This document discusses the relationship between culture, creativity, and regional productivity. It presents a conceptual framework and examines this relationship through several case studies. Specifically: 1. It proposes that culture can be a powerful platform for behavioral change, innovation, health, wellbeing, and social cohesion. 2. Case studies of companies Bonotto and Elica show how integrating culture and the arts in the workplace can encourage creativity, innovation, and transform workers into communities of practice. 3. Regional differences in productivity and innovation may be due to differences in "reward environments" - where effort is rewarding and rewarded versus where it is not. Understanding the mechanisms behind this could provide insights for improving productivity.

1. Culture, creative
production and
regional productivity:
A conceptual
framework
Pier Luigi Sacco
metaLAB (at) Harvard and Berkman-Klein
Center, Harvard University
IULM University Milan
CHuBLab, FBK Trento

2. The three
pillars of
cultural
crossovers in
the NEAC
Culture as a powerful platform for behavioral change
• Culture, health and wellbeing
• Culture and social cohesion
• Culture and innovation

3. Culture-innovation
clusters
• Top innovation + culture: Sweden, Denmark,
Netherlands, UK, Ireland, Luxembourg, France,
Germany
• Top innovation + culture lagging: Finland, Belgium,
Austria
• Top culture + innovation lagging: Spain, Estonia
• Lagging innovation + culture: Slovenia, Malta,
Croatia, Italy, Czech Republic
• Bottom innovation + lagging culture: Lithuania,
Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland
• Bottom culture + lagging innovation: Cyprus,
Portugal, Greece, Slovakia, Hungary

4. Case study: Bonotto, the
Slow Factory
• Redefining the standards of productivity
• Encouraging workers to deploy their skills in
unconventional ways
• The legacy of a Fluxus education
• Old fashioned technology + innovative creative
design
• Turning workers into an innovation-oriented
community of practice. Work as a creative
process
• Recovering a craftsmanship approach: quality =
the time it takes to make it
• Redefining man-machine interaction

5. Case study:
Elica, E-
straordinario
• Extractor hoods: a sector where competitiveness
depends on a constant flow of technical and
aesthetic innovation
• The crucial role of divergent thinking and
challenging artforms
• Working with artists in the workplace during
regular hours as a contractual benefit
• Turning workers into co-creators
• 5 years before E-Straordinario vs 5 years after: 4x
ornamental patents, 2x technological patents
• Great places to work 2008-13
• Top employers 2009-
• Exporting the model in other companies

6. The underlying behavioral mechanisms?
• The effort paradox: Effort can be both costly and valued
(Inzlicht, 2018)
• Effort-reward imbalance: non-meaningful effort can be
pathogenetic (inflammation)
• Reward for effort vs. reward for slack: two different reward
circuits?
• A new way to understand the sense and behavioral
implications of effort and work
• Managing the contradiction: Culture and meaning as a choice
heuristic

7. What are the actual mechanisms
through which productivity- and
innovation-oriented cultural
attitudes spread over?
• Cultural evolution: learning,
imitation, authority
• Proximity effects
• Social incentives
• Cultural capital and cognitive costs
• Cultural innovation hubs
• Amenity

8. Regional differences in productivity (and innovation) as
differences in ‘reward environments’?
• Where is effort rewarding, and
rewarded, and where it is not?
And why?
• Testing specific effects one at a
time
• Pilot organizational studies
• Comparative studies at NUTS-2
and NUTS-3 level
• Natural experiments
• Randomized trials
• Longitudinal studies