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Smart Specialization and Sustainability

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2019) | Viewed by 6984

Special Issue Editor

Department of Economics and Statistics "Cognetti de Martiis", University of Turin & (BRICK) Collegio Carlo Alberto, Turin, Italy
Interests: economics of innovation and new technology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The accelerated globalization of product markets triggers the radical transformation of the economic systems of trading partners and questions their economic and social sustainability. The search for a new role in the division of labor calls attention on the high levels of heterogeneity and variety of their regional factor markets and the major opportunities provided by the consequent pecuniary externalities. Smart specialization consists in: i) the identification of rare and cheap intermediary inputs, both tangible and intangible in local factor markets; ii) the appreciation of hidden and unexploited complementarities; iii) the valorization of localized knowledge based upon learning processes; iv) the introduction of biased technological change, that is able to increase the technological congruence of the production process increasing the intensive use of inputs that are locally abundant, v) the diversification of incumbents in related activities that enable to take advantage of proximity in the regional and product space, and vi) the dynamics of entrepreneurship able to discover the competitive strength of the unique availability of cheap and abundant inputs. At the firm level smart specialization strategies lead to integrated glocal value chains that are able to valorize the heterogeneity of local factor markets with the variety of global product markets within general purpose platforms. At the policy level, the smart specialization approach enables to better integrate the centralized top-down and decentralized public interventions of regional, industrial, knowledge, development and innovation policies.

Prof. Cristiano Antonelli
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • factor markets
  • hidden complementaries
  • pecuniary externalities
  • localized knowledge
  • directed technological change
  • technological congruence
  • related diversification
  • entrepreneurship
  • general purpose platforms
  • growth strategy
  • integrated economic policy

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 855 KiB  
Article
Knowledge-Intensive Entrepreneurship and S3: Conceptualizing Strategies for Sustainability
by Ethan Gifford and Maureen McKelvey
Sustainability 2019, 11(18), 4824; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11184824 - 04 Sep 2019
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 3254
Abstract
Smart specialization strategies represent public policy initiatives to develop regions based on new combinations of knowledge and industries. The aim of this article is to enrich the theory and practice of smart specialization strategies (S3) by integrating the conceptualization of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship (KIE). [...] Read more.
Smart specialization strategies represent public policy initiatives to develop regions based on new combinations of knowledge and industries. The aim of this article is to enrich the theory and practice of smart specialization strategies (S3) by integrating the conceptualization of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship (KIE). We propose that knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship is necessary in order to specify how public and private support of KIE firms can be beneficial to develop new knowledge relevant to the fulfillment of specific sustainable development goals. We did so by further developing a conceptual model of innovation governance routines by integrating sustainability goals. We also illustrated our conceptual model through two case studies from the Swedish maritime cluster. By extrapolating from the combination of the conceptual model and two case studies, we make three propositions about the different strategic roles that KIE firms can play within a broader S3 policy setting, and in such a way as to promote sustainability-related outcomes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Specialization and Sustainability)
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15 pages, 280 KiB  
Article
The Spin-Off as an Instrument of Sustainable Development: Incentives for Creating an Academic USO
by Francisco-Isidoro Vega-Gomez, F. Javier Miranda, Antonio Chamorro Mera and Jesús Pérez Mayo
Sustainability 2018, 10(11), 4266; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10114266 - 19 Nov 2018
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3274
Abstract
In recent years, universities and public authorities have increasingly focused on creating USOs (university spin-offs) as a method of transferring research results to society and of achieving the sustainable development sought by European institutions. However, the success of these policies depends on the [...] Read more.
In recent years, universities and public authorities have increasingly focused on creating USOs (university spin-offs) as a method of transferring research results to society and of achieving the sustainable development sought by European institutions. However, the success of these policies depends on the appeal of creating a USO for academics. The aim of this research was to examine the relative importance of certain factors that may boost academic entrepreneurship and, therefore, to guide public policies. To do this, a qualitative study was carried out among 42 researchers from Spanish universities and research centres to understand their motivations for creating a USO. A quantitative study was then carried out, based on Conjoint Analysis and with a sample of 1726 academics, to identify the relative importance of six conditions that influence their predisposition to become entrepreneurs. This technique is seldom used in the field of entrepreneurship and, to the best of our knowledge, has never been used before to analyse academic entrepreneurship. The results of the study show that personal economic benefit is clearly the factor that heightens the intention to create a USO the most. Research benefit, CV benefit, support programmes, teaching reduction and personal cost are of lesser importance. The study also concludes that there are few differences according to the academic’s profile. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Specialization and Sustainability)
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