L’evoluzione del Concetto di Social Capital: dalla Prospettiva Sociologica a quella Economico-Aziendale

Il lavoro è stato finalizzato ad indagare il processo di trasformazione e valorizzazione economica delle relazioni sociali detenute dall’impresa, operante in contesti locali geograficamente circoscritti. La scelta di tale argomento deriva dal riconoscimento che la letteratura nazionale e internazionale ha da tempo assegnato alle risorse immateriali nella formazione e nel mantenimento di posizioni di vantaggio competitivo sostenibile per le imprese. In particolare, l’ottica di studio è stata focalizzata su di una specifica categoria di risorse immateriali, costituita dalle risorse relazionali. Ciò equivale ad affermare che le relazioni detenute da un’impresa con altri attori possono costituire la base del raggiungimento di performance migliori per l’impresa stessa. Tali considerazioni portano ad indagare sulle caratteristiche di cui tali risorse devono essere dotate. Nello specifico, occorre quindi studiare il complesso dei legami che le imprese intrattengono con attori localizzati all’interno di un medesimo sistema locale. La strumentazione impiegata a tal fine è quella che deriva dalla teoria del social capital. Il concetto di capitale sociale è stato sviluppato negli studi di matrice sociologica per identificare l’insieme delle risorse – attuali e potenziali – che il singolo individuo può derivare dal fatto di appartenere ad un network stabile di legami con altri attori; successivamente, lo strumento è stato anche negli studi di management, dove è stato posto al pari di altre forme di capitale, quali ad esempio il capitale intellettuale e quello relazionale. L’elemento di innovatività che l’applicazione del concetto di capitale sociale apporta ai fini della presente analisi attiene, quindi, al fatto che tutte le risorse relazionali dell’impresa (e quindi non solo quelle economiche) possono essere da questa sfruttate per fini personali, ossia per l’ottenimento di performance migliori

Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry

In today’s cutthroat competitive world of fashion, flexibility and adaptability are essential elements for a company to survive in this industry. As such, there is a growing interest for open innovation and crowdsourcing as tools that might boost the competitiveness in the industry. By embracing open innovation, the use of external knowledge to emphasize internal creativity and expand market influence, industries can reach beyond their own internal resources and develop better ideas, faster and at a lower cost. The fashion industry is no exception. Specifically, crowdsourcing is lowering the fashion industry’s barriers to entry and giving the public an opportunity to not just shape a brand but also determine the trends of an entire sector. This chapter aims at analyzing the features, the pros, and the cons of crowdsourcing in the fashion industry focusing on the perspectives of both the companies and the customers

Business outcomes of outsourcing: lessons from management research

Outsourcing has been broadly recognized as an important strategic choice made by companies and other organizations to achieve a wide variety of goals. Many studies have focused on the economic and financial impacts and on the relationship between outsourcers and outsourcees. This chapter offers a comprehensive overview of actual outsourcing outcomes found in management research, including impacts on human capital. Analysis of the evidence on outsourcing in the OECD STAN database (OECD 2011: 1970-2009) shows that both the number of transactions (deals) and their scope (activities involved) have increased constantly during the last 20 years. Over time, outsourcing popularity peaks have coincided with certain trends, such as business process reengineering, strategic focusing on core business, outsourcing/offshoring strategies, shared services and corporate downsizing (e.g. Brunetta and Peruffo 2014). Furthermore, as recent research shows, companies are expeditiously outsourcing non-core business processes and functions in order to maximize their profits. Business profits can be increased through reducing costs and/or via acquiring external sources of strategic differentiation (e.g. higher-quality raw materials or distinctive expertise/competences able to improve the overall quality of products and services, enabling companies to sell them at higher prices) (De Fontenay and Gans 2008; Gospel and Sako 2010; Angeli and Grimaldi 2010; Doellgast and Gospel 2012; Giustiniano et al. 2014). In such a scenario, multinational companies (MNCs) have a wider range of opportunities for outsourcing and offshoring activities due to their scope and international presence. On the other hand, MNCs are exposed to possible changes in employee relations models in the diverse labour markets in which they operate (Marginson and Meardi 2006; Sippola 2011). At company level, the decision to outsource activities is linked to expected structural and strategic changes which can be assessed through the adoption of a long-term perspective. While immediate results are related to purely economic assessments, long-term effects are more strategic and made up of opportunities (e.g. focus on core competencies and pursuit of greater higher specialization) and drawbacks (e.g. less strategic flexibility). Nevertheless, in a company\u2019s strategic plans, management focus is generally on the short-term results due to the (shorter, expected) timespan of their individual assignments and the contingent pressures of shareholders and financial markets. The short-term nature of outsourcing assessments is also a traditional argument used by trade unions and emphasized by the widening geographic scope of outsourcing and offshoring. While unions have been traditionally considered as opposing outsourcing and offshoring (e.g. Lommerud, Meland and Straume 2009), more recent studies have detected a significant shift from resistance to proactive strategies (Ramioul and De Bruyn 2006). Similarly, MNCs embracing outsourcing are better able to interpret the differences existing in national cultures, business practices, workplace representation systems and collective bargaining structures (Anner et al. 2006; Doellgast and Gospel 2012; Pulignano and Doerflinger 2013), contributing to a better local strategic responsiveness in their local subsidiaries (Almond et al. 2005; Arrowsmith and Marginson 2006; Bartlett and Ghoshal 1992). The aim of this chapter is to illustrate the main findings on the expected outcomes as reported in management and financial literature. To achieve this, the chapter explains a number of management paradoxes related to outsourcing, as well as how companies relate to their stakeholders. Management paradoxes referred to include: a) the paradox of financial and economic vs. strategic and organizational outcomes; and b) the time paradox. The chapter draws on previous research conducted on outsourcing antecedents, processes and outcomes, both in general (Marchegiani et al., 2012) and applied to specific activities within the value chain (Gospel and Sako 2010; Doellgast and Gospel 2012; Giustiniano et al. 2014; Brunetta, Giustiniano and Marchegiani 2014; Sorrentino et al. 2015). The focus is on analysing the \u2018lessons learned\u2019 reported in management and financial literature to nurture implementation strategies, for use by workers representatives (e.g., Benassi 2011). Among these lessons, it seems useful to affirm that in order to maximise the positive outcomes of outsourcing strategies, organizations have to take into account all the human implications of outsourcing, such as the effects on workers and their representatives. To illustrate this, the investigation on the outsourcing outcomes will be complemented by an analysis of certain aspects related to organizational design (i.e. company boundaries, coordination mechanisms) and labour issues (i.e. human reactions: resistance to change, hidden costs and the loss of competences and competitive advantage)

