Information and Communication Infrastructures and New Business Models in Rural Areas: The Case of Molise Region in Italy

Abstract

The paper deals with the role of ICT and the related infrastructures to induce innovations for sustainable rural development. In particular, it focuses on the innovations induced by ICT in farms and in new rural firms, and on how digital infrastructures support and generate social innovation mechanisms, leading to the consolidation of entrepreneurship and dissemination of ICT-based innovation in rural areas. The hypothesis is that the presence of digital infrastructures generates a double effect: overcoming the concept of geographical proximity (relevant for remote rural areas) and promoting social innovation. In particular, this paper examines the role of social innovation to create a new demand for products, services and organisational models for farms and rural enterprises, promoting further innovation. To target the objectives, the work analyses three case studies of new business models (BMs) based on ICT innovation. The analysis focuses on the most important interactions, learning and organisational processes within the new enterprises and among the new farms/enterprises and the other economic and institutional actors, and on how they were shaped and changed by the use of ICT, relating them to a conceptual model. These three cases, although pioneering, are important since they give an original response to some of the main problems and needs of remote and inner rural areas, as for the access to high value segment of food market, the information deliveries about attractiveness of landscape and countryside for foreigners, investors and tourists and the creation of new stable relation with consumers/citizens in the urban areas. The three cases have been analysed with the aim to identify how the ICT, and the related innovations, create an interconnection between four characteristic elements of the BMs (value creation, supply chain, customer interfaces, financial model) and the restructuring of proximity dimensions (cognitive, institutional, social, geographical, organizational). The work shows how these three cases have several communalities, but also different aspects with respect to our objective of analysis: there are different ways in which the four characteristic elements of the BM are constructed and also different in the role that the different dimensions of proximity play in structuring the innovation process in each one of them. More generally, the results of the work also lead to consider a new role for public investments in ICT infrastructures: public administrations should intervene in order to create a coherence within projects of public and private initiatives.

The Rural Digital Divide in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Europe—Recommendations from a Scoping Review

“…The role of public intervention is essential to ensure the survival of local communities, and when investment occurs is a key success factor. Investments should be timely, and connections should work quickly; if this does not happen, infrastructure may be at risk of becoming rapidly obsolete and not contributing to the economic viability of rural communities [58]. The least attractive areas for the implementation of 5G and broadband technology should get more support from governments' digital strategy programs [23].…”

“…Continuous innovation processes, particularly those based on ICTs, which are intended to be transferred to remote rural areas, should be supported by training and public advice actions. These actions must have a great flexibility tin order to act effectively and efficiently on the different situations existing: a diffusion of knowledge that is too homogeneous could lead to certain blocking phenomena, due to an excessive cognitive proximity [58].…”

“…Ievoli et al [58] highlight the importance of enhancing new business models for their ability to respond to the need to revitalize remote rural areas socially and economically, characterized by low economic density. The relevance of new forms of entrepreneurship in agriculture, based on environmental and social values, is such that it must be adequately supported; for example, encouraging farmers and entrepreneurs to push ICT-related cultural boundaries.…”

Public infrastructural development and economic performance in Africa: a new evidence from panel data analysis

“…Economic research on infrastructural development has witnessed increased interest from scholars in recent times, and some have expressed support for the symmetric impact of infrastructure on economic growth (Levoli et al 2019 ; Nugraha et al 2020 ). Consequently, policymakers and governments in various economies, especially in Africa, have recognized that there is need for them to evolve and implement policies that will increase investments in basic infrastructures as a means of enhancing economic performance on a sustainable basis.…”

Thinking Together Digitalization and Social Innovation in Rural Areas: An Exploration of Rural Digitalization Projects in Germany

“…Both digitalization and social innovation gained political and scientific attention also regarding rural areas, with a growing body of grey literature and policy papers (e.g., ENRD, 2018a,b,c Williger & Wojtech, 2018), and a growing number of scientific publications (e.g., Lytras, Visvizi, & Mudri, 2019; Naldi, Nilsson, Westlund, & Wixe, 2015 or the Special Issue 2019 in this journal). The idea of smart villages is in the center of these debates, where current publications, however, often focus on ICT as part of innovation in production and distribution of goods and services (e.g., Martin & Tulla, 2019) or understand digitalization as a driver of innovation in a socio-economic sense (e.g., Ievoli, Belliggiano, Marandola, Milone, & Ventura, 2019). The present paper argues that in rural areas, social innovation and digitalization are often developing side by side as digitally supported social-innovation initiatives but it is still unclear how to describe such initiatives and 195/276 how they fit in current debates on social innovation.…”