Italian young entrepreneurs in a declining region: the case of Piedmont Giampaolo Vitali, Ceris-Cnr (Institute of Research on Firm and Development of the Italian National Research Council) Via Avogadro, 8 - 10121 Torino, Italy Tel: +39-0115601217 - Fax +39-0115626058 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.ceris.to.cnr.it/Vitali.htm Sara Levi Sacerdotti, Compagnia di San Paolo Corso Vittorio Emanuele 75 – 10128 Torino Italy Tel: +39-0115596905 Fax: +39-011543607 E-mail: [email protected] During the last decades, Piedmont was the second most important industrialised region in Italy. For examples, our region in the Seventies and Eighties represented 10% of total population, but more that 12% of the Italian GDP, 15% of Italian export, 20% of Italian R&D investments. A huge number of local companies were among the biggest companies of the Italian industrial system, such as Olivetti in the ICT industry, GFT Gruppo Finanziario Tessile in the fashion industry, Fiat in the automotive industry, Alenia in the aerospace industry, etc. We can say that all the economic actors of that positive scenario have changed dramatically in the last decade: the failure of Olivetti, is one of the cause of the declining high-tech sectors in Piedmont; the failure of GFT Gruppo Finanziario Tessile and the closing of some local Fiat plants are the effect of the de-industrialisation process that affects the region. Within this contest, local policy are based on the increase of entrepreneurship, in order to overcome the de-industrialisation effects. The characteristics of local entrepreneurs are important to define a policy that support entrepreneurships. This is why our research focused on young entrepreneurs (less than 40 years old) in Turin. We used data coming from the Artisan’s Observatory of the Piedmont Region, a database made by the local government in order to define a better policy of development. Our main goal is to show the relationship existing between the characteristic of the SMEs managed by young artisan and the characteristics of young artisans themselves. The set of variables taken in consideration is composed of: SME start-up variables (concerning: origin, motivation, knowledge, management, capital, etc.), young entrepreneur background (concerning: age, learning, family, professional experience, etc.), young entrepreneur strategy (concerning: expectations, degree of success, etc.), main problems linked to the SME start-up (concerning: business asymmetric information, bureaucracy, bank relations, etc.), SME organisation (product organisation, outsourcing, competitive advantage, innovation strategy, etc.), SME future strategy (expectations, type of investments, competitors, etc.). Main results are based on the relations between kind of the family, learning history, professional experience of the young entrepreneur, on the one hand, and the organisation and strategy of the firm, on the other hand.