La tesi muove dall’analisi del contenuto degli accordi interconfederali in materia di misurazione della rappresentatività sindacale, mettendo in luce le potenzialità e le criticità dell’attuale assetto, ed interrogandosi sulla necessità di una regolamentazione legislativa della materia. Si dimostra che l’intervento normativo, escluso per quanto riguarda la contrattazione collettiva nazionale, si rivelerebbe, invece, indispensabile a livello aziendale. Descritte alcune delle proposte legislative avanzate dalla dottrina, la tesi indica le linee di un possibile intervento legislativo concentrandosi sulle strutture di rappresentanza dei lavoratori in azienda e sull’esercizio dei diritti sindacali, sull’ambito di efficacia soggettiva e sulla titolarità della contrattazione collettiva a livello aziendale, nonché sui rapporti tra questa ed il contratto collettivo nazionale di lavoro. In tale prospettiva, si analizza anche il regime delle clausole di tregua sindacale in relazione alla contrattazione collettiva aziendale e all’esercizio del diritto di sciopero. / The thesis, starting from the analysis of the contents of inter-sectoral agreements regarding the measurement of unions’ representativeness, focuses on the potentialities and criticalities of the current Italian industrial relations system. The thesis stresses that a statutory regulation in this field is not needed with reference to sectoral collective bargaining, but it could be necessary as regard to collective bargaining and workplace representatives at firm level. The thesis outlines the guidelines for a possible regulatory intervention, focusing on the functions of workplace representatives, trade union rights, collective bargaining coverage, no-strike clauses and the relationship between decentralised and sectoral collective bargaining agreements.

Questo progetto ha lo scopo di delineare e rappresentare un quadro adatto a sostenere la transizione del sistema vitivinicolo italiano verso un modello sostenibile. A tal fine, ho sviluppato un disegno di ricerca interdisciplinare il cui percorso e risultati sono presentati nella tesi. Nel capitolo 1 viene mostrato il contesto in cui questa ricerca ha avuto origine e si è svolta. La parte introduttiva fornisce una panoramica sulla definizione giuridica di sostenibilità, su come la sostenibilità è intesa e adottata nel settore alimentare italiano e nell'industria del vino. In seguito, sono stati identificati i problemi e i gaps di ricerca rispetto all'integrazione della sostenibilità nel settore vitivinicolo italiano, questo è servito per identificare e delineare gli obiettivi della presente ricerca. Ho esaminato la relazione tra le aziende vinicole e i loro territori, considerando gli aspetti più cruciali dell'embeddedness locale e della sostenibilità delle aziende vitivinicole come la percezione del rischio legato all'esposizione ai pesticidi usati in agricoltura, la consapevolezza e l'impegno verso la responsabilità sociale d'impresa, e lo sviluppo di un quadro di riferimento volto a valutare la sostenibilità e a guidare le migliori pratiche nella produzione del vino. / This project aims to outline and represent a suitable framework to support the transition of the Italian wine system towards a sustainable model. To this end, I framed an interdisciplinary research design whose path and results are presented herein. In Chapter 1, the context in which this research has originated and taken place is shown. The introductory part provides an overview about the pending legal definition of sustainability, how sustainability is intended and adopted in Italian food sector and in the wine industry. Afterwards, the research issues and gaps with respect to the integration of sustainability into the Italian wine industry were noted, this served to identify and clearly state the research objectives. I examined the relationship between wine companies and their territories, by considering the most crucial aspects of local embeddedness and wine companies sustainability such as the perception of risk related to the exposure to pesticides used in agriculture, the awareness and commitment on corporate social responsibility, and the development of a framework aimed at assessing sustainability and guiding best practices in wine production.

