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Abstract
This paper examines the evolution of regional innovation policy in Emilia-Romagna and Valencia, two regions with similar economic features that implemented close innovation policies in the 1970s and 1980s. We investigate whether their similarities have led to parallel targets, policy tools and governance developments. We show that innovation policy in both regions suffered from the effects of privatization, budget constraints and changes to manufacturing during the 1990s and we highlight the consequences. Although Emilia-Romagna experienced deeper changes to its innovation policy, privatizations and/or the replacement of public funds promoted commercial approaches and induced market failures in both regions. The worst effects of these policies were the implementation of less-risky innovation projects, the shift towards extra-regional projects and markets, and the favouring of large firms.
Acknowledgements
First, we would like to thank to the interviewees for their valuable collaboration, guidance and kindness. Particularly, we desire to acknowledge the inspiration and support of Antonio Rico-Gil, former director of IMPIVA, who unfortunately passed away in February 2013. In addition, we would also like to thank the two reviewers for their accurate and detailed comments.
Notes
1. Technology Institutes in Valencia and real service centers in Emilia-Romagna offer advanced services mainly to SME.
2. Italian and Spanish statistics are calculated slightly differently, therefore, these figures should be interpreted with some caution.
3. Emilia-Romagna also hosts automobile, motorcycle and biomedical firms.
4. Since the early 1990s regional government has been dominated by center-left coalitions.
5. Emilia Romagna Valorizzazione Economica del Territorio (Economic Upgradings of Emilia Romagna's Territory).
6. IMPIVA also was responsible for the setting up of four Business Innovation Centres and a technology park. We focus on TI since they are more similar to the Italian RSC.
7. The initial TI network consisted of one institute related to shoes (INESCOP) and a few technology support units related to wood and furniture (Tecmade) and ceramics and tiles (Ceramics Technical Institute, University of Valencia). The precedents of technology centers in Spain are the industrial research associations (see the assessment of these associations in Braña et al., Citation1984). For the Valencian Community, INESCOP, created in 1971, can be considered as the institute that served as a reference for the centers launched from the second half of the 1980s. Its organizational structure (involvement of firms) and functional (provision of services) provided the basis for the constitution of the network of technology institutes.
8. Available data show that, in the 1980s, 11 ERVET centres employed a total of 105 workers, i.e. an average of 10 per centre, which makes it unlikely that they were able to offer an effective service in an extensive industrial area such as Emilia-Romagna.
9. Belussi (Citation2003, p. 246) suggests the impact of policies related to the provision of “real” services has been exaggerated; he agrees with Brusco and Pezzini (Citation2008) that intermediate institutions, such as service centers, have fulfilled a learning centre role for their members, but even in these cases the institutions were established without a clear agenda.
10. Note that Brusco (Citation1993) suggests that government intervention was limited to about 5 years and proposed the introduction of user fees to contribute to the self-financing of the RSC. There were also other reasons for the crisis in ERVET related to changes in the regional economy that occurred in the 1980s and the emergence of new business hierarchies that replaced the traditional SME in relation to their size and marketing and management skills (Bellini & Pasquini, Citation1998).
11. Some initial opponents subsequently admitted to misunderstanding the rationale for this regional government policy: the terms technological innovation, product differentiation, design, trademark, quality and internationalization were “too” new for many firms.
12. In the regions with which we are concerned, large company perception differs from what we have observed in other countries and regions. In the European Union the difference in size to distinguish SMEs from large companies is generally 250 employees but such limit does not seem appropriate in territories like Valencia, in which only 0.13% of the companies have more than 200 employees (average 2000–2006), while those with less than 20 employees account for 97.2% of the companies in the region.
13. Such is the case of CERMET in Emilia-Romagna or of INESCOP and AINIA in Valencia. In Valencia, the companies associated to TI amounted to 68% in 1998 and only to 55% in 2010, with the remaining located in other Spanish regions. This last year, only 51% of associated firms from Valencia were SMEs (ACCIDi, Citationseveral years).