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Dopo una prima sezione introduttiva, in questo capitolo si evidenzieranno le specificità dell’industria italiana evidenziando come, alcune anomalie, portino a corroborare l’ipotesi che l’attuale crisi dell’automotive italiana sia collegata a tali anomalie e a tendenze generali che risultano essere sostanzialmente indipendenti dalla transizione tecnologica. Nella terza sezione si identificheranno le variabili per valutare come e in che misura l’attuale accelerazione dello sviluppo della tecnologia potrà condizionare la trasformazione dell’industria. Nella quarta sezione si commenteranno brevemente alcuni risultati riportati nel capitolo precedente e le implicazioni per la filiera dell’elettrificazione del drivetrain. La quinta sezione chiude il capitolo con alcune indicazioni di policy.

This volume reports the first results of the Observatory on the Transformations of the Italian Automotive Ecosystem. The main focus is on the consequences of the technology acceleration following the European legislation that has decreed the end of the sales of the production of endothermic motors in 2035. The Observatory was founded by CAMI - Department of Management of Ca' Foscari University of Venice and Motus-E, the association of industrial operators that promote electric vehicles. It seeks to identify the key variables to assess whether and to what extent the current technological development is shaping the evolution of the automotive ecosystem, and ultimately whether it represents an opportunity or a threat for incumbents. The main objective of the Observatory is to produce and identify scientific evidence on the ecosystem of mobility to be made available to economic, entrepreneurial, political-institutional and scientific networks. The Observatory is based on a database composed of companies belonging to the industrial chain of road mobility (supply chain for cars, motorcycles, micro-mobility, buses, trucks, as well as companies providing engineering services, components and after-market services and infrastructure for electric and similar refuelling and charging). The technological evolution of recent years is affecting the drive-train of vehicles, which will be subject to radical changes starting from the abandonment of internal combustion engine technology. In this scenario it is no longer enough to continue analysing the ‘traditional supply chain’, but a broader analysis is needed that takes into account the entire mobility ecosystem. Electric mobility is, to date, the most mature technology to replace the endothermic engine and will involve: a radical change in the technological base; an expansion of the boundaries of the automotive supply chain involving those of digitalisation and services; the need for complementary asset development.

Based on a broad analysis of conceptual streams of thinking and empirical literature, this chapter offers an overview of the complex relationships linking the “knowledge base” of an industry to its evolution. The chapter zooms in on the dynamics of multi-technology industries, that is, industries whose products are made up of components that embody many technologies characterized by uneven rates of change. To illustrate such dynamics, the chapter reports evidence drawn from studies of the automotive industry. This literature review suggests that understanding the knowledge base of industries is essential to interpret their structure, evolution, and competitive dynamics. Nonetheless, the chapter shows that the existing methodological approaches to the dynamic mapping of industries’ knowledge base have limitations, which are particularly severe in the context of multi-technology industries. Specifically, traditional patent-based approaches allow to trace the accumulation of competences in the industry’s core domain but may not be suitable to uncover emerging technological trends.

Nel 2021 il mondo ha dovuto fare i conti per il secondo anno di fila con la crisi sanitaria ed economica determinata dalla diffusione del virus COVID-19. Per l’industria dell’auto la crisi ha prodotto una serie di effetti sia sull’offerta sia sulla domanda, tra cui la crisi dei semiconduttori, l’incertezza economica legata alla crisi sanitaria, e la decisa accelerazione, a trazione EU, della transizione verso la mobilità elettrica. Per la filiera automotive italiana, ulteriori incognite sono legate alla formazione di Stellantis e il conseguente spostamento del baricentro decisionale fuori dall’Italia. Il quadro che emerge dal rapporto 2021 dell’Osservatorio è quello di una filiera i cui risultati in termini di fatturato, produzione ed export continuano ad essere in contrazione, e che necessita con urgenza dell’avvio di un programma di investimenti pubblici per sostenere l’attrattività di investimenti privati in Italia, e del rilancio dei poli italiani di eccellenza attraverso nuovi investimenti in ricerca e sviluppo, struttura manageriale, risorse finanziarie e una rinnovata capacità di ‘fare rete’.

