Giuseppe Festa

Relationship Management in the Business of Quality and Communication

Abstract Enterprise quality systems represent an indispensable development for modern businesses: the procedures formalisation seems to produce more direct effects on the operations rationalisation, while it also proposes several critical observations (and less direct effects) on proposal management. This study offers an analysis of a set of questionnaires that have been proposed to entrepreneurs and managers of SMEs that operate only in B2B markets. The research highlights that personal relationships play a fundamental role in business relations, in which technical aspects of communication prevail on emotional ones. The research target verifies that business customer loyalty is mainly due to effective relationship-marketing policies, most of all for SMEs, which are more vulnerable to the aggression of moneyed advertising and information campaigns on behalf of large competitors. Thus, the suggestion is to provide proposal management procedures with CRM systems.

A value co-creation model for wine tourism

In spite their significant wine heritage, even major wine-producing countries still lack a corresponding systemic vision. This research highlights the possible contribution of a relational perspective on the management of wine tourism systems, underlining the necessity for the development of chains, networks, constellations, flows, and service(s). Specifically, the research develops a scientific framework supportive of the relational perspective on wine tourism to aid all major stakeholders in understanding, designing, and developing a wine tourism structured system based on service-dominant logic. The research is based on a speculative analysis of relational governance in wine tourism, and develops a theoretical framework of the relational context of wine tourism. The research is further supported by a field investigation focusing on the Campania Region (Italy); and a case study that enhances the understanding of the subject and indicates the potential implications of the framework, as well as its practical and theoretical applications.

Il comportamento del consumatore/degustatore nel Wine Marketing : una prospettiva per l'Italian Way of Wine

Il confronto con un consumo sempre piu attento ed esigente da una parte e con una concorrenza sempre piu internazionale e aggressiva dall’altra spingono gli operatori del comparto vitivinicolo, soprattutto negli ultimi anni, a fronteggiare situazioni di mercato difficili e anomale. Essendo il vino un bene agroalimentare dotato di un’indubbia potenzialita evocativa, si ritiene fondamentale rivalutare in tal senso lo studio del comportamento del consumatore enoico, al fine di educarlo a una piena consapevolezza del prodotto vino. Questo lavoro, in qualita di conceptual paper, si concentra in particolare sulla prospettiva del consumatore quale degustatore, individuando nell’informazione, nella comunicazione e nella conoscenza del vino un percorso culturale e commerciale per la generazione di un duraturo valore economico per l’operatore vitivinicolo, soprattutto nel sistema di offerta Made in Italy, facendo allo stesso tempo un sapiente uso del fondamentale contributo del country-of-origin. Tale concezione, peraltro, permette di proporre anche un’innovativa combinazione del wine marketing mix, che potra coerentemente articolarsi in informazione (prodotto), valutazione (prezzo), esperienza (distribuzione) ed educazione (comunicazione).

Myth #4: The Healthcare System Can Be Fixed by Treating It More as a Business

In recent years, the number of advocates for a more business-like management of healthcare organizations has significantly increased.

Cooperating for competing - a small Italian wineries' internationalisation strategy case study

The Italian wine sector is dominated by small businesses which are increasingly driven to venture into international markets as a matter of growth, or even survival. This research aims to investigate whether it is possible to successfully develop and implement collective strategies of internationalisation for small wineries; and to identify and define the main potential factors of cohesion of such collaborations. The research demonstrates that collective strategies of internationalisation for small wineries are not only possible, but also far-sighted. In addition, the work identifies the promotion of the region as one of the most important factors of cohesion; with relevant implications, both scientific and managerial. The research is case-study based and exploratory, and bears significant value through the provision of both descriptive and prescriptive direction of both scholarly and managerial worth; pertaining to organisational management/strategy/marketing, but also to a more comprehensive collaborative context involving regional and other stakeholders.

Public-private partnerships from a business management perspective - risks and opportunities for SMEs in Europe

This paper concerns project financing initiatives from a general perspective with a particular focus on small and medium enterprises, emphasising the importance of operational management for special purpose vehicles. In fact, this study, mainly from a theoretical point of view, focuses on business management as a strategic and operative flywheel for the successful functioning of project financing initiatives. In this way, small and medium enterprises can play an important role, even in public-private partnerships; although small and medium enterprises are usually not involved in public-private partnerships, they can be competitive in a different sense with respect to large enterprises simply by having more intense involvement in the management of special purpose vehicles. A focus on the role of small and medium enterprises in public-private partnerships in Europe, which are analysed through content analysis, shows evidence of significant opportunities, not only as subcontractors but also as attractors of innovative financing solutions.

A sustainable vision of port supply chain. A study on the automotive sector

Port logistics has been gaining in modern, connected and globalized economies an ever more intense importance, being characterized, in particular, for the management of services with an ever greater added value. Of course, this wealth creation, in a vision that is largely socio-economic, impacts also the issue of sustainability, which is made even more complex by the interaction along the chain/constellation/network with many other actors and services, constituting almost one flow of activity (according to a Service Dominant Logic perspective). This study aims at examining the issue of sustainability in port logistics, making emerge its multidimensionality and therefore proposing a methodology for its analysis and management. The theoretical framework has been applied to the automotive sector specifically, by virtue firstly of its economic relevance in the global logistics flows, and secondly of its environmental impact in terms of port and back-port. Its methodological application allows to qualify, even though with the inevitable sensitivity/discretion of the individual governance subject, the different criticalities of the sustainability as regards macroactivities and micro-operations of port logistics for the automotive sector. The analysis, so engineered, allows not only to handle a greater social responsibility along the chain/constellation/network of the automotive port logistics, but also, in the perspective of the Business Relational View (BRV), to govern a wider competitiveness in the global competition among port logistic corridors.

Assetti proprietari e problematiche di governance nelle piccole imprese familiari del comparto vitivinicolo. Il case study dell’azienda agricola "di marzo"

Abstract. Nel 2008 le “Cantine di Marzo” terminano un lungo processo di concentrazione dell’assetto proprietario che ha portato a una drastica riduzione del numero dei soci, concentrando nelle mani degli attuali proprietari pressappoco l’86%% delle quote. Questo processo di revisione dell’assetto proprietario era stato considerato una priorita per la sopravvivenza dell’impresa, in considerazione dell’immobilismo in cui era caduta l’azienda, a seguito dell’incremento, registrato nel tempo, della platea dei soci, quale risultato di ripetute successioni ereditarie. Dall’analisi di questa situazione emergono due interrogativi cruciali: e possibile che la concentrazione proprietaria costituisca una strategia utile per ridare slancio all’azione di governo? In caso affermativo, quali possono essere le motivazioni che abbiano contribuito al miglioramento della complementare azione di gestione? L’esperienza delle “Cantine di Marzo” suggerisce che la concentrazione puo essere una valida strategia di governance , perche ha consentito, nella fattispecie, di conseguire una maggiore dinamicita strategica e una migliore flessibilita operativa. Questo studio, pertanto, partendo dall’analisi della letteratura riguardante i riflessi dell’assetto proprietario sulla governance dell’impresa in generale e dell’impresa familiare in particolare, analizza i benefici della concentrazione proprietaria. Inoltre, presenta il caso delle “Cantine di Marzo”, illustra i risultati dell’indagine e discute le conseguenti implicazioni scientifiche e manageriali.