La tesi vuole porre l’attenzione su uno dei dilemmi dei moderni sistemi sanitari: garantire buoni servizi di cura a costi contenuti. La tesi affronta tale questione attraverso l’implementazione del modello value-based (cfr. medicina basata sul valore), dove per “valore” si intende il risultato di salute conseguito per risorse impiegate. L’obiettivo della tesi è quello di dedurre, attraverso tre differenti punti di analisi, le condizioni e i fattori che stanno inducendo le aziende sanitarie a migliorare i loro modelli di erogazione di cura al fine di incrementare il valore per i pazienti. Nello specifico, la tesi focalizza l’attenzione sui processi sanitari (cfr. operations management) mettendo in risalto le modalità con cui le aziende sanitarie tendono a ridisegnare i processi sanitari per rispondere meglio ai bisogni dei pazienti.La tesi tocca diverse prospettive del modello teorico del value-based. I primi due capitoli analizzano la creazione di valore e le condizioni di implementazione analizzando il fenomeno dalla prospettiva aziendale. Al contrario, l’ultimo capitolo punta ad analizzare tale questione dalla prospettiva del paziente. La tesi da spunti su come le aziende sanitarie debbano intraprendere tali cambiamenti operativi e supportare l’implementazione del modello value-based attraverso tre differenti prospettive: percorsi clinici, efficienza operativa, prospettiva del paziente. / The current thesis tries to shed a light on one of the dilemmas concerning healthcare systems: delivering good care at affordable costs. Therefore, this thesis addresses the issues related to the implementation of the value-based healthcare theory, where “value” is the clinical outcome achieved per resources used. The scope of the thesis is to deduce, through three different viewpoints of analysis, the conditions and drivers that are leading healthcare organizations to enhance their healthcare delivery system in order to create more value for patients. In particular, the thesis stresses the perspective of healthcare operations highlighting how providers tend to redesign healthcare processes to better meet patients’ needs. The thesis touches on different perspectives with regard to the value-based theoretical model. The first two chapters analyze value creation and the conditions of its implementation, looking at these phenomena from the provider’s point of view. In contrast, the last chapter aims to analyze this issue from the patient’s perspective. The thesis makes suggestions on how healthcare organizations should undertake operational changes and deals with value-based healthcare implementation through three different fronts: clinical pathways, operational efficiency, patient’s perspective.

Since James G. March introduced the concepts of exploration and exploitation in 1991, they have become ubiquitous in research on organizations and management. According to March (1991), exploration and exploitation are two sets of activities that allow systems (i.e., agents, either organizations or individuals) to adapt to their environment. On the one hand, exploitation activities are based on pre-existing knowledge, and consist of its implementation and/or refinement (e.g., production). On the other hand, exploration is based on knowledge that is not currently possessed by the system and, hence, refers to those activities that allow to acquire such new knowledge (e.g., search and experimentation). Scholars have produced a large number of contributions that have expanded our knowledge of exploration and exploitation even going beyond the initial boundaries of the field of organizational learning. Today, this large body of contributions that has developed over 30 years appears complex and divided into a plethora of research subfields (e.g., Almahendra and Ambos, 2015). Thus, research on exploration and exploitation has reached a level of conceptual and methodological sophistication that demands a high level of effort from researchers wishing to approach it. Among the multiple strands of emerging research, some scholars (such as Wilden et al., 2018) have recently begun to propose a return to the adoption of a behavioral approach to the study of exploration and exploitation. The earliest behavioral approach adopted in organizational studies is that of the "Carnegie School", which included Herbert Simon, Richard Cyert, and James March himself. Such an approach focuses the investigation of organizations on human behavior. In other words, adopting a behavioral approach involves studying organizations from the attitudes of their members, cognition, rationality, motivation, relationships, conflicts, and many other instances of psychological, economic, and social factors that influence human behavior (see, for example, March and Simon, 1958; Cyert and March, 1963). Today, this return to the behavioral approach is also associated with the "micro-foundations of strategy" movement (e.g., Felin et al., 2015) and so-called behavioral strategy (Powell et al., 2011). In essence, while the former is based on the importance of studying organizations and strategy by adopting a level of analysis below the collective/systemic (i.e., organizational) level, the latter includes all the elements that already characterized the behavioral approach (i.e., psychological, and social factors), reinforced by insights from the behavioral economics literature and the adoption of multiple methods, including experiments. This Doctoral dissertation enters this discussion and aims to investigate exploration and exploitation by adopting a behavioral approach, a "micro-foundational" perspective, and research methods that include laboratory experiments and computer simulations. The first study is a literature review paper with three purposes, each pursued in one of its three sections. First, it addresses the conceptual development of the exploration-exploitation literature that led to the emergence of the complex body of contributions mentioned above, providing a kind of "road map" of the research field based on the major literature reviews published over the past three decades. This is intended as a contribution towards researchers who want to take the first steps in the study of exploration-exploitation research. At the end of this road map, the paper by Wilden et al. (2018) is presented, linking the entire field of research to an emerging stream of research directed toward a return to James March's behavioral approach, enhanced by contributions in the areas of "micro-foundations" (e.g., Felin et al., 2015) and behavioral strategy (Powell et al., 2011). Second, based on the approach promoted in such research stream, a review of the literature on experimental studies of exploration and exploitation is provided. Laboratory experiments are considered key methods for advancing the study of exploration and exploitation by adopting a behavioral approach. Finally, the first essay is concluded with three suggested directions for further research: the improvement of existing conceptualizations through modeling, the further sophistication of existing experimental designs to capture features of managerial decision making that are currently beyond the scope of the state-of-the-art models underlying the mainly adopted experimental investigations, and the consideration of a multilevel approach to the study of individual exploration and exploitation, which consists of examining the variables that influence individual behavior at different organizational levels. The second study consists of an experimental investigation of the role of different sources of uncertainty on individual exploration-exploitation. It is based on the rationale underlying the third further research path proposed in the first study. Although an increasing adoption of laboratory experiments can be acknowledged in the research field, it is here argued that scholars have not experimentally disentangled the effects of two different types of uncertainty that emerge in the managerial and psychological literature, namely internal uncertainty, and external uncertainty. The former consists in the inability of individuals to predict future performance; while the latter results from the external environment and consists of unknown information about phenomena that may affect the final outcomes of a decision. The experimental design deployed in the study exposes a group of participants to the presence of the sole internal uncertainty, and a treatment group to the combined presence of the two sources. Findings show that the combined presence of these two sources of uncertainty may lead to the over-exploitation of initial routines, and, consequently, to the inability of individuals to exploit new opportunities stemming by alternatives discovered over time. Finally, the third study focuses on imitation, and exploration and exploitation, and builds on an agent-based model and computer simulations. This essay follows the first research trajectory suggested in the first study. While prominent research has defined imitation as a less costly alternative to experimentation (i.e., exploration), the possible role of imitation in the exploration-exploitation trade-off appears to be under-investigated. The interplay between imitation and exploration is rendered by the modeling of two types of agents: imitators and explorers. Differently from previous studies based on modeling, agent types are explicitly modeled as Simonian "satisficers". Experimentation is modeled as random search, whereas imitation builds on research on imitative heuristics. When engaging in adaptation in a competitive environment, both the types of agent experience "over-crowding" effects depending on the characteristics of their type. The paper concludes with the acknowledgement of limitations of the adopted model and proposes further investigation paths that include the calibration through experimental data.

