scholarly journals Teleworking during the Covid-19 Crisis in Italy: Evidence and Tentative Interpretations

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2147
Author(s):  
Oksana Tokarchuk ◽  
Roberto Gabriele ◽  
Giorgio Neglia
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Organizational Characteristics ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Exogenous Shock ◽  
Final Sample ◽  
Organizational Ability ◽  
Italian Manufacturing Firms

The paper investigates the determinants and discusses the consequences of the switch towards Italian high-tech firms’ teleworking due to the COVID-19 crisis. Teleworking is important to reduce traffic congestion and increase the sustainability of cities, and as such, it is important to understand what helps the successful transition of firms to telework. COVID-19 crisis represents a natural experiment that allows studying organizational ability to adapt to unexpected environmental changes rapidly. The study is based on a survey conducted in mid-April 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown among Italian manufacturing firms’ managers in high-tech sectors. The final sample is composed of 179 observations. Using path analysis, we model the organizational e-readiness as a mediator of the firm’s technological and organizational characteristics in the rate of adoption of teleworking. Teleworking is also modeled as dependent on human resources and from the exogenous shock represented by COVID-19 lockdown. While teleworking has been imposed by COVID-19, organizational readiness plays a key role in shaping the rate of teleworking adoption during emergencies.

Innovation performance of Italian manufacturing firms

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 428-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio de Oliveira Paula ◽  
Jorge Ferreira da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Structural Equation ◽  
Manufacturing Industry ◽  
Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Innovation Performance ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Content Type ◽  
External Knowledge ◽  
Italian Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Internal Knowledge

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explain how internal and external sources of knowledge influence the innovation performance (IP) in Italian manufacturing firms and how different these relationships are for low-technology (LT) and high-technology (HT) firms. Design/methodology/approach The study proposed a model relating external knowledge, internal knowledge and IP that was tested using Bayesian structural equation modeling with a sample of Italian manufacturing firms of Community Innovation Survey 2010. It was run separately for high-tech firms (including HT and medium-HT aggregations of manufacturing industries of NACE Rev. 2) and low-tech firms (including LT and medium-LT aggregations). Findings The results showed a difference between high-tech and low-tech manufacturing firms in Italy. The investments to leverage internal knowledge sources are important for high-techs and not significant for low-techs. On the other hand, the level of external KS improves significantly the IP of low-techs and has a negative effect for high-techs. The level of absorptive capacity is central to improve the positive effect of the external knowledge on the IP for all firms, but it is still underdeveloped. Originality/value The effects of 2008 economic crisis hit the Italian manufacturing industry specifically hard and are still felt. Innovation is a solution for firms’ growth and Italy is considered a below-average innovator country in Europe. The study could identify important gaps in Italian manufacturing firms that hinder their innovative performance improvement.

scholarly journals Finance and R&D Investment: A Panel Study of Italian Manufacturing Firms

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianna Succurro ◽  
Giuseppina Damiana Costanzo
Keyword(s):  
Cash Flow ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Bank Loans ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Accounting Data ◽  
Internal Cash Flow ◽  
Business Financing ◽  
Italian Manufacturing Firms ◽  
D Investment

<p>The purpose of this study is to examine the role of different sources of finance on R&amp;D investment decisions in Italian manufacturing firms. Accounting data, taken from the Aida database, are collected over the 2006-2013 years. The empirical evidence shows that the availability of external financing primarily affects the decision to engage in R&amp;D activity rather than R&amp;D intensity. Internal cash flow, on the contrary, does affect both the likelihood of whether firms will undertake any R&amp;D and the size of R&amp;D spending. This impact is strongly significant for financially weaker firms, SMEs and high-tech firms. Due to greater asymmetric information problems, small innovative firms mainly rely on cash-flow to finance innovative projects. Since bank loans and other forms of debt are not well suited for R&amp;D-intensive activities, our study would contribute to the debate whether it might be socially desirable to incentivize alternative small business financing options, still limited in Italy.</p>

scholarly journals Accelerating Green Innovation Performance from the Relations of Network Potential, Absorptive Capacity, and Environmental Turbulence

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7765
Author(s):  
Shuizheng Song ◽  
Md Altab Hossin ◽  
Xiaohua Yin ◽  
Md Sajjad Hosain
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Absorptive Capacity ◽  
Bootstrap Method ◽  
Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Innovation Performance ◽  
Mediation Effect ◽  
Environmental Turbulence ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Green Innovation ◽  
The Relationship