Firms are often confronted with the need of changing their organizational routines. This might follow or trigger a change in their organizational identity. The aim of this paper is twofold: show why understanding the co-evolution of organizational routines and identity is important for addressing organizational change more broadly and provide propositions on how the courses of action of organizational identity and organizational routines cross and influence such change.

Nell’anno 2020 l’Italia ha dovuto fare i conti con la crisi sanitaria ed economica determinata dalla diffusione del virus COVID-19. La straordinarietà della situazione, con l’Europa alle prese con lockdown e fermi produttivi, ha portato l’Osservatorio a far seguire alla tradizionale rilevazione avviata a fine Febbraio 2020 una seconda indagine di approfondimento mirata a raccogliere le prime reazioni delle imprese della filiera alla crisi da coronavirus. Questa edizione del volume è, quindi, particolarmente ricca di spunti in quanto collega la fotografia del 2019 alla situazione generata dalla pandemia nel 2020. Il quadro complessivo è quello di una filiera i cui risultati in termini di fatturato, produzione ed export erano già in contrazione nel 2019 e, di conseguenza, particolarmente esposta alla crisi del 2020, soprattutto per alcune categorie di imprese meno resilienti. Il superamento di questa situazione critica potrà giocarsi sulla capacità di sviluppare aggregazioni e reti per l’innovazione, con obiettivi importanti di competitività dell’intera filiera sullo scenario internazionale.

Dopo un iniziale entusiasmo verso i benefici dell’esternalizzazione dell’innovazione attraverso lo sviluppo di relazioni inter-organizzative finalizzate a co-progettare componenti e sistemi, la letteratura ha iniziato a osservare che la scelta di basare i propri processi innovativi su fonti esterne, per avere successo nel tempo, deve associarsi allo sviluppo di risorse e competenze interne e a sofisticate pratiche inter-organizzative. Lo studio presentato in questo articolo ha ad oggetto lo sviluppo delle relazioni verticali nel settore automotive italiano. In linea con le pratiche internazionali, la filiera italiana si e configurata secondo una logica gerarchica e multi livello. Essa, tuttavia, non sembra essere ancora nelle condizioni di sfruttare a pieno i vantaggi dell’innovazione distribuita. Lo studio individua due ragioni principali, tra di loro collegate: (1) la scarsa qualificazione della forza lavoro che rende difficile un miglioramento nelle attivita di innovazione svolte all’interno dell’impresa; (2) il basso ricorso a fonti esterne di innovazione e la conseguente impossibilita di sfruttare le sinergie normalmente rese possibili dalle relazioni di fornitura.

La collana rappresenta un importante strumento d’indagine del settore autoveicolare. È realizzato, in collaborazione, da ANFIA (Associazione Nazionale Filiera Industria Automobilistica), Camera di commercio di Torino, e il CAMI (Center for Automotive and Mobility Innovation dell’Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia). Raccoglie i rapporti annuali dell’Osservatorio sulla componentistica automotive italiana, che offre un quadro complessivo sull’intera filiera autoveicolare. In particolare, sono indagati aspetti sia di carattere strutturale (classificazione per sistemi di prodotto, standard qualitativi, eventuale decentramento produttivo, livello di subfornitura, internazionalizzazione, innovazione, relazioni interorganizzative, ecc.) sia congiunturale (andamento della produzione, andamento delle esportazioni, previsioni, ecc.) relativi al settore.

This study explores the evolution of the knowledge base of the dominant Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) in the global automotive industry. Using data on patent families, we reconstruct and analyze their innovative portfolio in the period 1990-2014. The analysis documents experimentation in new technical fields as well as stability in industry-specific technical areas, allowing to draw implications on the underlying industry dynamics. Specifically, our results show that despite the emergence of technological opportunities in new and once-unrelated technical domains, the importance of core automotive technologies has increased over the period of analysis. At the same time, the relative position of carmakers along different performance dimensions has remained quite stable, suggesting that the technological capabilities that have traditionally driven success in this industry continue to play a key role in explaining firms’ competitive strength.

