The Role of Time for the Competitiveness of SMEs in the Service Sector

This paper aims to highlight the analysis of the integrated role of time and knowledge factors for the SME competitiveness in the service sector, in the perspective of an intersystemic co-evolution. Particularly, it refers to hotels. The analysis is developed from a conceptual base emphasizing time value in its subjective (i.e. socio-cultural) perspective, in the recursive setting of firm knowledge, here synthesized within the time-knowledge binomial, and cal-led co-evolutionary time. The appropriateness of this analysis is motivated by the observation of the evolutionary dynamics emerging in this sector. The paper combines theory and practice thanks to the case study of the Sextantio “albergo diffuso”, a hotel appreciated throughout the world for its innovative business.