The demand for sustainable development and the advantages of industries are expediting over time with the triggering of green innovation performance (GIP). Improving a firm’s GIP, especially in manufacturing industries, can accelerate green development and mitigate the global-concerned environmental issues. Thus, to investigate GIP from its antecedent factors, we delineate the relationship between network potential, absorptive capacity, environmental turbulence, and GIP based on social network theory, organizational learning theory, and contingency theory. We tested our hypotheses based on 233 sets of questionnaire surveys from high-tech manufacturing firms in China through deploying the hierarchical regression and bootstrap method. Our empirical findings reveal that the network potential dimensions, including network position centrality (NPC), network structure richness (NSR), and network relationship closeness (NRC), significantly positively impacted the GIP. The absorptive capacity (AC) partially mediated the relationship between the network potential dimensions and GIP. Environmental turbulence (ET) as an essential mechanism not only positively moderated the relationship between AC and GIP but also enhanced the AC mediation effect. These findings indicate that manufacturing firms should continue to improve network potential and AC and respond rapidly to changes in the external environment to enhance GIP, consequently contributing to the sustainable development of the economy.

scholarly journals Relationship lending and the use of trade credit: the role of relational capital and private information

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierluigi Murro ◽  
Valentina Peruzzi
Keyword(s):  
Private Information ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Trade Credit ◽  
Banking Regulation ◽  
Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Soft Information ◽  
Relational Capital ◽  
Relationship Lending ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Italian Manufacturing Firms

AbstractUsing a unique sample of Italian manufacturing firms, we investigate the impact of relationship lending on firms’ use of trade credit. We find that firms maintaining close and long-lasting relationships with their main banks are associated with higher amounts of trade credit extended by suppliers. This result is robust to alternative measures of trade credit and relationship lending, and to different estimation techniques. We also analyze the mechanisms driving the association between relationship lending and the use of trade credit. Regression results suggest that the positive link between accounts payable and relationship lending is especially significant for firms that use to provide soft information to their lenders and for companies with greater relational abilities.Plain English Summary The existence of close and long lasting lending relationships positively affects the amount of trade credit manufacturing firms receive from their suppliers. By relying on the Survey on Italian Manufacturing Firms, we show that the positive link between relationship lending and the use of trade credit is driven by two channels: private information and relational capital. In a policy perspective, our findings reveal a need for banking regulation and supervision to encompass banking business models in evaluating banks. The current approach might not be suitable for local banks investing in soft information acquisition and could weaken SMEs’ chances to receive both bank financing and trade credit from suppliers. Moreover, from a managerial point of view, our results uncover the relevance of firms’ ability to create strong relationships with banks, suppliers, and other companies that may help alleviating financial constraints.

Product Resynthesis as a Reverse Logistics Strategy for an Optimal Closed-Loop Supply Chain

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chinmay Sane ◽  
Conrad S. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Reverse Logistics ◽  
Closed Loop ◽  
Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Third Party ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Closed Loop Supply Chain ◽  
Supply Chain Strategy ◽  
Logistics Strategy ◽  
Original Product

With continued emphasis on sustainability-driven design, reverse logistics is emerging as a vital competitive supply chain strategy for many of the global high-tech manufacturing firms. Various original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and multi-product manufacturing firms are enhancing their reverse logistics strategies in order to establish an optimal closed-loop supply chain through which they can introduce refurbished variants of their products back into the market. While a refurbished product strategy helps to mitigate environmental impact challenges as well as provide additional economic benefits, it is limited to an existing product market, possibly a subset of the existing market, and fails to commercialize/target new markets. In addition to refurbishing, the alternatives available for utilizing End-Of-Life (EOL) products are currently restricted to recycling and permanent disposal. In this work, the authors propose employing a new EOL option called “resynthesis” that utilizes existing waste from EOL products in a novel way. This is achieved through the synthesis of assemblies/subassemblies across multiple domains. The “newly” synthesized product can then be incorporated into the dynamics of a closed-loop supply chain. The proposed methodology enables OEMs to not only offer refurbished products as part of their reverse logistics strategy, but also provide them with resynthesized product concepts that can be used to expand to new/emerging markets. The proposed methodology provides a general framework that includes OEMs (manufacturers of the original product), retailers (distributors of the original product and collectors of the EOL products) and third-party firms (managers of the EOL products) as part of a closed-loop supply chain strategy. The proposed methodology is compared with the existing methodologies in the literature wherein a third-party supplies the OEM only with refurbished products and supplies products unsuitable for refurbishing to another firm(s) for recycling/disposal. A case study involving a multi-product electronics manufacturer is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed methodology.

