Europe needs more innovative companies that grow quickly and end up big. This book examines SME growth, innovation and success, to suggest that fast growing firms could offer a major contribution to the recovery of a European economy. The contributors examine 11 case studies from Italian firms,...

Preface and acknowledgements -- 1. Introduction: innovation beyond national systems fragility: institutional bricolage for SMEs growth / D. Lauto G. Pittino and F. Visintin -- Part I the context -- 2. Entrepreneurship and technological clusters. the influence of contextual factors on the birth...

In this chapter we aim at examining the influence of early top management teams (TMTs) on the growth performance of university-based spin-off firms, presenting an empirical research on spin-off companies in Italy. The chapter proceeds along the following lines. First we describe the context of...