Rosario Faraci

Aligning management model and business model in the management innovation perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present some evidence on the role of management models in the implementation or in the transformation of the business models, highlighting the pivotal role of managerial dynamic capabilities. The analysis provides relevant lines of managerial action both strategic and operational levels. Design/methodology/approach – An innovative conceptual analysis is proposed. Managerial dynamic capabilities play a central role in the coupled link between management model and business model at the organizational level. Findings – The authors propose a highly usable and generalizable conceptual model for management practices, strategic planning and operational assessment. Originality/value – This paper investigates a new emerging research stream of management innovation theory. The research presents a new and innovative conceptual analysis of management model and business model alignment. This theme has not been explored in prior researches and represents an experiment to pair t...

Internationalization of firms: revitalizing the board of directors after a cross-border acquisition

Purpose This paper aims to show the importance of introducing an integration manager (i.e. an executive position used to channel the acquiring firm’s course of action and strengthen the success of a post-acquisition integration process) within the acquiring firm’s board of directors. Design/methodology/approach This is a theoretical paper that introduces the integration manager within the board of privately held firms going internationally via acquisitions and serving as an “out-insider” director able to balance the conflicting demands of the previously separated entities during their integration process. The authors present an explanatory case study that empirically contributes to the board of directors’ design for internationalization. Findings The authors posit that the integration manager serves as an “out-insider” director of the board for privately held firms, possessed by large-block shareholders, going internationally via acquisitions, providing the necessary expertise and knowledge of the target firm’s products and industry. Originality/value The provided study aims to show that international acquisitions, even though apparently less risky than greenfield investments, may require additional neutral information flow – both within the due-diligence process and the post-acquisition integration – that only outsiders possess. Such an outsider has been individuated in the integration manager whose crucial role focuses on smoothing the pre- and post-acquisition integration processes.

A decision-making perspective on business integration and inter-firms agreements in biotechnology industry

The aim of this paper is to discuss the issue of corporate structure and business models for managing new modular and complementary biotechnology innovations according to a decision-making perspective. Corporate structure and business models of large diversified firms (LDFs) and dedicated biotechnology firms (DBFs), in fact, are at the heart of the scientific research and of the practice in the management field. We focus our attention on the trade-off between vertical integration and inter-firms agreements aimed to control biotech innovation, a trade-off which is related to collaborations’ content, business planning, investment constraints and intellectual capital. DBFs specific features will be presented along with the strategic options developed by operators. The contributions of the transaction cost theory and of the resource-based view will be underlined and, as a consequence, we will elaborate on the fundamental variables for decision making purposes. Data on the US and European integrative strategies trends in the biotech industry will be presented in the conclusive section.

I provider di logistica integrata: caratteristiche dei servizi offerti e implicazioni per le imprese clienti operanti nei mercati internazionali

Il presente lavoro esamina le caratteristiche dei servizi offerti da una particolare categoria di operatori specializzati, i provider di logistica integrata che offrono i loro servizi alle piccole e medie imprese operanti sui mercati internazionali. L’offerta di questi operatori si caratterizza per una gestione integrata e coordinata delle attivita e delle informazioni connesse alla movimentazione fisica delle merci ed al loro stoccaggio. L’integrazione logistica realizzata dai provider attiene, in particolare, all’unitaria gestione delle operazioni connesse alle fasi di approvvigionamento, produzione e distribuzione, mentre il coordinamento avviene, dapprima con prevalente riferimento alla singola impresa cliente e, successivamente, a tutti gli altri soggetti del canale logistico. L’attivita dei provider ha poi delle implicazioni sulla gestione e organizzazione del canale logistico delle imprese clienti, soprattutto sotto il profilo dell’ampliamento delle possibilita di accesso o del potenziamento della capacita competitiva sui mercati internazionali. Queste imprese, infatti, con l’assistenza fornita dai provider hanno la possibilita di accedere a mercati di approvvigionamento piu convenienti ed a mercati di sbocco piu attrattivi riuscendo, in quest’ultimo caso, ad assicurare un livello di servizio logistico paragonabile a quello dei concorrenti piu qualificati. L’intera materia discussa nel lavoro e illustrata empiricamente attraverso il caso di un provider di servizi logistici integrati, la GMC International Trade, di cui si discutono la gamma dei servizi offerti ed il contributo fornito alla realizzazione dei processi logistici delle piccole e medie imprese clienti operanti sui mercati internazionali. Key words: logistica, provider, servizi

Mobilizing Capital for Fostering the Early Growth of Firms: The Role of Business Angels in Nascent European Entrepreneurship

Despite the important role recognized to outside equity in financing and fostering innovative entrepreneurial firms (i.e., entrepreneurial start-ups), relatively little is known about the key characteristics of the different fund-providers involved either in a temporal perspective (diverse stage of the early firm’s life) or in an industry perspective (specialized equity investors). While business angels and venture capitalists are relatively common and welcome companions of entrepreneurs, various kinds of circumstances need to be accomplished and coordinated in order to establish and govern these relationships in a way that is really beneficial to all the parties. This chapter aims to discuss various aspects of the multifaceted relation between entrepreneurs seeking for finance to their early stage projects and business angels providing equity. In particular, we underscore the rationale for the emergence of the business angel networks in order to optimize search costs and the good match between supply and demand for funds. While business angel networks have found the way for their admittance in many European countries, in the USA, angel groups (or spontaneous investor associations) are far more developed. On the ground of a 5-year panel data extracted from the European Business Angel Network (EBAN), we explore in depth the intricacies and inefficiencies related to the action of the business angels networks in Europe and briefly juxtapose them to the Anglo-Saxon experience.

Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and the Diffusion of Startups

the Di usion of Startups Science, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship series Edited by Elias G. Carayannis, Professor of Science, Technology, Innovation and Entrepeneurship, School of Business, George Washington University, US, Giovanni Battista Dagnino, Professor of Business Economics and Management, University of Catania, Italy, Sharon Alvarez, omas W. Olofson Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies, Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, US and Rosario Faraci, Professor of Business Economics and Management, University of Catania, Italy