Innovation in the agri-food supply chains of the Campania Region: a cluster analysis

With the aim of contributing to the current debate on the relationship between innovation and collaboration, the paper analyses the innovation capacity of agri-food SMEs, by considering both the external factors, such as the public funding, information and collaboration, as well as the internal resources such as firm size, investment in Research and Development activities, staff competences; internationalization. By adopting a systemic approach of analysis, the theoretical framework, derived from the literature, considers innovation as a process composed of three stages: efforts (internal and external resources), innovation activities (product, process, organizational and marketing) and results (market share, revenue, efficiency and sustainability). A further issue addressed in our research is the understanding of the main obstacles to innovation expressed by SMEs in the Agrifood sector.