Organizational and economic essence of management of the development of high-tech enterprises

2021 ◽  
pp. 28-35
Author(s):  
В.Е. Барковская ◽  
М.С. Абрашкин
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
External Environment ◽  
Organizational Characteristics ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Management Process ◽  
High Susceptibility ◽  
Organizational System ◽  
Production Development ◽  
Knowledge Intensive

В статье исследованы подсистемы управления наукоёмким предприятием с позиций методологии и процесса управления. Отражены результаты исследования, включающие обоснование введения в научный оборот понятия «управление развитием наукоёмкого предприятия», под которым следует понимать управленческие воздействия на наукоёмкое предприятие как организационную систему, направленные на развитие отдельных подсистем и элементов, их взаимосвязей для качественного роста организационных характеристик и коммерциализацию производственного освоения результатов НИОКР. Концептуализирована организационно-экономическая сущность наукоёмких предприятий, предполагающая формирование научно-производственных отношений, обуславливающая их идентификацию как экономических субъектов с высокими инновационными свойствами и высокой восприимчивостью к состояниям внешней среды. The article examines the subsystems of management of a knowledge-intensive enterprise from the standpoint of the methodology and management process. The results of the study are reflected, including the rationale for the introduction into scientific circulation of the concept of «management of the development of a knowledge-intensive enterprise», which should be understood as managerial influences on a knowledge-intensive enterprise as an organizational system aimed at the development of individual subsystems and elements, their interconnections for the qualitative growth of organizational characteristics and commercialization of production development R&D results. The organizational and economic essence of science-intensive enterprises is conceptualized, which implies the formation of scientific and industrial relations, which determines their identification as economic entities with high innovative properties and high susceptibility to conditions of the external environment.

scholarly journals Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Digital Era: The Cascading Effect through Operations

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maheshkumar P. Joshi ◽  
Ravi Kathuria ◽  
Sidhartha Das
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Corporate Entrepreneurship ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Cascading Effect ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
New Research ◽  
Technological Intensity ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Sequential Relationship

This study examines a firm’s response to perceived changes in the environment, such as the growth of the digital era, at different levels of a firm—beginning with the adoption of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) down to process renewal (PR). We further explore if the technological intensity of a firm, high-tech or low-tech intensity, influences its choice of mode for organisational renewal (OR)—use of internal competence or outside acquisition—to exploit the opportunities created by the digital era. Using survey data from 170 firms, we test a sequential relationship among environmental changes (growth of the digital era), CE, OR and finally PR that involves operating procedures at the functional level. We conclude by identifying the study’s interdisciplinary contributions, which open new research avenues in the field of CE.

Globalization and U.S. Corporate Tax Policies: Evidence from Import Competition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Chen ◽  
Chen Lin ◽  
Xiang Shao
Keyword(s):  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Transfer Pricing ◽  
Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Import Competition ◽  
Tax Policies ◽  
Corporate Tax ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
Trade Dispute ◽  
China Trade ◽  
Tax Reduction

This paper studies how globalization affects the corporate tax policies of U.S. manufacturing firms. Using U.S.-granting China Permanent Normal Trade Relations as a quasi-natural experiment, we find a significant increase in tax reduction activities for firms facing higher exposure to Chinese imports. The effect is more pronounced for firms with higher managerial slack. We also find that the effect is stronger for firms in less diversified products market and faster changing industries. We also show that U.S. firms facing higher Chinese import competition are more likely to engage in other tax-motivated activities: acquisition of subsidiaries in low-tax regions and suspected transfer pricing. Furthermore, we explore the 2017 tax cut and the recent U.S.-China trade dispute and find that firms engage less in tax reduction activities after the 2017 tax cut and after the tariff increase for Chinese imports. This paper was accepted by Kay Giesecke, finance.

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