Several recent studies investigate the relation between geographic concentration of production and vertical integration based on the hypothesis that spatial agglomeration of firms in the same industry facilitates input procurement thereby reducing the degree of vertical integration. The present...

This paper aims to show that the business group – i.e. the set of firms under common ownership and control – is the most appropriate unit to study the behavior and organization of firms and define their boundaries. Particular emphasis is given to notions such as unitary direction – i.e....

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of technology and spatial agglomeration in decisions about vertical integration. It starts from the hypotheses that the business group, defined as a set of firms under common ownership and control, is the appropriate unit to delimit the firm’s...

The aim of this paper is to provide an analysis of the present situation and recent evolution in entrepreneurship courses and curricula in Italian universities. The analysis is based on a census of entrepreneurship courses and curricula run by Italian universities in 2004 and 2010....

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) in promoting the creation of academic spin-offs and contributing to their performance. Specifically, it aims to identify the relationship between the resources invested in TTOs and the creation and growth of...

Most theories seeking to explain why business groups are formed are focused on large firms, but in recent years there is growing interest on why business groups are formed in the small firms sector. In this paper we contrast two theoretical perspectives that may account for business group...

The paper proposes a framework to evaluate the impact of academic spin-offs at regional level and applies it to the context of the Marche region (Italy). Spin-off creation is the most complex way of commercializing academic research, compared to licensing and R&D collaborations, but with the...

The smart specialisation strategy (S3) requires the identification in each region of one or more thematic areas where R&D and innovation policy should be focused on to create and sustain a competitive advantage. Not necessarily the chosen areas will belong to the core, general purpose technology...

The aim of this paper is to empirically verify the hypothesis of a U shaped relation between size and unrelated diversification. Specifically we test the so called “survivalist hypothesis” according to which unrelated diversification is observed not only in large firms but also in small...

Several empirical papers have shown that firms belonging to business groups have a higher propensity to engage in R&D. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate that this higher propensity depends on the ownership share of controlled companies, besides the presence of co-ordination mechanisms....