“10th INEKA Conference. Knowledge, Business, and Innovation.
Economies and sustainability of future growth”
11-13 giugno 2019
Università degli Studi di Verona
Via Cantarane, 24 – Verona
La conferenza organizzata dalla Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Knowledge Academy (INEKA) e tenutasi a Verona dall’11 al 13 giugno 2019 ha visto coinvolti centinaia di accademici provenienti da tutto il mondo per trattare i temi dell’innovazione, dell’imprenditorialità, della sostenibilità e della crescita economica.
Durante la conferenza è stato premiato come “Best Paper Award” il lavoro “Innovative startup creation and local contexts” di Barbara Del Bosco, Alice Mazzucchelli, Roberto Chierici e Angelo Di Gregorio. Il riconoscimento è stato consegnato da Salvador Roig, Editor in Chief di International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal.
Abstract:
This paper studies the creation of innovative startups, that is, new enterprises that produce, develop and commercialize innovative goods or services of high technological value. Focusing on specific geographical areas (Italian provinces), the study investigates whether and how innovative startups birth rate is affected by some characteristics of the local context. In particular, it analyzes the impact of local density of universities and research centers, the education level of local population, and the number of incubators in the area. Furthermore, the study tries to understand whether the impact of these contextual factors varies when firms are created by entrepreneurs that have peculiar demographic characteristics: female, young and foreign-born entrepreneurs. Using data regarding the 8,264 innovative startups created in Italy between 2015 and 2018 in 105 Italian provinces, the study hypotheses are tested through a multiple regression analysis that uses as dependent variable the innovative startup birth rates at provincial level. Results regarding the overall sample of innovative startups show the innovative startups birth rate is positively related to education level and to the number of incubators in the area. Moreover, the study highlights that differences in the demographic characteristics of the entrepreneurs correspond to a different relevance of the local contextual factors investigated in fostering innovative startup creation.