Questa tesi si propone di approfondire il significato del concetto di 'artigianato' dal punto di vista di tre differenti tipologie di stakeholder: 1) Associazioni e Camere di commercio; 2) Aziende, Fornitori ed Esperti e 3) Consumatori. L’obiettivo principale di questa tesi è riassumere i più recenti sviluppi in materia di artigianato evidenziandone lo stato dell'arte e proponendo osservazioni critiche in merito al concetto stesso di artigianalità. Verranno identificati eventuali limiti e lacune concettuali sul tema dell’artigianato nonché indicati suggerimenti per la ricerca futura. Questa tesi è articolata in tre ricerche: la prima, " Artisanship: A review of the conceptualization of the “craftmanship ", impiega la content analysis per esaminare le definizioni di 'artigianato' fornite da diverse fonti tra cui Fondazioni, Associazioni, Organizzazioni Internazionali e Intergovernative e Camere di Commercio. La seconda ricerca "Crafting the craft - evidence from Italian experts" utilizza la metodologia qualitativa delle interviste semistrutturate con manager, esperti e opinion leader che gravitano nel mondo dell’artigianato. L’ultima ricerca " Understanding of the concept of “craft” – from the perspective of Italian consumers " è un'indagine finalizzata a capire le percezioni del consumatore in merito all’artigianato e le sue preferenze per i diversi tipi di prodotti artigianali. Grazie all’intrinseca interdisciplinarietà di questa tesi, che collega diverse basi teoriche e discipline come sociologia, economia, arte, filosofia e storia sociale, si cercherà di colmare le attuali lacune presenti nella ricerca sull'artigianato offrendo, così, un nuovo contributo in materia. / This thesis aims to deepen the meaning of ‘craft’ by looking at the concept from the perspective of different stakeholders, including 1) Guilds and Chambers of Commerce; 2) businesses, providers and experts and 3) consumers. The overarching purpose of this dissertation is to summarize recent developments, to highlight the state of the art and to offer some critical observations of various understandings of the concept of artisanship, in order to identify conceptual gaps and limitations and directions for future research. This dissertation includes three studies: Study 1 - “Artisanship: A review of the conceptualization of the “craftmanship” – employs content analysis to examine definitions of ‘artisanship’ provided by different sources from Craft Foundations and Associations, international and intergovernmental organizations, and European Chambers of Commerce. Study 2 – “Crafting the craft – evidence from Italian experts” is based on a qualitative methodology and includes semistructured interviews with managers and experts of artisanal products. Study 3 – “Understanding of the concept of “craft” – from the perspective of Italian consumers” is a survey aimed at investigating consumer perceptions of artisanship and preference for different types of artisanal products. By bridging different theoretical bases and disciplines, such as sociology, economics, arts, philosophy and social history, this research will offer a novel contribution and fill gaps in the research on artisanship.