The Italian Footwear Industry: An Empirical Analysis

This paper aims to provide readers with a deep empirical analysis on the Italian footwear industry in order to investigate the evolution of its structure (trends in sales and production, number of firms and employees, main markets, etc.), together with the identification of the main drivers of competitiveness in order to explain the strategies implemented by local actors

Revitalising the Outsourcing Discourse within the Boundaries of Firms Debate

Despite outsourcing has been at the core of managerial practice and literature for a long time, still authors do not agree on a clear understanding of the overall outsourcing process. This article answers two main questions, relevant to researchers and practitioners: 1.What are the main findings so far in outsourcing literature? 2. What do we still need to learn? Through a comprehensive review of the literature, we offer systematization of the existent body of knowledge on outsourcing, its implications on firms’ boundaries, and the theoretical challenges. In conclusion, implications for managers are drawn

The contribution of the PLM to firms internationalization: A case in the footwear industry

As the globalization of markets in the footwear industry became more evident, several restrictions have been imposed by international directives, standards and regulations, and market requirements. Such external needs are progressively pushing the footwear manufacturers to introduce continuous improvements in their production processes and in general in the firm management. This working paper represents the first step of a research with the aim of evaluating the impact of PLM on a firm internazionalization in the fashion industry. The investigation is at the level of PLM as a business strategy as well as set of technical tools. The research approach mainly includes a survey on footwear industries located in the district of the \u201cRiviera del Brenta\u201d of the Veneto Region in Italy

Product Lifecycle Management as a tool to create value in the fashion system

The aim of this paper is to present the fashion system as a \u201ccluster\u201d and to evaluate the characteristics of Product Lifecycle Management considering various factors, especially the different approaches in dealing the market needs. In particular, the \u201cready-to-wear fashion\u201d and the \u201cfast fashion\u201d models will be presented and compared. The paper, takes the Italian fashion system as the unit of analysis and it also assumes that consumer behavioral factors act in a non predictable way (randomly) under the constantly changing social and cultural environment. Considering the inner complexity of a whole market system, a simplified System Dynamics modeling is proposed

Diversity in Boardrooms and Firm Performance: The Role of Tenure and Educational Level of Board Members

Diversity on corporate boards has been studied from different perspectives in recent decades. The present study aims at investigating the impact on firm performance of two demographic diversity traits in boardrooms: tenure and educational diversity. The extant literature does not provide aligned findings on this topic, thus further research is still needed. The authors hypothesize that both tenure and educational diversity of board members have a positive effect on firm performance. To measure firm performance two dependent variables are used, applying two models for each hypothesis investigated Tobin\u2019s Q and return on assets. The study is conducted using sample data of 187 listed firms within the European area, covering a 9-year period, from 2010 to 2018. Diversity dimensions are measured through indexes constructed on the basis of the mix among the directors in terms of educational level and tenure. The outcomes highlight a significant and positive relationship between tenure diversity on corporate boards and firm performance. In terms of the impact of educational diversity, no evidence indicating a positive effect on firm performance is found. The research carried out is unique because it considers two personal attributes of diversity calculating diversity indexes and measuring their impact on the firm\u2019s performance. The econometric approach used has not been extensively applied in previous research. In fact, the majority of previous empirical studies have measured diversity through percentages or dummy variables, depending on the type of diversity aspect being analyzed, and then used it as the independent variable

A Design Thinking Approach for Museum Institutions

In these recent years, museum institutions are facing challenges such as deepening diversity among audiences and within the workforce, shifting authority and keeping pace with the creation of a digital offering to be provided in the new shared economy. Additionally, museums cannot just deliver knowledge as information anymore. They are forced to seek to be relevant and meaningful for the audiences and the society. Thus, a visitor-centered approach needs to be developed. The design thinking framework can help museum professionals to face the challenges they handle in today’s world. Indeed, this approach is focused on people and not on a specific product or service. The goal is to understand the needs of customers, their wishes and, based on this information, find the best solution to respond to the type of problem identified or the strategy to be developed. For this reason, the ratio of this discipline provides that people are stimulated to find alternative, creative, and innovative solutions designed and built on the reality of the facts and not dictated by instinct. The aim of this chapter is to investigate the characteristics of the design thinking approach and to analyze how this framework can be implemented in museum institutions