Francesco Quatraro

This chapter explores how administrative microdata can significantly enhance our understanding of the links between competition, innovation and productivity. Drawing on recent empirical studies, it illustrates the analytical power of such data across several dimensions. One example comes from the use of administrative microdata to demonstrate the productivity gains associated with the adoption of digital technologies by firms. A second example illustrates how public microdata allows for more precise measurement of firm-level mark-ups, drawing on evidence from the German Monopolies Commission and demonstrating the advantages of administrative data over alternative sources. In addition, methodological challenges in innovation measurement are discussed, showing how linking patent data with administrative records can provide deeper insights into the drivers and impacts of innovation. Finally, evidence from studies utilizing privileged access to European Commission registry data is presented, revealing the effectiveness of EU R&D grant policies on firm performance. These examples illustrate also some barriers to data access and outlines key priorities for improving the availability and utility of administrative microdata for policy and research purposes.

Digital innovation (DI) has emerged as a key enabler of circular economy (CE) transformation. Yet, existing research has predominantly focused on individual digital technologies, organizational capabilities, and CE outcomes, providing limited explanation of how the underlying innovation processes become dynamically interconnected over time. Addressing this gap, this study develops the DICE system dynamics framework by extending the DICE mechanism architecture into an endogenous feedback model of digitally enabled CE transformation. Represented through an integrated causal loop diagram, the framework identifies nineteen analytically salient feedback loops organized into three interconnected dynamic domains: foundational enabling dynamics, core transformation dynamics, and transformation sustaining dynamics. The framework reveals that important constraints on transformation can be endogenously generated: as digitally enabled circular transformation develops, increasing ecosystem participation, circular activity, and accumulated transformation outcomes can generate coordination and operational burdens, governance and participation tensions, informational risks, infrastructure constraints, rebound effects, and path dependencies that regulate subsequent transformation. Digitally enabled CE transformation is thereby conceptualized as a recursive, feedback-driven process rather than a linear, technology-driven transition. By integrating mechanism-based theorizing with qualitative system dynamics, the study advances digital circular innovation and innovation management research from a structural explanation of constituent mechanisms toward a dynamic systems perspective. For innovation managers and ecosystem orchestrators, the framework shifts attention beyond external barriers toward anticipating and managing the self-generated constraints that can emerge as digital circular ecosystems develop. The study provides a foundation for future empirical examination and quantitative system dynamics simulation.

Digital technologies are increasingly mobilized to support circular economy (CE) transitions, yet innovation management research lacks a clear explanation of how digital innovation (DI) is organized to enable, coordinate, reconfigure, and stabilize circular systems. Existing studies are dominated by technology-centric and performance-focused perspectives, focusing primarily on individual technologies and their CE outcomes while offering limited understanding of the generative mechanisms through which DI is configured and managed to enable circular transformation. This study addresses this gap by developing the DICE configurational mechanism architecture through a two-tiered research design combining grounded theory-informed meta-synthesis and empirical elaboration. Synthesizing evidence from 107 studies, the first tier theorizes how DI shapes circular systems through six interdependent mechanisms: lifecycle datafication and traceability; digital matching and coordination; circular flow reconfiguration; circular value architecture reconfiguration; digital accountability and compliance; and digital participation and behavioral intervention. The second tier examines how these mechanisms are activated and combined into distinct configurations across empirical contexts, drawing on an analysis of 36 DICE initiatives. The findings show that digitally enabled circularity does not emerge from technologies themselves or from universally integrated transformation models, but from contingent configurations of mechanisms spanning informational, relational, operational, economic, institutional and behavioral domains. The study contributes to innovation management by conceptualizing digital circular innovation as a configurational challenge and by demonstrating how distinct combinations of DI mechanisms support alternative pathways to circular transformation. The resulting DICE architecture provides an integrative lens for understanding and guiding digitally enabled circular transformation across diverse organizational and ecosystem contexts.

1. Innovation is inherently spatial. Inventive activity, entrepreneurial experimentation, the adoption of new technologies and the economic returns generated by knowledge are unevenly distributed a...

The transition to a circular economy (CE) has become a strategic priority for firms, yet empirical assessments of corporate circularity remain fragmented and heavily dependent on structured indicators or self‐reported metrics. This paper proposes a novel, text‐based circularity index derived from mandatory non‐financial statements of large Italian companies. Using a corpus of FTSE MIB sustainability reports (2017–2022), we compute cosine similarity scores between firms' disclosures and an authoritative CE vocabulary built from 135 institutional and scholarly documents, generating a replicable and weighting‐free measure of firms' alignment with circularity principles. We link this indicator to regional environmental infrastructures and contextual characteristics, focusing on recycling performance and energy recovery systems. Our findings show that firms operating in regions with more advanced recycling infrastructures—particularly higher hazardous waste recovery—consistently exhibit stronger semantic alignment with CE concepts. Younger firms and those with greater international exposure also display higher circularity engagement, suggesting that organizational dynamism and global normative pressures shape the adoption of circular strategies. These results highlight the importance of place‐based environmental conditions in enabling corporate CE transitions and demonstrate the potential of text mining to enhance the monitoring of sustainability reporting and strategic environmental alignment.