Un approccio integrato per l'implementazione di politiche di crescita della produttività in Italia
Author(s)
Moschetti, Arianna
Date Issued
March 28, 2011
Type
Doctoral Thesis
Abstract
Technological development results in a “reshaping” and, sometimes, a complete change within
existing productive structures. The knowledge brought about by technological innovations, to be
incorporated need a wealth of suitable structural procedures: for this reason the evolution between
the technological development and the structural change is getting narrower. The coordination and
management of the sinergies and feedbacks among the different aspects of the innovative activity
becomes a line of strategic action within the companies to obtain superior economic performances.
The strict complementarity between investments in tangible goods (new technologies) and
intangibles ones ( organization structure), which brings about a better productivity growth, is the
pivot of the new approach to these thematics.
The complementarity hypothesis in the innovative processes is particularly important with the
advent of the ICT technologies, with their general purpose technology, their widely pervesive
characters and the associated requirements of a knowledge at a higher contexct. (Breshnahan et al.
2002, Brynjolfsson et al., 2000, Brynjolfsson et al., 2002, Bugamelli e Pagano 2004). The
penetration of these technologies in the productive frame favours the development of the different
complementary inputs and allows several flows of “secondary” innovations, which creates new
products and processes, bringing more or less long sructural adjustments which include the business
reorganization and to carry out work documentation at high performance or High Performance
Workplace Practices (Breshanan e Trajtenberg 1995). The latter can be explained in a series of
actions which have in the human resources empowerment its central element (unit) and which are
reliased with the reduction of the hierarchical levels of employment at general responsibility level,
bringing in the employees in active running roles, in working as a team with many duties and
competence, in the methods of valuing performance and suggesions from below and lastly in good
industial relations.
La concettualizzazione dell’organizzazione come un insieme di elementi profondamente eterogenei
ma complementari risale a Milgrom e Roberts (1990 e 1995) che, dapprima, ne forniscono una
definizione basata sulle proprietà di supermodularità della funzione di redditività dell’impresa, e poi
modellano il raggruppamento delle pratiche risultanti dalla complementarità tra innovazioni
tecnologiche e cambiamenti organizzativi. Implicita nella definizione di complementarità è l’idea
che fare di più in una certa attività non impedisce di fare di più in un’altra, contrariamente alla
teoria tradizionale dell’impresa in cui l’ipotesi di rendimenti di scala decrescenti può porre dei
vincoli alla possibilità di incremento simultaneo delle variabili di scelta dell’impresa.
The notion of the organisation as a collection of elements extremely different, but complementary,
goes back to Milgrom and Roberts (1990 e 1995) who, at first, gave a definition based on the
properties of modular dimensions of the firm income capacity and then they (the set of elements)
put together the resulting documentation due to the complementarity between technological
innovations and structural changes. Implicit to the complementariety definition, is the idea that to
do more in a certain activity does not exclude to do more in another one; this is to the contrary to
the firm traditional theory where the hypothesis of decreasing range efficiency can limit the possible
simultaneous increase of the firm variable choices.
The empiric analysis have put in evidence that often technological and structural innovetions are
taken together and that both influence the firms performances (Black e Lynch 2000, Bresnahan,
Brynjolfsson e Hitt 2002, Brynjolfsson, Lindbeck e Snower 1996, Malone et al. 1994, Pini 2006,
Pini et al. 2010).
In our country the empiric studies on the complementarity within the innovative fields are still few.
The major econometric works realised, based on limited samples at provincial level are ascribed to
Cristini et al. (2003 e 2008), Leoni (2008), Mazzanti et al. (2006), Piva et al. (2005), Pini et al.
(2010). The integration within the ICT technologies, stuctural changes, work habits at high
performance on work productivity are aspects investigated insufficiently even on the studies already
mentioned. This is the specific subject we propose to examine.
At first we have reconstructed the theoric and empiric argument on the driver role aiming to obtain
performances better than the the ICT technologies, stuctural developments, work habits, each taken
individually. In a second phase we have verified the existence of virtual bonds between the
innovative activities and labour productivity putting in evidence the complementariety within the
innovative areas. For this reason we carried out an empiric analysis using two main sources: IX and
X investigation on manufactury firms of Mediocredito Centrale (now Capitalia) and the Community
Innovation Survey (Cis-4) by Istat. These last data are put together with the ones of active plc
(public limited companies) balances from 2001 to 2008 with structural characteristics according to
Companies Register (Asia), foreign trade data (Coe) and employment (Oros). By following the
productivity approach we searched complementarity bonds, achieved with software STATA 10, a
range of changeble regressions, using production activities related to innovative strategies and their
interactions. The samples, based on the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) technique, are different
according to the type of data: available with Mediocredito data, we valued a production function of
the Cobb-Douglas type; for the Cis-4 was valued a sample at fixed results using a production
function of Tanslog type.
If going back to the Cobb-Douglas function appears again in the international literature, especially
to value the consequences of single innovative strategies on labour productivity (Black e Lynch
2001, 2004, Breshnan et al. 2002, Gera e Gu 2004), the use of a Translog funtion, is chosen
absolutely, without going back to literature when referring to the object of the analysis. From this
point of view, we were influenced by Amess’ (2003) work, where were valued the results of the
management buyouts on the long term efficiency of manifacturing industies in Great Britain.
Besides we tested the presence of complementarity by using the analysis of the differences based on
performance, by dividing the firms according to their different utilization of innovative strategies.
An aspect to take into consideration is that, our analysis carried out on the integrated Cis-4 panel
utilise a rather special and large sample which represents the Italian industrial reality, a fact, as
already mentioned, not common in the studies undertaken in our Country on this subject.
The results obtained from the analysis of both samples are in line with the principal Italian empiric
studies (Cristini et al. 2003 e 2008, Mazzanti et al. 2006, Pini 2006, Pini et al. 2010), widely
confirming the hipothesys of a positive impact within the three innovative strategies on the
companies increase of the producteve performances, even if singularly employed by the business.
As regards the examination of a complementarity connection within the three innovative areas,
emerges clearly an additive effect on its added value using the analysis of the differentials and
approching the super modularity of Milgrom e Roberts (1990, 1995).
The most important aspect of these results is that some variables become particularly significative
when the firms use them simultaneously: this is particularly valid at educational level and
partnership in R&D. The activity at educational level is positively associated to ICT technologies
and structural innovetions, understood as the setting up of partnership for R&D.
In addition from the analysis of Mediocredito data emerges, according to the skill biased technical
change theory, a tendency by the companies, which have made significant techinical-structural
changes to look for employees with higher qualification levels (Berman, Bound e Griliches1994,
Breshnan et al. 2002, Draca, Sadun e Van Reenen 2006).
Additional information
Dottorato di ricerca in Economia e territorio
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