The paper analyzes the Italian auto industry investments in Industry 4.0 technologies and firms’ perceived risks, constraints and limits to new technologies adoption. Results show that firms 4.0 are those at the higher level of the supply pyramid and closer to the final market, and are among the most innovative, dynamic and performing companies. Particularly firms invested to improve the Production, Quality, Logistics and Maintenance areas. The study also analyzes the relevance of the Italian Government’s plan for sustaining innovative investments and overall the main risks and constraints that could hinder the activation of Industry 4.0 initiatives in this setting.

The article uses a qualitative case study of fifteen years in the production network that revolves about Fiat Auto to depict the “network firm” as a political coalition. The analysis touches on Fiat’s radical outsourcing of production in the 1990s, a short-lived and ill-fated alliance with General Motors in 2001, a descent to the brink of bankruptcy in 2004, a return to profitability by 2007, and, finally, the acquisition of control of Chrysler in 2009. The article reconstructs James March’s classic Carnegie model of the firm in light of the blurring of organizational boundaries. By marrying that model with ideas drawn from the literatures on organizational networks, social movements, and organizational politics, the article demonstrates that strategic decision-making at Fiat and at key suppliers shaped, and was shaped by, an interplay of frames and relational embedding within and across organizational boundaries. This shows how coalitional politics shape and are shaped by the shifting boundaries of the firm, and how those politics affect the evolution of the production networks that prevail across many contemporary industries.

Companies developing complex products face a crucial dilemma: the benefits of research and development (R&D) outsourcing such as lower costs, access to specialist knowledge, or shorter development lead times often have negative consequences for competence development due to the loss of opportunities for learning by doing. Having experienced the problems of outsourcing R&D, Fiat developed a novel organizational solution that offers new insights as to how firms can organize R&D to protect against innovation competence loss in R&D outsourcing.

Organizational and sociological research dealing with network governance has mainly focused on network advantages rather than on their problems or dysfunctionalities. This focus has left the field of network failure partially unexplored. We argue that although there have been some attempts to explicitly theorize network failures, the existing explanations, which are based on structural or social conditions, are not exhaustive. In this article we report the results of our empirical investigation on an underperforming network formed by the world-famous Venice Film Festival and its local hospitality system. We inductively derive a dynamic theory of network failure premised on the interplay of the network’s static dimensions (opportunism and ignorance) and dynamic dimensions (framing and mobilizing), and the role of institutions.

Outsourcing design and engineering tasks in product development is increasingly popular. However, firms that outsource design and engineering tasks often experience problems. So far, no satisfactory answer exists regarding the question to what extent design and engineering tasks can be outsourced before negative consequences occur. We address this gap. This paper identifies the limits of design and engineering outsourcing in product development, and the sources of these limits. To do so, it investigates the organizational challenges that a major European automotive manufacturer faced when it decided to adopt an extreme form of design and engineering outsourcing. Based on an in-depth case study, we identify the sources of problems with outsourcing design and engineering tasks in product development, and shed light on the limits of design and engineering outsourcing in product development.

This paper investigates the link between how firms govern the relationships with their counterparts in vertical networks and the likelihood of developing product and/or process innovation by reporting the results of a survey on Italian automotive suppliers. Results show that actors do not select coordination mechanisms according to the type of innovation activity carried out. Conversely, different patterns of governance emerge if one distinguishes between companies transacting downstream (e.g. a second tier supplier selling their components/systems to a first tier one) and upstream (e.g. a second tier supplier buying component/system by a third tier one). In the first case, firms are more liable of innovating with their counterpart when adopting contractual governance tools. In the second case, companies are more liable to innovate with their counterpart if “trust” and “trust building practices” are in place.

