Research

TeDIS carries out applied research activities on innovation and competitiveness of enterprises and SMEs in the industrial districts.
The centre develops the following main research perspectives:

Industrial districts, technologies and network

A core TeDIS research area is the study of Industrial Districts and SMEs in the local manufacturing contexts and in particular of their approach towards Network Technologies, Internationalization processes and Design. The objective of the research is to analyse the level of convergence between the district economic model of development and ICT opportunities.

Through its activities, the most important is the TeDIS Survey, a permanent research program that analyses the diffusion of network technologies and the most challenging evolutionary trends within the Italian Industrial Districts according to a quantitative approach. TeDIS SUrvey was launched in 1999, monitoring more than 43 clusters all around the country.

SMEs, local clusters and internationalization

The process of SME's internationalization is the second relevant TeDIS research area of interest. The goal of the TeDIS study program is to describe and to analyze the internationalization trends of Italian SMEs and local manufacturing systems within the global economy scenario.
The TeDIS program is based on innovative research methodologies that couple macro-economic analyses, surveys and case studies together.

Starting from 2008, together with Duke University's Center on Globalization, a series of workshop are held annually, alternately in Venice and in Durham. The workshops will enhance the expertise on the themes of global value chains and competitiveness achieved in the last years by the CGGC and on the empirical research of Italian Industrial Districts carried out by TeDIS. The workshops highlight the key theories on global value chains, industrial districts, and local clusters, and take into consideration the participants' ongoing research as well as new research projects.

Creativity, Design and Innovation

This research area has been promoted since 2003. Creativity is a key element in order to sustain the firm's competitive advantage in a global economy. New trends in consumption and market are reshaping the competition in favour of a growing need for innovative product close to the requests in terms of aesthetics and quality coming from customers.
From this point of view, creativity and design are the new drivers to innovate product and services combining traditional R&D activities and aesthetics, style, communication value.

The research uses quantitative (in conjunction with TeDIS Survey) as well as qualitative methods (focus groups, interviews, case studies).

Innovation in Public Administration, e-government and e-democracy

In the last years TeDIS Center has deepened the topic of innovation in Public Administration, and in particular the role of  Information and Communication Tehnologies in supporting strategies and activities covered by public institutions, agencies and single offices, both at national and at local level. The introduction and upgrade of technologies can also sustain the relation among different institutions and the dialogue and interaction with citizens, enterpirses and associations.

This area comprehend the following topics:

- e-government

- e-democracy

- technologies and new communication models for Culture and Tourism

TeDIS Center has been partner of a large number of projects leaded by Local Institutions, whose aims are the research, modelization, experimentation and diffusion of a new use of ICT in the public sector.

Logistics

Logistics is a growing area of research, focused on supply chain management in local contexts (industrial districts) and global economy.
The social and economic development of Italian and European countries relies on the ability of SMEs to face changes brought about by global, regional and local threats.
In this scenario, logistic represents a strategic leverage to compete on global scale since it can ensure the delocalisation of production phases, higher service standards and closer enterprises’ relationships with customers and suppliers.
Nevertheless SMEs’ interconnection to logistic networks is not taken for granted: to compete in terms of costs and service quality, SMEs should be equipped with logistic interfaces which can reduce the information gap between them and specialized logistic operators.

Research aims at identifying new opportunities of economic growth at local and international level based on innovative logistics services.