Focus
Creativity design and Innovation are key elements for sustaining the competitive advantages of firms in a global economy. The growing demand for innovative products that respond to the discerning consumer’s desire for aesthetics and quality has put creativity and design at the forefront as new drivers of innovative products and services. Italian companies that are able to create a new link between craftsmanship and industrial production are more innovative and competitive, especially those producing Made in Italy wares, such as the luxury sectors of fashion and design. The Italian know-how has become the cornerstone for Italian growth.
Goals
The research is analysed from two main perspectives:
- Territory and industrial Districts: point out the key factors that can sustain and foster the transformation of Italian industrial districts from manufacturing to creative clusters and how territory can guarantee a competitive advantage to firms
- Firms and network of firms: processes and strategies that firms put in place in order to innovate their products by investing in design and creativity. Innovation is the result of complex activities taking place inside single firms as well as in firms’ networks. The research wants to outline how firms create value using design and creativity to sustain product innovation.
Creativity and "Made in Italy" sector
Today there is a new link between craftsmanship and industrial production; it describes an important step for the knowledge economy. The theme of creativity was a classic research topic of the last decade and since the beginning of the 2000s has highlighted a new way to innovation, which cannot only be the technological research.
The emphasis on craftsmanship and the new awareness that doing and thinking must be securely bound together is an economic advantages for the Made in Italy sector. For a long time we thought that the whole economy was immaterial as if innovation and creativity were a dimension of thought. Today we become increasingly aware that to be creative and innovative you have to do things. Do is a way to think.
Italian companies more innovative and competitive, particularly in the area of Made in Italy production, are those where, in addition to a management capacity, there is an element of characterization which is a space where imagination and creation are key factors for the innovation. The real competitive advantage is a model that have in itself industrial capacity for customization. The Italian know-how is the heritage for the Italian growth.
