The nature of competition imposes a fundamental re-examination of strategies, both at the corporate and business level. Observation of a large number of firms reveals changes aimed at creating more permeable boundaries for breaking down costs, while increasing efficiency in product innovation...

Literature claims for a deeper understanding of which processes shape the evolution of network structures over time. Drawing on the assumption that the “normative ideal” network structure should be understood according to the context in which the network is embedded, we observe collaborative...

This paper furnishes evidence of innovative modes of organisationof inter-firm relationships and knowledge management within industrialdistricts. With the aid of a district firm, we first highlight the marked tendency among the largest companies to eschew an exclusively endogenous innovative...

This paper aims to critically analyse the idea of global market space [1] and the generally accepted idea that internet and electronic transactions [2] can provide small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and bigger companies with the same access to global markets. This analysis is conducted in...

This paper aims at analysing the main features of R&D activities carried out by the Italian biotech companies. The proposed contribution can be ascribed to the massive stream of research related to the reconfiguration of the value chain activities at the international level. Such a topic has...

This paper aims at analysing the main features of the activities carried out by the Italian biotech industry. This topic is so wide and various that particularly we decided to focus on the value added activities of the so-called “pharma-biotech”, i.e. pharmaceutical firms that have...

In this paper, we use social capital theory to discuss the growth of "international new ventures", aiming to verify whether or not social capital may be considered as a critical source of knowledge acquisition abroad. We analyse social capital embedded in vertical relationships between global...