Christos Genakos, Ioannis Kaplanis (p), Maria Theano Tagaraki, Aggelos Tsakanikas

Vítor João Pereira Domingues Martinho

The global financial crisis that burst in 2008 adversely affected business performance in many countries, especially in Europe. However, the impact of the crisis on entrepreneurship and business dynamics differed amongst countries, depending on their businesses resilience, the policies implemented, but also their predominant productive structure. The magnitude and length of the Greek depression have no precedent among modern middle and high-income economies. Still, to date, there is no systematic analysis of the impact of the crisis on entrepreneurship and business dynamism. This study attempts to fill this gap by examining individual firm, sectoral and regional level characteristics that might affect existing firm resilience and new firm survival rate. We use two sources of data with the most extensive coverage of small (sole proprietorship) and large (other legal status firms) firms containing information on entry and exit in Greece. Matching data from patents and trademarks allow us to examine the interplay between entrepreneurship and innovation. Our analysis focuses on the factors that help or hinder firm survival and growth. We find that the crisis increased the exit likelihood for a firm by 5% to 16%. Larger firms, with significant fixed assets, lower financial leverage, operating in concentrated industries, but also those that are innovation and export oriented tend to have better chances of survival compared to their counterparts. Furthermore, better chances of survival during the crisis years have been achieved by firms in the periphery, rather than the main metropolitan regions of Greece. These results are important for designing business policies not only in Greece but also for other countries facing similar crises.

Sergio Salamone (p)

Ioannis Kaplanis

The Smart Specialization Strategy (S3) is above all a policy direction that emphasizes the role of research and innovation as a driving factor for development and territorial competitiveness. In emphasizing the role of innovation, S3 has also introduced an additional novelty: strengthening the link between research and innovation.
The aim of this work is to build a classification of enterprises that represents all the dimensions of smart specialization, such as innovation, r&d, human capital, business relations, environmental sustainability, ability to drive the development of the territory.
The work begins with a conceptualization work, which analyzes the main lines of the S3 and tries to define a general theoretical model, preserving the multidimensional approach that combines the fundamental dimensions, in order to identify potential S3 enterprises in the territories. Five S3 dimensions have been identified: innovative capacity, r&d, human capital, driving ability to drive the development of the territory, level of economic performance (e.g. added value).
After defining the latent dimensions and sub-dimensions of the S3, the variables that measure the S3 dimensions were researched. The elementary indicators were detected in the 2019 business census of the Italian national statistician institute, with a specific S3 section of the survey questionnaire.
After selecting the elementary indicators, various aggregation methodologies were tested for the construction of a synthetic index of potential S3 companies. The most convincing methods turned out to be the Wroclaw taxonomic method and the Mazziotta–Pareto index (MPI) for summarizing a set of individual indicators that are assumed to be not fully substitutable.
The construction process of the synthetic indices (Oecd 2008) was followed: definition of the theoretical framework, selection and normalization of the elementary indicators, aggregation in a synthetic index on potential companies S3. The S3 summary index is then constructed by selecting enterprises with values above the median for each of the five S3 dimensions: each dimension consists of an index with a score ranging from 90 to 130.
The classification defined and described in this work makes it possible to evaluate the areas of specialization chosen by each Italian region and to indicate on which dimension an area is stronger or weaker, in order to give indications on investments and intervention priorities.

Javier Barbero, Olga Diukanova, Carlo Gianelle, Simone Salotti (p), Artur Santoalha

Sergio Salamone

We contribute to the literature on the role of regional policy in accompanying and fostering industrial, technological and sectorial transformation. We use econometrics and general equilibrium modelling to assess the rationale for related diversification and understand the relevance of different region-specific interventions. Our results suggest that all regions can benefit from diversification achieved by introducing new technologies closely related to their existing ones. However, this related diversification has a greater potential for more peripheral and less developed regions, rather than for the more developed regions that should rather pursue more path-breaking ways to innovate. This offers interesting implications for policy interventions such as Smart Specialization in the European Union, calling for a differentiated approach depending on the technological space of the various regions. This evidence also highlights interesting consequences of related diversification on convergence and regional cohesion.

Ioana Bejenaru (p), Lucian Roșu, Corneliu Iațu

Simone Salotti

The concept of a smart city has gained increased attention in recent decades among academic scholars and decision-makers. It has grown to be an umbrella concept that encompasses many different ideas, techniques, and elements, making it challenging to define precisely or to be evaluated. While the main goal of smart city initiatives is to improve quality of urban life, there is little knowledge of how it impacts the well-being of its citizens. The present research explores how smart city can influence perceived quality of urban life for several European cities. Urban Audit Data regarding perceived quality of urban life was taken into account together with scores for Smart City initiatives for 323 cities. Each subdomain of the perceived quality of urban life has been compared with scores for Smart city. Results highlight a regional spatial pattern for perceived quality of urban life, which tend to be more of a regional characteristic rather than being influenced by smart initiatives. Moreover, overall life satisfaction in the analyzed European cities are not influenced by their score for smart city. Nevertheless, the concept of smart city is closely related to the goal of improving quality of urban life, but there is little statistical evidence. Smart cities tend to have a better perception upon quality of urban life.

Vítor João Pereira Domingues Martinho (p)

Ioana Bejenaru

The technological advances are accompanied by innovations that open new opportunities for human life and for the economic sectors. The new technologies have applications in the different dimensions of the citizens’ daily routines, from the transport to health cares in the hospitals. This technological development allows also improvements in the performance of economic activities, allowing better productivity and efficiency in the diverse operations of the production processes. The digital transition in the Era 4.0 is another step in this evolution, with interesting perspectives for artificial intelligence in agriculture inside the frameworks of smart regions. Nonetheless, this transition for Agriculture 4.0 and smart regions is only possible with adequate internet systems. From this perspective, this research intends to assess the computers and internet access worldwide and analyse how these variables are interrelated with other sectorial and regional indicators. For that, data from the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) database were considered for the last years. This statistical information was explored through approaches from the convergence theory. The main findings show the importance of the digital transition for human welfare and sustainability.

Acknowledgments: This work is funded by National Funds through the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., within the scope of the project Refª UIDB/00681/2020. This research is also funded by the Enovo company. This study was carried out under the international project “Agriculture 4.0: Current reality, potentialities and policy proposals” (CERNAS-IPV/2022/008). Furthermore we would like to thank the CERNAS Research Centre and the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu for their support.