Cristina Boari

Clusters and rivalry: does localization really matter?

This exploratory study addresses the link between rivalry--which we regard as a cognitive social dimension of competition-- and localization. We adopt a visual-mapping technique to collect data on firms belonging to the packaging-machinery geographical cluster in Northern Italy. We can summarize our results as follows. Entrepreneurs identifying rivals within the cluster also tend to cite a larger number of rivals altogether. A firms proximity to its rivals is a key to a deeper comparison with them. Geographical distance represents a tool for scanning the competitive environment; it is not used as a criterion by which to classify rivalry. From these results, we generate a few propositions that shed a new light on the relationship between rivalry and localization.

The Importance of Proximity for the Start‐Ups' Knowledge Acquisition and Exploitation

This paper intends to verify the impact of geographical proximity on the processes of knowledge acquisition and exploitation by high‐tech start‐ups considering at the same time the role of both the social and cognitive dimensions of proximity. Our basic assumption is that proximity means a lot more than just geography. The findings from this research broaden our understanding of how start‐ups located inside an industrial cluster acquire knowledge from their customers and exploit it in an innovative way, underscoring the need to reconsider assumptions regarding the importance of geographical proximity between business partners during knowledge management.

Inter-organizational geographical proximity and local start-ups' knowledge acquisition: a contingency approach

Entrepreneurship studies offer conflicting answers to a key research question: What impact does geographic proximity have on the process of knowledge acquisition by start-ups? This study proposes a new, dynamic framework of three interrelated factors that may moderate this impact; it anticipates that the importance of local and distant knowledge networks depends on the life cycle stages reached by both start-ups and industrial clusters, as well as on the dyadic relationships between local start-ups and their business partners. Some additional variables help strengthen the conceptual model and the key research propositions. This study thus offers a new perspective on entrepreneurship research, namely the configuration of start-ups in both spatial and social contexts. Such a view offers two substantial benefits: a greater understanding of the role played by geographical proximity in knowledge acquisition and an impetus for further empirical research in this field. This article concludes with various implications of the proposed model for both theoretical and managerial purposes.

Distance to Customers, Absorptive Capacity, and Innovation in High-Tech Firms: The Dark Face of Geographical Proximity

This paper investigates the impact of both geographical and relational proximity on the innovative performance of the firm. We address the role of one firm characteristic—its absorptive capacity—as a specific contingency affecting the relationship between different proximities and innovation. Using data from 158 high‐tech firms located in the Tiburtina Valley in Italy, we studied the relationship between these firms and their key customers. Our findings support the need to downplay the role of geographical proximity in promoting innovation. Our results also show that relational proximity to key customers has a complementary relationship with absorptive capacity, which positively moderates its influence on innovative performance.

A Model of Innovation and Knowledge Development Among Boundedly Rational Rival Firms

This model explores the consequences of common theoretical hypotheses and empirical stylized facts regarding innovation, knowledge development and knowledge management by geographically clustered, boundedly rational rival firms. Its most innovative feature is that it assumes that the market performance of innovations can be predicted by their ability to bridge between existing pieces of knowledge.

Top management team international experience and strategic decision-making

This study aims to explore the influence of top management team international experience on international strategic decision-making rationality and, subsequently, its effect on decision effectiveness (decision performance).,This analysis is based on survey data of small- and medium-sized international Pakistani firms operating in the IT industry.,Results show that top management team international experience is positively related to international strategic decision-making rationality, and the latter partially mediates the international experience – decision effectiveness relationship.,The study is based on data collected from a single industry and focuses on an international decision that occurred within a time-frame of previous four years.,Findings suggest that international firms, when composing their top management teams, should favor the inclusion of internationally experienced managers.,The study of the influence of international experience on the decision-making process in general and decision-making rationality in particular has been largely neglected in extant literature. This paper highlights one way through which the international experience of the top management team as a whole relates to the effectiveness of international decisions. The paper also advances emergent managerial cognition literature focusing on the top management team and not individual decision makers.

Competitors and Rivals among Clustered and Isolated Firms: An Empirical Investigation and a Computational Model

We carried out an empirical investigation among producers of packaging machines collecting information about their rivals, i.e., those few competitors which they closely monitor. We found interesting regularities that take geographically clustered firms apart from isolated firms, but we could not explain our empirical findings by means of existing theories. By constructing an agent-based model we were able to formulate a simple and plausible mechanism for rival selection which, once combined with well-known aspects of knowledge representation among clustered and isolated firms, is able to generate the empirically observed facts. We submit that this case is exemplary in showing what agent-based models can do, namely, providing sufficiency proofs that help theory-building.