Market-driven firms adopt an outside-in management that goes far beyond a simple observation of competitors and understanding of customers' needs, in order to grasp new market opportunities. In this sense, strategic alliances have become increasingly important to the firms' external knowledge...

In global markets, organizations can use 3-D printing technology to decrease the uncertainty brought by technological innovation. Through a qualitative analysis of seven case studies, the authors have identified a new business network type - defined as beta-network - characterized by a flat...

The machine tool industry has a leading role in the Italian manufacturing system, and it is between the few industrial branches in which Italy keeps an international primary level role, being the 4th world producer and the 3rd world exporter. The branch innovation process has a threefold hybrid...

In global markets a new typology of firm is emerging. Such new kind of firm has been defined second mover as it combines strategies of innovation and imitation. The purpose of this paper is to identify which external factors of network system positively influence the business performance of a...

In open markets where competition is strong, innovation loses its role of 'ideological hierarchy' over imitation; both have the common goal of maximising company profitability, with the constraint of optimising performance results in the very short term. With these objectives and result...

With globalisation, since the early 80's, the companies compete in open markets with articulated, widespread and highly interconnected organisations (business networks). The competitive upgrading imposed by global markets determines particular organisational and strategic priorities for...

Even prior to the recent financial and economic slowdown many enterprises had adopted Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies to improve their relationships with customers, who are becoming more and more sensible to ethical values. Recently, companies are increasingly promoting social...

Since the 80s, given the markets globalisation springing up (product globalisation), the 'core activity' of R&D was focused on corporate internal structures. In the 90s and 2000s the new globalisation phase (firm globalisation), the R&D has faced a remarkable transformation. In fact the R&D was...

The most widespread kind of innovation in global markets is incremental innovation, which modifies business processes, typically without visible manifestations outside the company. Incremental innovation is also applied to products, bringing changes to their characteristics, and/or impacting on...

World cities are boosted by Nation-States to encourage and control the innovation processes, developing specific attractiveness factors for companies focused on knowledge production. The role of world cities as a knowledge hub is linked to the one of knowledge production-city, since in global...