389, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social capital; R&D; technological innovation; industrial districts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D92 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice, Investment, Capacity, and Financing
    • H49 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Other
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D

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