Abstract

The paper presents an empirical survey on a sample of medium-sized manufacturing firms located in the Brescia Province, with a particular focus on product and process innovation. The evidences on R&D investments, product and process innovation, and technology investments show the presence of a group of innovative and promising firms. But, in general, Brescia firms are still hampered by some weaknesses, such as innovation without research, a low level of R&D effort, low level of human competences, a weak tendency towards innovation protection, which are quite typical of the Italian case.