LIBRI DI EVILA PIVA

As the world economy battles a global crisis of historical breadth and depth, NTBFs (new technology-based firms) are navigating in rough seas. In fact, the radical changes in the competitive arena triggered by the crisis are prompting NTBFs to change their strategies in order to reorient resources and capabilities. The paper adopts the dynamic capabilities perspective to shed light on two research questions: (i) What is the impact on the growth of an NTBF of its dynamic capability to reorient the firm’s strategies to deal with the crisis? and (ii) What are the precursors of this dynamic capability? The paper develops and tests a set of hypotheses using a unique dataset of Italian NTBFs. The econometric results of our analysis show that such dynamic capabilities have a positive effect on NTBF growth and, moreover, that these are positively correlated with the industry-specific technical work experience of the founders of the NTBFs, the NTBFs’ presence as insiders in the international markets, their forging of technological alliances, and their limited resources.

The study explores the impact of the local endowment of both human and infrastructural capital on the creation of new technology-based firms (NTBFs) in the 103 Italian provinces in the 1996-2005 period. Our empirical results indicate that both human and infrastructural capital have a significant positive effect on NTBFs’ entry rates, although the impacts are different depending on whether the industry is manufacturing or services. More specifically, the impact of human capital is weak on the manufacturing industries, while infrastructural capital plays a key role in services. The results also show the absence of complementary effects between human and infrastructural capital, either in manufacturing industries or in services.