The Regional Competitiveness: an Alternative Approach

Competitiveness is the goal of country and regional strategies of development, but it's also the main focus of several scientific analysis, ranging from strictly economic approaches to evolutionary and holistic points of view. The objective of the paper is to analyse the complex concept of sustainable competitiveness, starting from a multidimensional approach, with output and driver variables. In this paper the focus is on output of competitiveness which is defined by the concept of virtuosity, broken down into the three pillars of sustainability. This model is novel compared to previous theoretical frameworks, which primarily focus on competitiveness output in terms of production and income, or don’t take into sufficient account the distinction between output and driver variables. The approach is applied to the case of European regions, to get a map of regional virtuosity, with some unexpected regions, able to balance the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability.