This paper is a first attempt to analyse the relationship between spatial agglomeration and firms’ organizational structures. It takes advantage of a large data set on Italian business groups that allowed us to analyse the differences in the presence and characteristics of business groups...

Vertical integration, i.e. the control of activities along the production chain, is a fundamental issue for understanding firms' strategic choices and production organization. In this paper we analyze the determinants of vertical integration in Italian manufacturing firms testing some hypotheses...

According to the last GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) surveys, Italy has one of the lowest rates of entrepreneurial activity among innovation driven countries. Moreover, Italy is characterized by large territorial differences in the entrepreneurial rates. The main aims of this paper are to...

Over the last few years a growing number of contributions have shown that the presence of business groups, i.e. sets of firms legally distinct but belonging to the same owner(s), is significant. From a theoretical point of view, this presence poses the question of whether the group or the single...

This thesis is a contribution to our understanding of business groups in the small busi-ness sector. Specifically, its aim is to verify to what extent the consideration of entrepre-neurial processes can advance our understanding of this phenomenon. A ‘business group’ is a set of companies...