This study investigates the dynamics of knowledge partitioning, integration and coordination in vertical inter-firm relationships by addressing the following research questions: How and to what extent does product architecture shape the allocation of design tasks and inter-firm coordination? What variables do firms have to consider in making decisions concerning the organization of co-design projects? Following a ‘quasi-experimental’ research design approach, we conducted a comparative study of two similar auto component co-development projects (air-conditioning systems) carried out by a Japanese first-tier supplier with two European automakers. Despite the coeteris paribus conditions defined by the research design, we observed significant cross-firm differences in task and knowledge partitioning and in the relationship governance. The study shows that firm-specific factors (e.g. pre-existing technological and organizational capabilities) - not product architecture per se - resulted the key determinants of cross-firm differences. From this perspective our findings contributes to the broader debate about the co-determination of product architectures, firms' vertical scope and industry architecture.

In this study an experimental study on a biological methane oxidation column presented with the aim to calibrate a mathematical model developed in an earlier study. The column was designed to reproduce at lab-scale a real biofilter trying to consider the more probable landfill boundary conditions. Although the methane oxidation efficiency in the column was lower than the expected (around 35%), an appropriate model implementation showed an acceptable agreement between the outcomes data of the model simulation and the experimental data (with Theil's Inequality Coefficient value of 0.08). A calibrated model allows a better management of the biofilter performance in terms of methane oxidation.

This paper, building on R&D integration and improvisation literature, explores how firms organize to jointly develop common product platforms if their integration process is still in progress. In order to address our exploratory research question, we draw on a unique set of empirical data gathered during the Fiat-Chrysler R&D integration process and during the development of their first shared product platform. We show that, how due to fierce competition on time in the industry, the two companies did not have time to complete the planned R&D integration. As a consequence, the first shared platform development project represented the real locus of technological, knowledge, and organizational integration between the two firms. In line with the R&D integration literature, this paper identifies a set of planned integration mechanisms: a centralized R&D area, two teams that mirror each other, integrator roles and shared technical norms. This organization was designed to help Fiat and Chrysler exploiting their complementarities. Furthermore, building on the improvisational literature, we show that the planned organization did not suffice: interstices between the two firms exist and planning and improvisation are complementary. Improvisation should be built upon a minimum structure and firms willing to accelerate their integration process can rely upon NPD activities.

Organizational and sociological research dealing with network governance has mainly focused on network advantages rather than on their problems or dysfunctionalities. This left partially unexplored the field of network failure. Even if some early attempts at explicitly theorizing network failures have been made, we argue that explanations based mainly on social conditions (ignorance and opportunism) offered by this emerging theory (e.g. Schrank and Whitford, 2011), are not exhaustive. In this article we report the results of our empirical investigation on the underperforming network between the worldwide famous Venice Film Festival and its local hospitality system (in Venice, Italy). In the case study we are presenting, we will show how institutions have not been able to inhibit opportunism and sustain trust among network members because of mobilizing practices developed across formal lines of communication. With this work we propose a dynamic theory of network failure, answering to the more general call for network theories to focus the attention on agency and micro-processes.

In this chapter we review the literature on complex product development focusing on a project-based perspective. We start from showing the specific nature of complex product development processes, and acknowledge the need for relying on external sources of innovation and evaluating its organizational implications. We then focus on the challenges of leveraging such dispersed knowledge, pointing to the specific problems brought by the crucial role of "learning by doing" in complex prod- uct innovation processes. The chapter highlights the necessity of shifting the focus of attention from firms' knowledge boundaries to the project knowledge boundaries, so as to gain a more fine-grained analysis of some important phenomena that happen "around" the formal boundary of the firm and cope with knowledge development problems. In the conclusion we hint at the necessity to investigate in more depth how using development projects as unit of analysis can contribute to offering new ways of performing organizational ambidexterity.

This paper casts light on the role of initial code release for providing coordination of joint search processes, i.e., search processes that involve several agents who search together. We develop hypotheses about the role of initial code release for providing coordination, and for whether development projects remain active. We test these hypotheses on a dataset of 5703 open source software projects registered on SourceForge during a two-year period. We find that initial code release is indeed associated with improved coordination, and a higher chance that software development projects will actually release further code subsequently. We contribute to theory on coordination in joint search, common in distributed innovation settings.

This book showcases advanced empirical research that applies the concept of organizational routines to understanding organizations and how they change and evolve.

