The Evolution of the Italian Industrial System during the last Thirty Years and the Impact of the New Enterprise 4.0 in the Economy of Southern Italy1

Stefano Palermo and Andrea Pomella
Additional contact information
Stefano Palermo: Pegaso Online University, Italy
Andrea Pomella: University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy

from ToKnowPress

Abstract: The development of Enterprise 4.0 opened a very complex, articulated and, in some case, contradictory path towards significant changes of the traditional economic and social structure, where services, manufacturing and ICT are more and more integrated in building a new production and supply model. The European Union fully understood such an issue to be critical by implementing several initiatives and programs, while its Member States activated several tools in order to take part in what has been called the “fourth industrial revolution”. The Italian government launched the Piano Impresa 4.0, the “Enterprise 4.0 Plan”, aiming to define a strategic framework for the national industrial policies, turning the digital transformations industry is currently undergoing into an opportunity for growth and employment, by acting within several specific areas. Therefore Enterprise 4.0 is a topical theme, already making its impact felt on the management and organization of production systems. This is all the more true for a country such as Italy, affected, during the years of the major economic crisis (2007-2014), by a phase featuring both recession and stagnation, with a significant risk for the country to distance itself from the centre of global capitalism. Such a path has been all the more rough for Southern Italy, as its entrance within the new global arena corresponded with the end of the traditional policies of extraordinary intervention, while the Maastricht system Italy joined profoundly changed the traditional forms of interaction between economy and the State. Some changes have been recorded in Italy as a whole during the last three years. In Southern Italy, the engine for such a change has been a deep innovation and widening of production means and tools, whereas industrial policy instruments such as those connected with Industry 4.0 pushed this change forward in the whole of the country. This contribution intends, first and foremost, to analyse the evolution of industrial structures, both in Italy as a whole and in its Southern regions during the last 30 years. The Authors will consider the timeframe starting with the crisis of Fordism as a tool, until the birth of Enterprise 4.0. Using both qualitative and quantitative sources, we aim to produce an analysis (featuring comparative elements as well) on the long-term effects this new Industrial Revolution may have. By the same token, the Authors intend to consider the potential those enterprises currently based in Southern Italy have to join the new production models and sectors

Keywords: Italian Industrial System; European development; Enterprise 4.0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.toknowpress.net/ISBN/978-961-6914-23-9/papers/ML2018-086.pdf full text (application/pdf)
http://www.toknowpress.net/ISBN/978-961-6914-23-9/MakeLearn2018.pdf Conference Programme (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tkp:mklp18:345-351

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Integrated Economy and Society: Diversity, Creativity and Technology; Proceedings of the MakeLearn and TIIM International Conference 2018 from ToKnowPress
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Miha Jezovnik ().