Corrado Cerruti

International sourcing effectiveness in the fashion industry: the experience of Italian industrial districts

This paper investigates the impact of supply chain governance mechanisms on international sourcing effectiveness, with specific reference to Italian fashion districts. The internationalisation of the supply chain is challenging the traditional governance approach of district firms – mainly based on informal mechanisms – and seems to stimulate the adoption of innovative supply chain management practices. Our goal is to investigate – by using a Delphi method – how SMEs in Italian fashion districts are developing a mix of informal-formal governance approach in order to manage the higher complexity of an international supply chain. To pursue this research objective we use a conceptual framework developed from Uppsalas internationalisation process model. Considering the above, the article focuses on two key areas of international supply chain management: interorganisational knowledge-sharing and risk management. Thus, it summarises the learning process fashion SMEs are experiencing in managing their international supply chains.

Characterizing agile supply partnerships in the fashion industry

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate high-involvement and short-term supply relationships, known as agile supply partnerships (ASPs), and explores the conditions that support the development of such inter-organizational relationships. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative exploratory research design was followed, based on in-depth case studies of Italian fashion footwear manufacturers and their relationships with key suppliers. Findings – ASPs appear to be most relevant in supply material categories which have a high impact on the appearance or functionality of the product. Conversely, in supply categories with a low impact, long-term partnerships are preferred. Four main characteristics of ASPs are identified: they are part of a portfolio of relationships to balance the rigidities of long-term strategic partnerships; they have project-like features; they are developed from a network of pre-qualified suppliers; they are recurring and intermittent rather than continuous or isolated o...

Resistance in HROs, setback or resource?

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to analyse the role of resistance at team level in a change project focused on the maintenance activities of a high reliability organisation (HRO) that operates in the electricity distribution field.Design/methodology/approach – A grounded theory is built, analysing a large dataset of material (project reports, processes descriptions, internal memos and presentations), direct observation and semi‐structured interviews.Findings – The paper documents a model where resistance has evolved over time. Differentiated responses to change of employees during the project and also different forms of resistance are observed. The outcome of the analysis shows the positive role of mindful inertia in the change project.Research limitations/implications – Outcomes are, by the nature of the research, deeply rooted in the context and the study is focused on a specific service of an organisation that is high reliability‐oriented. Future studies should look at whether these insights a...

Do vertical and shared leadership need each other in change management

Purpose – Despite the increasing importance of shared leadership, researches examining its relations with vertical leadership, a complementary source of power, has been scarce. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to extend the authors’ knowledge on this little-known topic by analysing vertical and shared leadership interactions in a change management project. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative content analysis based on nine semi-structured interviews with top and middle managers, and a dataset of documents including corporate reports, a Road Map book and presentations was carried out, analysing the reciprocal leadership relationships by using an extended framework, which includes directive, transformational, transactional and empowering behaviours. Findings – Both in radical and incremental step, vertical as well as shared leadership interacted, showing their reciprocal need to deal with change. Leadership approaches and behaviours, conceptually and empirically distinct, even if highly relate...

Business model innovation in emerging economies: leveraging institutional voids

The role of entrepreneurship as an agent of innovation and economic growth has drawn considerable attention in the literature on strategy and emerging economies. An uncertain institutional environment has been argued to impede opportunities for innovation. In many cases, large, resource-rich business groups fill these voids. However, what has been unclear is how resource-poor entrepreneurs, who do not have a large resource base, mitigate the challenges posed by a weak institutional environment. The present study focuses on how entrepreneurs in emerging economies exploit institutional voids and develop business model innovation. Additionally we investigate if all types of institutional voids can potentially become opportunities for entrepreneurs or is there a distinction between the types of institutional voids that may exist. We follow an inductive, multiple case research design. The research setting is the energy industry in India. The chapter endeavors to link the literature on institutional voids and innovation and propose a framework explaining how institutional voids represent opportunities for business model innovation.