The article uses a longitudinal case study analysis to understand the micro-dynamics explaining the emergence of service innovation over time. We build on the common nature - processual and interactive - of services and organizational routines and rely on practice-based theorizing to show how service innovation develops over time as intertwined cycles of "perceiving breakdowns", "emerge of novelty" and "stabilizing aspects of practice". Specifically, the case study analysis shows how novelty emerges through service work practices in a variety of forms (experimentation, improvisation bricolage and continuous adaptation) and domains of the service provision routine (rule-following, technology use, knowing and social patterning) and how replicability in service innovation is realized through stabilizing mechanisms that simultaneously work within all the complementary domains in which practice can be disentangled. Indeed, stability is at the basis of reproducibility that, in turn, is required for any innovation to happen.

In the last two decades the IT Outsourcing (ITO) academic literature has examined multiple aspects of the outsourcing phenomenon. In this paper we focus on the role and the impact of organizational standards on IT outsourcing relations. We look at organizations regulated by explicit standard models, characterized by system-supported supervision, programmed routines, and hyper-automation. We did so by analyzing the impact of a consolidated standard, the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), on the governance of IT service management. This quantitative study is based on the analysis of 200 questionnaire answered by Italian CIOs in 2011, aimed at understanding the role of ITIL and its effects on the relationship between buyers and suppliers. Our findings show a positive relation between the adoption of ITIL and the presence of outsourcing arrangements, and give some hints about the impact of the adoption of standards on governance mechanisms, which open the field to future research.

The blurring of organizational boundaries and the adoption of networks as a prominent form of governance have largely contributed to reinforcing interdependence between internal and external organizational networks as well as between formal and informal ties. This chapter tries to broaden existing theoretical models in order to explain the behavioral decision-making process of the firm and how it is shaped by the complex and interactive dynamics of these networks. The theoretical perspective employed in the chapter suggests that a firm’s behavior is influenced by organizational politics. Although this actually does not constitute a fresh perspective within organizational and management studies, in this chapter it is revamped and widened in light of the mentioned changes within and across firms’ organizational boundaries. The starting point of our discussion is March’s seminal work (March in Journal of Politics 24(4):662–678, 1962) and his model of “the business firm as a political coalition”. Subsequently, drawing also on later organizational politics literature we show the limits and opportunities of adopting such an imagery not only for the traditional business firm but also for the contemporary network organization: through it we can improve our understanding of how organizational boundaries are defined today, why company leaders choose the strategies they choose, and how and why those strategies are (or are not) implemented. In order to explain patterns of organizational behavior in a world of blurred-but existent firm boundaries we finally draw on a more recent sociological literature on social movements that also highlights for “patterns of mobilization distinct from both lines of formal authority and the personal ties of informal organization” (Clemens, Where Do We Stand? Common Mechanisms in Organizations and Social Movements Research, in Davis G, McAdam D, Scott WR, Zald M (eds) Social movements and organization theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 356, 2005). Indeed, such a literature recognized the central role of networks, their evolutionary dynamics, and interactions between the internal and the external and between the formal and the informal.

a b s t r a c t In the last two decades, the auto industry has shown a steady increase of vehicle development out- sourcing and a shift of both product development tasks and knowledge from carmakers to suppliers. This trend has increased the interest toward product modularity as a tool to ease the integration of external sources of innovation but there is contradictory evidence concerning the benefits of modu- larity in inter-firm coordination in the automotive industry. Moreover, although modularity literature considers standard interfaces one of the constitutive elements of modularity and a means for easing design outsourcing, very few studies have analyzed the genesis and the micro-dynamics of the interfaces definition process. In order to fill this research gap, this paper focuses on how assemblers and suppli- ers define the component-vehicle interfaces in component co-development projects. This study adopts a "quasi-experimental design approach" comparing two similar vehicle component co-development projects carried out by the same first-tier supplier with two different automakers. Under the ceteris paribus conditions defined by the research design, the empirical evidence derived from the analysis of the two projects shows that, differently from what modularity theory claims: the interface definition process is neither technologically determined nor the mere result of product architectural choices; the OEMs and the supplier's capabilities, degree of vertical integration, knowledge and strategic focus drive the partitioning of the design and engineering tasks, the interfaces definition process, and the choice of the inter-firm coordination mechanisms. Furthermore, while component modularity and design out- sourcing are considered as complements in modularity literature, our findings suggest that they may work as substitutes and are rather difficult to combine.

