Recent interdisciplinary research suggests that customer and technological competencies have a direct, unconditional effect on firms' innovative performance. This study extends this stream of literature by considering the effect of organizational competencies. Results from a survey-research...

This paper surveys recent contributions on the Internalisation issue, based on different theories of the firm, to show how the make-or-buy decision, at an international level, has been assessed through the opening up of the "black box" - traditionally explored by the theorists of the firm - and...

This paper provides empirical evidence on the impact the EU Single Market Program has exerted on market power and total factor productivity in a large sample of Italian firms. By splitting the full sample on the basis of the ex-ante likelihood of being affected by the removal of non-tariff...

This study explicitly takes into account that the decision to enter into a cooperative R&D relationship is related to the antecedent decision to carry out R&D. This calls for a methodological approach that, at the same time, allows the joint analysis of the determinants of the two decisions and...

Over the past three years Italy has witnessed a rapid growth in the photovoltaic energy market, followed by an equally sudden decline when the government decided to reduce the incentives. This sharp change in the trend of the market calls into question the achievement of Grid Parity and the...

The paper is concerned with instructions as a way of setting premises for subsequent decisions in models of teams à la Marschak-Radner, under information diversification. The paper suggests that instructions can bridge people's differences in knowledge: they do not require mutual understanding...

Global trade in agriculture and food products is increasingly governed by an array of standards. A survey conducted in 2010 covering all operational firms in the nascent floriculture industry in Ethiopia revealed that only 36 per cent have managed to acquire certification for international...

Conventionally, standards are considered as a governance tool in the production system in a one-directional and hierarchical relationship between foreign trans-national corporations (TNCs) or global buyers on one hand and subsidiaries and producers on the other. They were considered as...

The product lifecycle model can be understood as a three-stage model of technological development associated with a particular product technology. In the explorative stage many different designs are developed, in the development stage products become standardized into a dominant design, and in...

New international standards for environmental auditing are now being actively promoted by public authorities and adopted by private firms. One important feature of these standards is their emphasis on managerial systems and incentives that support a wiser use of environmental resources. This...