Ricerc@Sapienza

This paper provides an in-depth study on the main firm-level drivers of external competitiveness during the recent crisis in Italy. We contribute to the debate on the Italian international position by presenting evidence based on a unique sample survey database (the MET dataset). Overall, our results confirm the high degree of heterogeneity of the Italian corporate sector and the well-known differences between internationalised and domestic companies in terms of performance as well as structure and behaviour.

Purpose: We investigate why entrepreneurial universities choose a particular business strategy focusing on diversification and multinationalisation, and the role of Intellectual Capital (IC) in supporting such strategies.
Design/methodology/approach: The research question is answered through an exploratory case study of the University of Bari, Italy. Data was collected from strategic plans, annual reports, national evaluation reports and semi-structured interviews with the university’s board members and analysed using Secundo et al.’s (2016) collective intelligence framework .