When the crisis hit the world economy at the beginning of 2008, it was clear to both analysts and governments that a collapse of the automotive industry might have a terrific impact on the whole economy, with significant social consequences. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the USA between 2008 and 2009 about 50,000 jobs were lost at original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and 125,000 jobs at suppliers (source: http://www.bls.gov/ces/). Similar figures apply to Europe where overall, between 2008 and 2009, around 130,000 jobs were lost (Volpato and Zirpoli, 2011).

L'innovazione è sempre più il risultato congiunto dell'attività di ricerca e sviluppo realizzata da imprese che appartengono a business ecosystem (Iansiti e Levien, 2004). L'idea di fondo che sta emergendo con forza negli studi di management è che le imprese non possano perseguire strategie di sviluppo dell'innovazione facendo affidamento esclusivamente sulle proprie risorse e competenze ma devono aprirsi alla possibilità di utilizzare a proprio vantaggio il contributo di soggetti sui quali l'azienda non ha un controllo di tipo gerarchico (equity). Da qui la proposizione di nuovi modelli di business che si fondano sull'idea di open innovation (Chesbrough, 2003). In realtà il dibattito sulla definizione dei confini dell'impresa e sul ruolo dei soggetti esterni nei processi di innovazione non è nuovo (si veda ad esempio von Hippel, 1988 e Womack et. al., 1990). Tuttavia, gli elementi di novità attengono alla circostanza che le imprese hanno iniziato a metabolizzare il cambio di scenario e sono impegnate in un processo di ristrutturazione complessa sia dell'organizzazione interna del processo di sviluppo prodotto sia della architettura della propria value chain (Jacobides et al., 2006). Tale processo si rispecchia anche nella letteratura che è passata da una rappresentazione entusiastica ed, a volte, edulcorata delle prerogative positive dei processi di outsourcing di alcune delle attività di ricerca e sviluppo, ad una loro analisi critica. Questo lavoro si inquadra nella necessità di analizzare con maggiore profondità il tema dell'outsourcing di innovazione e si pone due finalità. In primo luogo si cercherà di rappresentare in modo dettagliato le implicazioni che l'outsourcing di attività di progettazione di sistemi e componenti ha sulla capacità dell'impresa di realizzare con efficacia l'integrazione di sistemi (Prencipe et al., 2003). In secondo luogo si offrirà un'analisi critica delle variabili più rilevanti ai fini del successo nell'integrazione di sistema. Il lavoro si pone nel solco della letteratura che si è occupata dell'innovazione nel contesto di prodotti complessi (Hobday e Rush, 2000). Di conseguenza si è scelto di condurre l'analisi empirica su cui si basa il lavoro, nel settore dell'auto e di circoscriverla al coinvolgimento nei processi di innovazione dei fornitori di primo livello di componenti e sistemi complessi. Il taglio del lavoro è volto a mettere in luce le modalità organizzative con le quali le imprese implementano nella pratica le strategie di integrazione di sistema ed i problemi che gli OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) si trovano ad affrontare nel perseguire una strategia di outsourcing di progettazione.

This paper considers the trade-off between leveraging external sources of innovation by outsourcing design and engineering activities and the ability to develop internal product development competences. The trade-off arises because the division of labor within and across firms' boundaries has a crucial role in shaping competence development processes, especially because the division of labor also influences opportunities for learning by doing. In new product development projects, learning by doing appears to be both a key determinant of competence development and a difficult-to-substitute form of learning. While the division of development tasks is often considered as guided by product architecture, we show that by decoupling the decisions concerning the product architecture and the allocation of development tasks, firms can realize the benefits of outsourcing such tasks while developing new internal competences. Drawing on a longitudinal case study in the automotive industry, we also identify a new organizational lever for shaping competence development paths and for designing firm boundaries. This lever consists in alternating different task allocation schemes over time for different types of development projects. We show why this is a novel solution, what its underlying logic is, and how it enables alleviating the trade-off between the benefits of leveraging external sources of innovation and the opportunities for competence development provided by in-house design and engineering. We discuss implications for theories of organizational boundary design and innovation management.

