This paper sheds light on what city leaders can do about climate change in the context of the complex extra-territorial challenges they face. We created an original database of those actions implemented by members of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and investigated which boundary organizations, objects and experiences (‘boundary cooperative arrangements’) can be triggered to undertake climate change actions by city leaders. Through a secondary qualitative analysis, we identified six main actions. The research advances knowledge on both place leadership and collaborative governance, and the findings represent a tool for better tackling the ‘wicked problem’ of climate change.

Effective technological innovation relies on having ample knowledge resources to enhance firm performance and knowledge creation. Innovators seek both internal and external knowledge, actively engaging in a continuous search for these valuable resources. Knowledge collaboration is a specific strategy that innovative firms can follow during Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption processes. This study investigates the role of AI and knowledge collaboration in firm innovation. Using data from 14,143 firms in the UK between 2004 and 2020, we explore how AI adoption impacts knowledge spillover of innovation. Our findings suggest that firms adopting AI can enhance their innovation performance if it complements firm’s own investment in R&D. AI adoption can substitute knowledge collaboration with certain external partners. The results help us to rethink resource allocation for knowledge spillover of innovation in the era of AI and digital technologies.

This article discusses the concept of ‘publics’ and provides a case example related to Covid-19 to show the importance of strategically managing with and for publics. Specifically, the publics of local governance in lockdown are identified from two focus groups with local leaders conducted in Lombardy, Italy. Identifying, designing and visualizing publics is a key democratic and strategic choice with implications on the public values enacted.

This study explores the role of Multinational Enterprises and Foreign Direct Investment have in fostering regional economic development in emerging markets, via the process of technology transfer within the context of the Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship. We examine the effects of Foreign Direct Investment, sectoral clustering, and firm heterogeneity on productivity and local entrepreneurship development using the transformational case of Costa Rica. This paper contributes to the research in the dynamics of intra- and inter-industry spillover effects, comparing the impact of foreign Multinational Enterprises on local entrepreneurial development with that of and within local Specialized Exporting Companies. The findings suggest that knowledge spillovers are sector-specific, affecting industries in unique ways, and generating significant policy implications for targeting industry-specific knowledge and technology transfers. Externally generated technology transfer and its spillover effects are ubiquitous, idiosyncratic and different in comparison with second generation spillover effects generated within the local economy.

This article aims to discuss the health of the public administration discipline in the US higher education system. In particular, it debates two possible alternatives: decline or reposition. The paper analyzes the academic offers of political science, public policy, and public administration programs at both undergraduate and graduate levels. The Results highlight that the public administration discipline is currently at a crucial point. The core attention within both governments and higher education is more focused on politics and policies than on management. Accordingly, this scenario has two main effects. First, it creates an imbalance between the political discourse, the formulation/execution of public policies, and the managing of effective public sector organizations. Second, it might lead the discipline of public administration into a decline. Nevertheless, public administration can find a reposition within social sciences by developing more openness and a process of cross-contamination with other humanistic disciplines.

Tracking more than 9000 Italian innovative start-ups geocoded at the one-kilometer resolution, we deploy a multilevel space–time model, instrumented with historical road networks, to examine how regional ecosystems shape entrepreneurial concentration. We revisit the three classical Marshallian channels (specialization, competition, and labor pooling), and we test asymmetric, cross-border knowledge spillovers and show that agglomeration can either amplify or dilute technology transfer across neighboring territories. Our results reveal sharp regional–sector asymmetries: some pairs intensify clustering while others next door disperse, exposing hidden dynamics that uniform models overlook. By reframing agglomeration as both conduit and barrier to technology transfer, we demonstrate that firm intensity depends not only on local Marshallian forces but also on the relative stocks of high-skilled human capital that mediates “push” and “pull” spillovers along shared borders. Sector-level decomposition further indicates that manufacturing and knowledge-intensive services respond differently to diversity and specialization, challenging one-size-fits-all prescriptions. Because identical policy levers yield divergent outcomes, the implications of this study suggest that policymakers need to be well aware that agglomeration is industry-sector-specific and conditional on the existing level of industry development already existing in each location. Therefore, place-sensitive policies in specific regional corridors accounting for industry mix and existing agglomeration levels should be the approach to follow for designing regional economic policy. We position cross-border technology transfer as the missing link reconciling the long-standing debate between concentration and dispersion strategies, providing a roadmap for place-based innovation policy.