La tesi si focalizza sull'analisi dell'impatto della tassazione sulle scelte finanziarie delle imprese. nella prima parte dal lavoro viene presentata una review della letteratura teorica di riferimento. Successivamente vengono effettuate due diverse analisi empiriche finalizzate a spiegare quali siano le determinanti della politica di indebitamento e dei dividendi di imprese quotate dell'Area Euro e come esse si siano modificate dopo l'introduzione della moneta unica. / This research is implemented to investigate on the impact of taxation on corporate financial decisions. In particular two main financial policies are considered: the capital structure policy and the payout policy. This corporate dimensions are investigated making use of empirical approaches on Euro-firms data to investigate also on the impact of the introduction of the Euro on the same issues.

Questo lavoro prende in esame le connessioni fra economia e politica in Italia nel periodo compreso tra il 1987 e il 2006. Tale filone di studi si situa all’interno del sempre più variegato e crescente interesse per il legame fra corporate governance, potere di mercato, struttura finanziaria e performance dell’impresa. Dopo una prima parte volta a mettere in luce alcuni principali lineamenti teorici ed istituzionali del tema in oggetto, segue una seconda parte, di natura prettamente empirica. In primo luogo si vogliono mettere in luce quali siano state le società quotate connesse nel periodo considerato e le modalità con cui ha avuto luogo la connessione, nonché illustrare alcuni aspetti descrittivi dei soggetti e delle società connesse che costituiscono il campione. In secondo luogo, seguendo la letteratura internazionale in materia, viene svolta un’analisi empirica al fine di testare se esistano particolari differenze tra società politicamente connesse e società non connesse in termini di leverage, redditività, efficienza produttiva e potere di mercato. In particolare, il terzo capitolo contiene una puntuale esposizione delle fonti e delle metodologie che hanno portato alla definizione dei database utilizzati ed implementati, fornendo alcune prime evidenze di tali connessioni. Nel capitolo IV si forniscono le statistiche descrittive del campione preso in esame relativo alle società italiane industriali ed holding di partecipazione quotate sul MTA e MTAX nel periodo 1987-2006, in termini sia di capitalizzazione di mercato, sia di redditività, struttura proprietaria e finanziaria. Infine, nel capitolo V viene proposta una verifica empirica sul campione così determinato, provando ad enfatizzare le relazioni esistenti tra alcune grandezze determinate quali il grado di indebitamento, il potere di mercato e alcuni indicatori di redditività ed efficienza e principalmente una variabile volta a individuare la presenza o meno di connessioni politiche nelle società stesse. / This study analyses politically connected firms in Italy, since 1987 to 2006. We take into consideration this nation because in Italy political connections are supposed to have been more valuable and relevant than in other countries. We focus our attention on listed industrial corporations, leaving out of consideration banks and insurance companies. We try to develop two main questions: which listed industrial corporations have been politically connected in this period? Have these firms been politically connected through top officers or large shareholders, President of the Republic, members of Parliament or ministers? Which is the value of political connections and which are the differences between politically connected and non connected firms? This study tries to highlight the features and the sizes of the political connection in the Italian context, giving evidence of the economic, political and institutional framework. According to the existing literature we argue that firms with political connections gain financial benefits in terms of greater market power, but show poorer performances and efficiency than non connected firms because of the relevant private benefits that characterize the politically connected ones. Moreover we argue that politically connected firms show lower leverage than their non-connected peers defining a more complex framework in comparison to other relevant studies.

