Contribution to an Integrated Analytical Framework for the Study of the Relations between and within Agro-Food Firms

The globalization of markets, increased specialization in customers services, shorter lead times,are among the main factors influencing the change in firms organization. The firms disintegrationis growing, leading to an increased demand for collaborative management along the supplychain. The relationship between economic agents represents a central aspect to be analysedin order to understand this new context which is “neither a perfectly planned structure, nor amerely spontaneous one” (Benassi M., 1995).These considerations are particularly interesting when applied to firms belonging to the agrofoodsystem. They include very different technical-economic typologies as well as cultural andmanagerial backgrounds. In this context the role of vertical and horizontal relationships in influencingthe system efficiency are particularly relevant. A collaborative management of the inputand market access can, in fact, allow for a better exploitation of the external economies andflexible specialisation related economies, characterising well organized small and mediumagro-food firms networks. The identification of the factors influencing the relationship betweenfirms becomes consequently a priority. The main studies related to the inter and intra-firm relationshipincludes different approaches: Supply Chain Management (SCM), local enterprisessystems (Clusters, Districts), Knowledge Networks, Organization Theory.