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Adopting a perspective which takes into account primary sources and considers the context within which the firm operates could be beneficial for the study of the interaction of structures, strategies, ownership and performances. It would help to consider aspects of actual management activity usually underestimated by theory. The case of the introduction of a multidivisional structure at Pirelli rubber company – reconstructed based on the personal documentation of a top manager, Giuseppe Luraghi – underlines how the actual struggle for power inside the firm lingers behind labels often considered as objective entities. Therefore, M-form is an elastic concept, which could plastically adapt itself to different empirical arrangements, following the bargaining among groups within the firm and between them and outside influences.

Since the mid-1950s the national Italian oil company ENI has relied on Booz Allen and Hamilton for a wide range of organizational reforms, stimulated by its diversification strategy. This paper shows how national culture, corporate identity and entrepreneurship initially led to a conflicting relationship with the consultancy, and then set in motion a process of translation and enrichment of foreign labels that had previously been little more than empty shells.

Il saggio analizza le origini della specializzazione manifatturiera di Lissone a partire dagli ultimi decenni dell'Ottocento, soffermandosi in particolare sul rapporto tra artigiani a domicilio e grandi commercianti di mobili. Il periodo tra le due guerre mondiali vide una significativa modernizzazione del settore, soprattutto grazie alla mobilitazione di alcune istituzioni locali. Le iniziative promosse dalle autoritŕ comunali e dalle associazioni ebbero una forte rilevanza anche dopo la seconda guerra mondiale, in particolare con la creazione dell'Ente comunale del mobile (1951). Gli sforzi per un aggiornamento dell'artigianato locale naufragarono a causa del perdurare di alcune pratiche individualiste tradizionali e di un peggioramento della congiuntura nel corso dei decenni sessanta-settanta, mentre progressivamente veniva meno l'identificazione del tessuto produttivo locale con la specializzazione mobiliera. Note biografiche : Daniele Pozzi (1976) č assegnista di ricerca presso il Dipartimento di Analisi Istituzionale e Management Pubblico dell'Universitŕ commerciale "Luigi Bocconi" di Milano e insegna Storia economica e d'impresa presso l'Istituto di Economia dell'Universitŕ Carlo Cattaneo - LIUC di Castellanza (VA). Email: daniele.pozzi@unibocconi.it - dpozzi@liuc.it

The entrepreneurial activity of Enrico Mattei, who headed the Italian state oil company AGIP (later ENI) from 1945 to 1962, laid the groundwork for the company's growth during the 1950s and 1960s. Mattei relied on a group of knowledgeable specialists, who were equipped with a complex set of capabilities that enabled them to oversee and perform operational tasks. The task of adapting that set of capabilities began in the latter half of the 1950s, when the firm underwent a transition from its main business of producing natural gas, which it had developed immediately after World War II, to prospecting for oil abroad.