L’opera analizza i fenomeni di frammentazione del ciclo produttivo dal punto di vista delle relazioni collettive, ponendosi l’obiettivo di verificare l’efficacia degli strumenti contrattuali per “governare” tali processi. Si muove dall’ipotesi per cui sia opportuno valorizzare la contrattazione di secondo livello, stante i minori problemi di applicazione generalizzata e la maggiore sensibilità rispetto agli interessi coinvolti. La parte più rilevante dell’indagine ruota attorno al tema degli appalti, dalle clausole di divieto agli obblighi di informazione e consultazione, sino alle previsioni volte a garantire determinati trattamenti contrattuali o la continuità occupazionale ai lavoratori coinvolti; esperienze apprezzabili che richiedono, tuttavia, uno sviluppo a livello decentrato, anche territoriale o interaziendale. Ci si sofferma altresì sul trasferimento d’azienda, evidenziandosi il fondamentale compito della contrattazione decentrata nel cercare un bilanciamento tra competitività e protezione sociale, oltre che nel vigilare sulla genuinità delle operazioni realizzate. Si passa, poi, agli interventi in tema di somministrazione di lavoro, auspicandosi la realizzazione di un sistema di rappresentanza e contrattazione aziendale integrata, che coinvolga anche i lavoratori somministrati. Da ultimo si guarda al lavoro parasubordinato, con riferimento al quale la contrattazione collettiva è chiamata a sviluppare un sistema di sostegno e protezione che trascenda la tutela dei soli occupati. / The work analyses the outsourcing processes on the point of view of industrial relations, with the purpose to verify the effectiveness of the collective bargaining provisions to “manage” these processes. The dissertation moves from the assumption that the second-level agreements should be implemented, considering the applicability to all employees and the greater proximity to the interests concerned. The major part of the analysis revolves around the service contracts and the heterogeneous related provisions of the national collective labour agreements (such as the ban on outsourcing, the information to trade unions, the entitlement to certain treatments or to hold down the employment relationship), which should be developed by company or territorial level agreements. Then the dissertation focuses on the transfer of business, highlighting the role of the second-level bargaining, which could be able to find a compromise between competitiveness and social protection, as well as to control the compliance of the transactions. The work also considers the staff leasing contract, hoping for a system of collective representation and negotiation which includes the temporary workers. Finally, with reference to the so called “working project consulting agreements”, the author observes that the trade unions should give to the consultants a major collective protection.

Il progetto di tesi si basa su uno studio di carattere qualitativo focalizzato a costruire un framework teorico relativo ai processi di comunicazione lungo la Supply Chain (SC), identificando come la stessa comunicazione sia in grado di supportare il complesso processo di Supply Chain Management (SCM) sia sul piano strategico, sia sul piano operativo. Il progetto di tesi si articola quindi in tre parti specifiche: 1. una review sistematica e critica della letteratura internazionale sui temi della Supply Chain e della comunicazione che fornisce un’analisi approfondita del dibattito internazionale sui processi relationship-based della SC, evidenziando inoltre il fondamentale ruolo della comunicazione nello scambio di flussi sociali, informativi e fisici tra i partner; 2. due studi esplorativi di tipo induttivo-deduttivo che costruiscono una mappatura concettuale preliminare dei ruoli e dei canali di comunicazione che supportano le fasi strategiche ed operative del SCM; 3. uno studio Grounded Theory (GT) progettato sulla base dei risultati emersi dai precedenti studi preliminari e basato su una ricerca empirica approfondita che ha coinvolto SC executives e managers di aziende italiane ed internazionali. / The Ph.D. research project is based on a wide qualitative study aimed at building a theoretical framework of the communication processes along the SC identifying how communication supports strategic and operational SCM and providing managerial insights on how to make an effective and efficient use of communication resources over time. The project emphasizes how relationships and processes are affected by communication flows, depicting the links among SC processes, communication and SC performance dimensions. More specifically, the project methodological design is articulated in three subsequent interrelated research phases: 1. a systematic and critical literature review on SC and communication providing a focused analysis of the international debate on SC relationship-based processes highlighting communication as an enabler of social, information and physical flows among SC partners; 2. a two-step exploratory inductive-deductive study aimed at building a preliminary conceptual mapping of communication roles and channels supporting strategic and operational SCM; a comprehensive Grounded Theory (GT) study designed according to emergent insights from both the preliminary inductive-deductive analysis carried out and an in depth empirical research investigating widespread SC communication representations, practices and aspirations.

L'obiettivo della ricerca è evidenziare se l'investimento in beni non finanziari è preso in considerazione dalle private banks operanti in Italia nella costruzione dei portafogli dei loro clienti facoltosi, se nel processo di ottimizzazione siano seguite le logiche della modern portfolio theory e quali modalità vengono adottate nella fase di presentazione delle performance. si procede quindi ad esaminare gli investimenti in oro, in arte, in diamanti, in vino e in immobili per verificarne gli impatti sulla rischiosità e sulle performance di portafoglio. / The goal of this thesis is to verify if private banks that operate in Italy use goods as investment for diversifying HNW or U-HNW individuals portfolio, if they take in consideration the modern portfolio theory for asset allocation and how performances are presented to investors. So it analyses the investment as gold, real estate, art, diamond and wine to achieve the impact of them on portfolio risk and performance.