Vertical and Shared Leadership in Large Safety-Oriented Organizations. An Empirical Analysis

This article explores the relationship between leadership and safety-oriented culture, by analyzing the predictive role of vertical and shared leadership styles (and behaviors). Drawing on a sample of 68 managers from a safety-oriented organization, we develop a set of hypothesis in order to understand the different relationships between leadership styles (and behaviors) under prevention context as well as crisis situation. To test hypothesis we ran separate hierarchical regression analysis. Results highlight that vertical leadership variables account for a significant amount of variance in prevention context beyond the shared leadership variables, as well as the shared leadership variables account for a significant amount of variance over the vertical leadership styles under emergencies context. With respect to the existing literature, the paper contributes to the leadership literature and safety-oriented culture by showing how vertical and shared leadership (transformational and transactional) are related to prevention and containment processes and should be both considered in order to manage different contingencies that happen as ordinary and extraordinary events in the organization.

Entrepreneurial Intentions and Cultural Orientations. An Exploratory Analysis in Italian and Turkish Universities

The entrepreneurial intention (EI) framework is nowadays considered as a consolidated area of inquiry where different models can be used to understand what is behind an individual willingness to start a new venture in the future. Exploring entrepreneurial intentions of individuals represents a challenge not only for scholars but also for university education and policy-making aiming to monitor, contribute, and support entrepreneurial behaviours. We decided to join the EI scientific conversation through a two-country analysis. Our theoretical choices draw upon the Theory of Planned Behaviour applied to entrepreneurship emergence, which assumes that personal attitude, perceived behavioural control, and social norm influence the way an entrepreneurial career is perceived to be a possible choice. In our model, we originally decided to test for the effects of scenario-based cultural orientations. We administrate a cross-national questionnaire to two samples of students of belonging respectively to an Italian and a Turkish university. Data are finally analysed through PLS-SEM techniques. Our results suggest that variations in EI may be attributed to uncertainty avoidance and power distance. As well, an important role is played by entrepreneurship education.

Connecting Students and Firms to Win in Emerging Markets: The Master in Relations with Eastern Countries

Professional schools for business, medicine, engineering, and law are established in order to produce research and teaching that are relevant for practice. Despite concerns that practitioners often fail to adopt the findings of research (Van de Ven, 2007), there is very little doubt that a training in medicine, engineering, or law is essential in order to be a physician, an engineer, or a lawyer. The same, however, cannot be said for business. In fact, not only has the gap between management science and practice been widening more than in other professional schools, making academic research less useful for solving practical managerial problems (Bartunek et al., 2001), but even the teaching in business schools seems to be of little use for managerial practice (Rubin & Dierdorff, 2009), leading some to claim that ‘the only business that could seem to benefit would be the business school business!’ (Murray, 1988: 71). Another convincing argument is that teaching in business schools can even be very harmful for managerial practice (Mintzberg, 2004). The most enlightening proposals for innovative teaching that is relevant for practice are enlisting co-teaching courses where one of the instructors is an executive or former executive, hiring colleagues with professional experience, encouraging clinical, qualitative research and case studies (Pfeffer, 2007), and creating development activities to improve the practice of management (Mintzberg, 2004). These latter activities have been qualified as the ‘experiential learning’ approach in education, and the effectiveness of the approach has been proved empirically (Nadkarni, 2003).

Strategic and organisational determinants of performance in Italian management consulting firms

This study focuses on the determinants of performance of management consulting firms. These firms are successful examples of organisations whose ability to incorporate knowledge into the service provided to the clients is critical to their success. The study aims to explain the process by which specific strategic choices and distinctive organisational practices of these firms influence their performance in ways not found in other settings. Specifically, we propose that service and geographic diversification have a positive impact on the performance of management consulting firms. We also propose that partnership leverage, as a distinctive organisational practice developed to increase the retention and commitment of personnel, influences the performance of these firms. We test the theoretical predictions using data from a large sample of Italian management consulting firms and adopting a multilevel linear regression model. Our results support the hypotheses, provide interesting insights and suggest further research.