The paper investigates the change in strategy of the Benetton Group, since the mid nineties, in face of the severe intensive competition in the international fashion market. New competitors, in particular the European brands Zara, Mango and H&M, have challenged the Benetton position in the...

As European firms have faced strong competition from businesses in other industrial economies, in order to reduce production costs and keep prices competitive they have begun outsourcing their production to low wage countries. Although final firms have taken clear advantage from outsourcing...

This paper investigates the strategy changes of the Benetton Group who have been facing severe intense competition in the international fashion market since the mid nine-ties. New competitors, in particular the European brands Zara, Mango and H&M, have challenged the Benetton position in the...

Italian firms have recently engaged in direct investment abroad through the establishment of production facilities in China and India. Using data gathered from interviews conducted in those countries in 2009 with 16 Italian predominantly small and medium-sized firms, this article explores: the...

Many European countries have faced the erosion of the competitive advantage in the international market with a mixed strategy of productivity increase at home and labour cost reduction abroad, through the international fragmentation of production and subcontracting in low wage countries. Italy...

This paper studies the evolution of the Italia industrial districts in the era of globalization. Italian districts are no longer self-contained systems of small firms where firms' competitiveness is the result of physical proximity, connected to foreign markets at the initial and the final stage...

On-the-Job Search is one of the most common and efficient ways to look for a new job, most of the time workers move directly from one employment position to another (E-to-E) without an intervening spell of unemployment. E-to-E transitions are a relevant component of total labour flows and have a...

This research exploits a large employer-level panel dataset in order to analyse employment and worker flows. Excess reallocation, the difference between worker and job flows at the firm level, is substantial and has a definite cyclical pattern. Both accessions and separations are cyclical in...

Official Italian statistics undervalue the presence of short-term labour contracts. A more careful account of short term labour contracts more than doubles the official figures ranking Italy among the countries with a large amount of temporary work. Temporary labour contracts represent half of...