Positive forces and vicious mechanisms behind innovative activity in a lagging region

Literature about economic growth of less developed regions is traditionally concentrated on problems related to gaps and on the ways by which such regions might “run after” or even catch-up the more advanced economies. In these approaches, therefore, the central issue very often consists in the application of growth models constructed on the experiences of development. On the other hand, pure literature on development refers mainly to Third World realities and deals essentially with problems linked to economic and social development of low income countries. Last but not least, traditional literature about technological change generally analyses growth processes of industrialised countries and aims at identifying general patterns and models that, however, reflect the success cases they are build upon. However, in the last decades theoretical frameworks considering the role of “system” variables and mechanisms have provided some interpretative guidelines that seem useful to catch some aspects of the innovation processes taking places in lagging regions. In this paper, therefore, through an empirical approach it is verified if “context” variables are relevant for innovative activity in a lagging self-contained region (i.e. Sicily).