Clusters of specializations in the automotive supply chain in Italy. An empirical analysis using text mining

The wide literature exploring supply chains is polarized on two perspectives: micro analyses focusing on management strategies of companies, and macro assessment of cross-country interdependences. In order to explore the ongoing innovation paths, this paper adopts a third perspective on the supply chain, focusing on the internal structure of specializations within the automotive supply chain in Italy. If we compare the degree of fragmentation across global value chains, the automotive supply chain has the highest degree of fragmentation. With regard to Italy, its structural characteristics (number, size of companies, location) and dynamics of change deserve attention both for its large share in domestic production and for its interconnections with other supply chains. In this paper, we explore a strategy to identify a classification of specializations within the automotive supply chain grounded on the textual description of activities provided by companies when they register their business. Pending the acquisition of the database for the other years of the Observatory, in this work the analysis refers only to 2017 data