Thesis title: The supporting role of public institutions for firm’s digital and green transition: empirical insights from Italy
The objectives of the thesis were the following: i) studying if and for what types of family firms - by differentiating those run by family managers from those run by external managers - public institutions foster digital transition (business models 4.0 innovation) also considering the connections with the University under the theoretical framework of the Triple Helix; ii) studying if and how public institutions foster the green transition (eco-innovation) under the Institutional pressure theory, also investigating if this role of public institutions geographically differs according to the literature highlighting that culture and socio-economic factors differing across regions can influence sustainability corporate strategies; iii) studying if and to what extent public institutions support firm’s resilience in the post Covid-19 shock by fostering the twin transition, by adopting, on one hand, the conceptualization of resilience defined as the firm’s recovery capacity from a change or shock and, on the other hand, the strands of literature referred to the effects of digitalization and eco-innovation on firm’s performance. To achieve these objectives, we conducted diverse empirical analysis using the results of some surveys on statistical representative samples of Italian manufacturing firms.