Roberto Schiesari

Influence of Exogenous Phenomena on Strategic Behavior and Organizational Culture: An Empirical Analysis

External shocks, negative conjuncture, periods of crisis are known to often constitute turning points for enterprises. On the one hand, managers urge to revise their business model, in order to adapt it to the changes of the external environment and of the competitive scenario. On the other hand, exogenous shocks usually affect collaboration with other players on the market. Such strategies as outsourcing, consortia, joint-ventures, during a crisis, can be used to face the lower financial resources available for the enterprises. Though, if the shock is subtle, sometimes enterprises don’t promptly react, due to distorted or delayed human perception. In this paper we show, by means of a computational model, that even a small percentage of slow-reacting (or biased) enterprises can determine a sub-optimal aggregate behavior when facing a negative exogenous conjuncture.

Analysis of the Belluno Industrial District by Means of a Questionnaire

An analysis research of the industrial district of Belluno eyewear is being developed, with the final goal of creating a simulation model based on system dynamics. At first, the industrial district has been analyzed from a theoretical point of view, starting from the definitions that gave Alfred Marshall, in Principles of Economics (1890) up to the present concept. In general an industrial district can be defined as socio-economic entity that is a collection of businesses, usually forming part of the same industry, located in a circumscribed area, between which there is cooperation but also competition. Today, after nearly 110 years since the first use of the word district, there are in the business world many of these realities that characterize the economies of different regions or nations; this is the case of Italy, where the presence of industrial districts is very high to represents the economic identity of certain regions. In this first theoretical analysis of the district, its elements, which recurred mainly in the analysis of the industrial district of Belluno, have been identified. The main items analyzed were: the concept of network, the binomial local/global, the presence of “two-speeddistricts”, the district internationalization and finally the role of the territory. After this, a questionnaire has been prepared, in order to fulfil the needs of the simulator. Last, the simulation framework is now being designed.

Incidence of Market Crisis on Decision Makers' Strategies: An Analysis at the Managerial Level

In environmental crisis enterprises’ propensity to collaborate plays a crucial role. To understand the adoption of collaborative systems, it is of great importance to know about economical effects of collaboration itself. Decision makers should be able to evaluate potential drawbacks and advantages of collaboration: strategies may be seen as a mixture of cost reduction, product differentiation and improvement of decision making and/or planning. In this context information technology may help a firm to create sustaining competitive advantages over competitors. The most important factors affecting benefits of collaboration are market structure, kind and degree of uncertainty faced by the firms, their risk preferences and the collaboration propensity. We present a microeconomic model and use techniques from game theory for the analysis. A new paradigm is formally introduced, taking into account human factor, to see how biased agents can influence the aggregate behaviour within an economic environment.

Non-equity Joints among Small and Medium Enterprises and Innovation Management: An Empirical Analysis Based on Simulation

In this work a simulation model is described and implemented, with the purpose of analyzing the non-equity collaborations among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the effects of innovation management strategies on enterprise networks. Non-equity links are usually stable, but not strong. In this context the strong links are joint-ventures and participation exchanges, while non-equity collaboration (as a consortium) are stable, but leaving each enterprise as an autonomous entity. In particular, the governance of SMEs remains independent, but in the long term we observe a co-evolution of strategies among the enterprises which take part in the collaborative network. An enterprise can decide to exploit innovative processes it owns, thus potentially gaining competitive advantage, but risking, in turn, that other players could reach the same technological levels. Or it could decide to share it, in exchange for other competencies or money. These strategies could be the basis for a network formation and/or impact the topology of an existing network. The model presented in the paper aims at exploring how a process innovation and the strategies to manage it can facilitate network formation, affect its topology, induce new players to enter the market and spread onto the network by being shared or developed by new players.

EVALUATING THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL PERCEPTION IN IT OUTSOURCING DIFFUSION - An Agent based Model

The decision to adopt innovations has been investigated using both international patterns and behavioural theories. In this work, an agent-based (AB) model is created to study the spreading of innovation in enterprises (namely, the adoption of Information Technology outsourcing). The paradigm of AB simulation makes it possible to capture human factors, along with technical ones. This makes it possible to study the influence of perception, and the resulting bias. This work is focused on small and medium enterprises (SME), in which a restricted managing pool (sometimes just one person) decides whether to adopt a new technology or not, and bases the decision mainly on perception.

Simulating the Perception Bias on Innovation Diffusion: An Experimental Study

The decision to adopt innovations has been investigated using both international patterns and behavioral theories. In this work, an agent-based (AB) model is created to study the spreading of innovation in enterprises (namely, the adoption of Information Technology outsourcing). The paradigm of AB simulation makes it possible to capture human factors, along with technical ones. This makes it possible to study the influence of perception, and the resulting bias. This work is focused on small and medium enterprises (SME), in which a restricted managing pool (sometimes just one person) decides whether to adopt a new technology or not, and bases the decision mainly on perception.

Concentration and Aggregation of Small and Medium Enterprises Analyzed Through a Novel Paradigm

A model is described and implemented, with the purpose of representing the non-equity collaborations among small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In the real world these links are stable, but not strong. In this context the strong links are joint-ventures and participation exchanges, while non-equity collaboration (as a consortium) are stable, but leaving each enterprise as an autonomous entity. In particular, the governance of SMEs remains independent, but in the long term we observe a co-evolution of strategies among the enterprises which take part in the collaborative network. These activities could be the basis for a network formation and/or impact the topology of an existing network. In this work an agent based model is introduced, aiming to explore the dynamics behind network formation among SMEs.