Osservatorio sulla componentistica automotive italiana 2021

Nel 2021 il mondo ha dovuto fare i conti per il secondo anno di fila con la crisi sanitaria ed economica determinata dalla diffusione del virus COVID-19. Per l’industria dell’auto la crisi ha prodotto una serie di effetti sia sull’offerta sia sulla domanda, tra cui la crisi dei semiconduttori, l’incertezza economica legata alla crisi sanitaria, e la decisa accelerazione, a trazione EU, della transizione verso la mobilità elettrica. Per la filiera automotive italiana, ulteriori incognite sono legate alla formazione di Stellantis e il conseguente spostamento del baricentro decisionale fuori dall’Italia. Il quadro che emerge dal rapporto 2021 dell’Osservatorio è quello di una filiera i cui risultati in termini di fatturato, produzione ed export continuano ad essere in contrazione, e che necessita con urgenza dell’avvio di un programma di investimenti pubblici per sostenere l’attrattività di investimenti privati in Italia, e del rilancio dei poli italiani di eccellenza attraverso nuovi investimenti in ricerca e sviluppo, struttura manageriale, risorse finanziarie e una rinnovata capacità di ‘fare rete’

Osservatorio sulle trasformazioni dell’ecosistema automotive italiano 2022

This volume reports the first results of the Observatory on the Transformations of the Italian Automotive Ecosystem. The main focus is on the consequences of the technology acceleration following the European legislation that has decreed the end of the sales of the production of endothermic motors in 2035. The Observatory was founded by CAMI - Department of Management of Ca' Foscari University of Venice and Motus-E, the association of industrial operators that promote electric vehicles. It seeks to identify the key variables to assess whether and to what extent the current technological development is shaping the evolution of the automotive ecosystem, and ultimately whether it represents an opportunity or a threat for incumbents. The main objective of the Observatory is to produce and identify scientific evidence on the ecosystem of mobility to be made available to economic, entrepreneurial, political-institutional and scientific networks. The Observatory is based on a database composed of companies belonging to the industrial chain of road mobility (supply chain for cars, motorcycles, micro-mobility, buses, trucks, as well as companies providing engineering services, components and after-market services and infrastructure for electric and similar refuelling and charging). The technological evolution of recent years is affecting the drive-train of vehicles, which will be subject to radical changes starting from the abandonment of internal combustion engine technology. In this scenario it is no longer enough to continue analysing the ‘traditional supply chain’, but a broader analysis is needed that takes into account the entire mobility ecosystem. Electric mobility is, to date, the most mature technology to replace the endothermic engine and will involve: a radical change in the technological base; an expansion of the boundaries of the automotive supply chain involving those of digitalisation and services; the need for complementary asset development

REBALANCING DISRUPTIVE BUSINESS OF MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS AND GLOBAL VALUE CHAINS WITHIN DEMOCRATIC AND INCLUSIVE CITIZENSHIP PROCESSES- REVIEW WORKING PAPER

The purpose of this working paper is to conduct a comprehensive review of existing literature that explores the relationship between business organizations and democracy. This review draws from various fields, including management, business ethics, sociology, international law, and other relevant disciplines for this Project and has several objectives. Firstly, it aims to provide insight into prior research on how democratic institutions regulate economic actors and how these actors, particularly large multinational corporations (MNCs), resist such regulation. Additionally, it examines how these economic actors develop behaviors and economic models that pose challenges to democratic governance, such as business-related human rights violations. In the initial part of the review, we delve into the historical and contemporary aspects of the relationship between business and democracy. Furthermore, the report explores how companies can contribute to shaping a more democratic future by addressing gaps in governance, especially in cases where populist governments fail to protect the rights of their citizens. It also considers the development of alternative business models, such as social enterprises and cross-sector partnerships. Moreover, it looks into how businesses can actively engage in democratic governance and promote principles of participation. The final section of the working paper involves a bibliometric analysis, including co authorship, co-citation, and keyword co-occurrence maps. This analysis is based on key references used by team members in their literature reviews and is designed to examine the connections that exist among various strands of research that support the research questions of the Rebalance Project

A dynamic theory of network failure

Organizational and sociological research dealing with network governance has mainly focused on network advantages rather than on their problems or dysfunctionalities. This left partially unexplored the field of network failure. Even if some early attempts at explicitly theorizing network failures have been made, we argue that explanations based mainly on social conditions (ignorance and opportunism) offered by this emerging theory (e.g. Schrank and Whitford, 2011), are not exhaustive. In this article we report the results of our empirical investigation on the underperforming network between the worldwide famous Venice Film Festival and its local hospitality system (in Venice, Italy). In the case study we are presenting, we will show how institutions have not been able to inhibit opportunism and sustain trust among network members because of mobilizing practices developed across formal lines of communication. With this work we propose a dynamic theory of network failure, answering to the more general call for network theories to focus the attention on agency and micro-processes

Directionality in collaborative innovation: governing inter-firm relationships in the supply-chain

This paper investigates the link between how firms govern the relationships with their counterparts in vertical networks and the likelihood of developing product and/or process innovation by reporting the results of a survey on Italian automotive suppliers. Results show that actors do not select coordination mechanisms according to the type of innovation activity carried out. Conversely, different patterns of governance emerge if one distinguishes between companies transacting downstream (e.g. a second tier supplier selling their components/systems to a first tier one) and upstream (e.g. a second tier supplier buying component/system by a third tier one). In the first case, firms are more liable of innovating with their counterpart when adopting contractual governance tools. In the second case, companies are more liable to innovate with their counterpart if “trust” and “trust building practices” are in place

Over de overeenkomst van naamlezing (noot onder Rb. Hasselt, 4 oktober 1999)

Dopo un iniziale entusiasmo verso i benefici dell’esternalizzazione dell’innovazione attraverso lo sviluppo di relazioni inter-organizzative finalizzate a co-progettare componenti e sistemi, la letteratura ha iniziato a osservare che la scelta di basare i propri processi innovativi su fonti esterne, per avere successo nel tempo, deve associarsi allo sviluppo di risorse e competenze interne e a sofisticate pratiche inter-organizzative. Lo studio presentato in questo articolo ha ad oggetto lo sviluppo delle relazioni verticali nel settore automotive italiano. In linea con le pratiche internazionali, la filiera italiana si è configurata secondo una logica gerarchica e multi livello. Essa, tuttavia, non sembra essere ancora nelle condizioni di sfruttare a pieno i vantaggi dell’innovazione distribuita. Lo studio individua due ragioni principali, tra di loro collegate: (1) la scarsa qualificazione della forza lavoro che rende difficile un miglioramento nelle attività di innovazione svolte all’interno dell’impresa; (2) il basso ricorso a fonti esterne di innovazione e la conseguente impossibilità di sfruttare le sinergie normalmente rese possibili dalle relazioni di fornitura.From an initial enthusiasm towards benefits of inter-organizational relationships aimed at co-engineering components and systems, the literature started highlighting that the choice of basing innovation processes on external sources, in order to be successful in the long term, needs to be associated with the development of internal competences and sophisticated inter-organizational practices. The study presented in this article analyzes the development of vertical relationships in the Italian automotive industry. In line with international practices, the Italian supply-chain has developed following a hierarchical and multi-level logic. Nevertheless, it seems to lack the ability to exploit all advantages of distributed innovation. The study identifies two main reasons, connected to each other: (1) the scarce qualification of human resources, which makes difficult to improve internal innovation activities; (2) the limited reliance on external sources of innovation, with the consequent impossibility to exploit synergies normally offered by client-supplier relationships