Il lavoro mostra l'opportunità di ampliare i modelli teorici di network governance, incentrati sull'analisi delle interdipendenze esistenti fra reti formali ed informali o tra quelle interne ed esterne all'organizzazione.Ciò al fine di spiegare il comportamento dell'impresa (quindi le sue scelte strategiche e le conseguenze di tali scelte per l'organizzazione) in funzione delle dinamiche interattive di tali reti. La prospettiva teorica che si propone è quella in base alla quale il comportamento dell'impresa è influenzato dalla dimensione politica. Pur non trattandosi di una prospettiva nuova negli studi d'impresa, il capitolo evidenzia la necessità di re-interpretare tale prospettiva alla luce dei cambiamenti avvenuti in seno all'impresa ed ai suoi confini organizzativi. Ciò a partire dal lavoro seminale di March (1962), in cui vengono descritte le caratteristiche di un modello di «impresa come coalizione politica». A partire da tal contributo e dalla successiva letteratura di organizational politics si evidenzieranno i limiti e le opportunità di tale modello e le modalità in cui la variabile politica può essere adottata per comprendere il comportamento dell'impresa attuale.

A partire da una ricostruzione sistematica del più ampio scenario di riferimento in cui si inserisce lo sviluppo delle tecnologie ibride ed elettriche, il capitolo valuta le opportunità e le minacce per i car maker insite in tale sviluppo nonchè il potenziale impatto che l'affermarsi di tecnologie alternative a quella tradizionale (motore a combustione interna) potrà avere sui criteri di divisione del lavoro e della conoscenza fra i vari attori della filiera automotive. Esso offre inoltre alcuni spunti di riflessione circa la probabile evoluzione delle dinamiche competitive del settore automobilistico, in relazione alle azioni strategiche intraprese dalla imprese in risposta alle minacce poste da nuovi attori.

In economic and management theories, vertical scope is the predominant aspect of firm boundaries. Yet, as recent research indicates, firms make and buy, engage in concurrent sourcing, or make their boundaries permeable: vertical scope is not the only and, perhaps, not the main lens for understanding firms' boundaries, in particular as firms redesign them today. This paper draws on a longitudinal qualitative case study of FIAT Auto in order to contribute to understanding how boundary design can go beyond vertical scope, what that means for conceptualizations of the design of firm boundaries, and how firms can use these additional means of boundary design in order to generate positive performance consequences. The empirical findings highlight that in designing their boundaries firms can also leverage purely organizational solutions regarding intra and inter firm structures and processes rather than acting on vertical scope. The paper argues that the extant empirical focus on transactions and the ownership of vertically related activities in boundary design decisions should be complemented by an explicit attention to organizational design variables.

The article argues that organizational sociology would do well to revisit James March’s famed imagery of the business firm as a political coalition in light of today’s decentralized production regimes. Specifically, we show that the increased tendency of firms to coordinate the design and making of highly complex products across organizational boundaries has fundamentally altered and been altered by the politics of coalition building. This is demonstrated using a 15 year longitudinal qualitative case study of the vertical production network that revolves about Fiat Auto. In those years, Fiat went from one of the most vertically integrated automakers in Europe, to one of the least vertically integrated, and has in the wake of a severe crisis now swung back the other way. We argue that this evolution cannot adequately be understood without reference to an interplay of inter- and intra-firm relations, including especially to the spilling of intra-organizational rivalries across firm boundaries, and to the effects of cross-firm coalitions on intra-organizational fights. Analyzing this evolution and these relations from a 'political' perspective allows us to better understand the behavior not merely of particular firms, but also of interacting networks of firms in a world of blurred – but existent – organizational boundaries.

