Italian Assembly Industry: Challenges and Responses to Globalisation and Innovation

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 1990s, both global and country-specific trends have put pressure on the Italian economy, the fifth or sixth largest in the world. The process of the internationalisation of the economy and integration into Europe, though jerkily in progress, presents challenges to the industrial sector, the first to feel the impact of these trends. In combination with macroeconomic, political, and sociocultural changes, the above mega-trends present opportunities for Italy, but also loom threateningly over the prospects for the long-term prosperity of the country and its ability to keep up with the more advanced industrialised economies.