The paper examines the fragmentation of production from the view-point of industrialised countries. From this perspective, the following questions are addressed: how do local systems evolve in the process of de-localisation of productions? Which are the short term and long term effects to be...

Public e-services are a broad and growing research field in which scholars and practitioners from different domains are involved. However, the increasing attention devoted to public e-services only partially captures the extreme variety of aspects and implications of the diffusion of information...

Using data on 1,176 Italian municipalities in 2005, this paper discusses a number of factors associated with the development of a particular type of innovative activities, namely e-government services supplied by local public administrations (PAs). We find that municipalities which got involved...

This paper examines the changing role of multinationals in the global generation, adoption and transfer of innovation. It is argued that the combination of traditional asset exploiting objectives with increasing asset seeking activities entails a transition of multinationals towards a double...

The idea that distance may hinder cross-border economic activities has a long tradition in both international trade and international business studies. And the need to consider distance as a multifaceted concept including both spatial and institutional features has also been increasingly...

This paper focuses on the links between labor market institutions and offshoring, with specific reference to the role of codetermination in shaping the international operations of German firms. We use case studies to illustrate how works councils deal with three important aspects of offshoring...

During the past two decades a big effort has been made in exploring the complementarities between information and communications technology (ICT) adoption, investment in human capital and organizational change, and how these affect economic performance. Such investigations, however, remain...

Public e-services are a broad and growing research field in which scholars and practitioners from different domains are involved. However, the increasing attention devoted to public e-services only partially captures the extreme variety of aspects and implications of the diffusion of information...

It is argued that a new actor is emerging in international business, namely “Social Multinationals”, that is a blend of international rent-creation and pursuit of social objectives. However, it would be misleading to state that the emergence of Social Multinationals will be the natural...

Using data on the adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) by 1947 Italian firms in 2004 and 2005, this paper provides evidence that is consistent with three largely complementary streams of literature on innovation diffusion. First, as suggested by epidemic models, we...