ENEF2020 17th European Network on the Economics of the Firm (ENEF)

“Innovation and Firms  within the New Industrial Paradigm of the Digital Transformation”

January 21-22, 2021

Department of Economics, University of Bergamo, Bergamo

While the dramatic shock brought about by the Covid19 is currently attracting academic scholars and policymakers, the topical issues and mega-trends that were boiling down before its arrival keep on unfolding and still require great attention, though in a transformed scenario. Among these, the unceasing introduction of innovations continues to be the major cause of structural and organizational change of socio-economic systems. In particular, radically new technologies have the disruptive power to open brand new scenarios of economic development. After a new innovative wave shatters a system, a new productive paradigm emerges, along with winners and losers. The last technological wave hitting developed and, though to a different extent, developing and less developed countries, is the so-called “Industry 4.0”.

The diffusion of new technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, additive manufacturing and internet of things is having a massive impact on the organization of production. Unlike in previous industrial revolutions, automation extends to cognitive and mental tasks, which redefines the balance between job-destruction and job-creation and the skill-bias of automation. The widespread availability of data and the exponentially increasing power and the decreasing cost of processing them are radically redefining the nature of the informational problems in organizations and firms in particular.

New technologies such as machine learning, AI and data analytics are not only likely to produce a major impact on labour demand and markets. They also heavily affect how firms make decisions, how they are organized, how they innovate and urge us to rethink our theoretical constructs about innovation and the firm in the new industrial paradigm. Can existing theories explain organizational phenomena also in an age of extremely cheap information?

By contributing to increasing our still scarce knowledge of the previously delineated set of research issues and other related ones, the ENEF2020 workshop focuses on theoretical, empirical and policy analyses of its main theme: “Innovation and Firms within the New Industrial Paradigm of the Digital Transformation”.

Instructions to participate:

The Workshop will take place on the Microsoft Teams conference platform. Prospected partecipants are asked to confirm their participation to the workshop, by writing an email of registration indicating their corresponding email address, the one they use to access their Teams account, in case they have one.  Registrations must be sent no later than January 18, to the following email address: 17enef@gmail.com. We would like to remind that the registration is completely free.   

Each indicated participant will receive the invitation to join the virtual room with an individual email in the following days.

During presentations, participants are asked to mute their microphones when not speaking. Moreover, we encourage to use the chat during presentations: one of the organizers will take care of managing questions and comments.

During lunch and break times, the virtual rooms will remain open in order to offer the chance of a free and informal environment for interactions among participants.

Instructions for presentation and discussion:

Each presenter will have 20 (at maximum) minutes available to present her/his paper, followed by 5 minutes of discussion and other 5 minutes for questions and replies. Each presenter is asked to discuss the following paper in the program, and the first paper will be discussed by the last presenter.

Organizers

Scientific committee:

Elena Cefis (University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy), Albert Jolink (SKEMA Business School, Paris, France), Jackie Kraft (Université Côté d'Azur, CNRS-GREDEG, Nice, France), Sandro Montresor (Gran Sasso Science Institute - GSSI, L'Aquila, Italy), Eva Niesten (SKEMA Business School, Paris, France)

Organizing committee:

Cristina Bettinelli (University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy),  Elena Cefis (University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy), Riccardo Leoncini (University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy), Luigi Marengo (LUISS, Rome, Italy), Matteo Tubiana (University of Bergamo,Bergamo, Italy).