The concept of organizational routine can foster our understanding of the behavior of organizations and of organizational change [Nelson, R.R., Winter, S.G., 1982. An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, Cambridge; March, J.G., Simon, H.A., 1958. Organizations. Blackwell, Oxford (1993); Cyert, R.M., March, J.G., 1963. A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Blackwell, Oxford (1992)], but since empirical studies employing organizational routines as analytical perspective are still relatively rare, how to conduct such an analysis and what are its benefits is not yet fully evident. We wish to shed light on how employing routines contributes to understanding the behavior of organizations and to demonstrate the potential of such analysis. The empirical analysis of the product development process at an engineering centre shows that using organizational routines presents advantages over alternative analytical approaches. The paper also contributes to shed light on how to fruitfully employ an organizational routines perspective in analyzing the behavior of organizations, providing the foundation for further empirical work.

Several streams of recent literature emphasize the advantages of involving external sources of innovation in the process of developing complex products (Powell et al., 1996; Helper et al., 2000; Sturgeon, 2002; Chesbrough, 2003). The question we tackle in the present article is 'What are the key micro organizational decisions for seizing the benefits of a networked innovation strategy?' Building on empirical evidence gathered over a ten-year period at a major European automotive manufacturer, the article presents empirical insights on the organizational challenges that firms face when they decide to rely on external sources of innovation in developing complex products. The empirical evidence highlights two aspects that are important: The role of component specific knowledge in addressing the integration of overall product performance, and the role of learning by doing opportunities in accumulating component specific knowledge. The article shows how managers can greatly benefit from focusing their attention on the organizational aspects of leveraging external sources of innovation and adjusting their innovation strategy, including 'make or buy' choices, accordingly. Strategic and micro organizational decisions, hence, should be considered as tightly coupled and mutually influencing in the context of complex product development. This quite intuitive outcome has been partially neglected in current innovation literature and management practice due to an overemphasis given to product architecture and the possibilities in terms of organization that it enables.

The article discusses models of open innovation for companies in networks of modular system integration. A case study involving dozens of managers from the Italian automotive industry is presented ...

New product development nowadays makes heavy use of IT instruments such as virtual simulation tools. The main motivation for introducing virtual simulation tools in new product development is to speed up development and lower its cost. Virtual simulation tools, however, do much more. They introduce profound changes in the organization, including the nature of problem-solving, bearing the potential to increase new product development performance beyond cost and lead time reduction. Understanding these profound changes, we argue, holds the key to unlocking the potential of virtual simulation tools for improving new product development performance, including more innovative products. We support our argument with a case study from the European auto industry.

The paper analyses the organization of the new product development process at FIAT from a resource‐based perspective. The focus is on organizational resources for integrating dispersed specialist knowledge required in the development of complex products. The analysis shows how the application of a resource‐based perspective is able to uncover negative long‐term effects of outsourcing on the knowledge base (hollowing out), despite beneficial short‐term effects on cost.

The paper analyses the organization of the new product development process at FIAT from a resource-based perspective. The focus is on organizational resources for integrating dispersed specialist knowledge required in the development of complex products. The analysis shows how the application of a resource-based perspective is able to uncover negative long-term effects of outsourcing on the knowledge base (hollowing out), despite beneficial short-term effects on cost.

The nature of buyer‐supplier relationships has been closely linked to nation specific explanations and concern has been expressed in literature regarding the transferability of co‐design best practices to different firms and countries. On the other hand, many attempts to isolate best practices and to apply them on a global scale have been proposed in the literature. Contributes to the issue by analysing a controversial case study based on the Italian automotive industry. Results show that few aspects of the Japanese contextual features and American ones existed when the major Italian car maker decided to outsource component design and dramatically change its supply chain management approach. Moreover, despite the massive involvement of suppliers at a very early stage of the car maker new product development process, not all the best practices deemed to be necessary when implementing a co‐operative buyer‐supplier relationship have been applied. Argues that these results lead us to question the very nature of effective buyer‐supplier relationships as described by the dominant literature and suggests implications for practitioners and for future research.