In the last decades, the increasing significance of “projectivization” (Lundin & Steinthórsson, 2003) has stimulated considerable interest in project-based organizations as new economic actors able to introduce a new logic of organizing work and weakening boundaries in favour of networks of collaborations. In these contexts, work is often delegated to project teams. Deciding whom to put on a project team is one of the biggest challenges faced by a project manager; in particular which characteristics rely on to compose and match effective teams. We address this issue, focusing on the individual flexibility (Raudsepp, 1990), as team composition variable that affects project team performance. Thus, the research question investigated is: Is it better to compose project teams with flexible team members or not flexible project team members to achieve higher levels of project performance? The temporary nature of PBOs involves that after achieving the purpose for which team members are enrolled, they are disbanded but their relationships remain, allowing them to be involved in future projects (Starkey, Barnatt & Tempest, 2000). Pre-existing relationships together with the current relationships create a network of relationships that yields some implications for project teams as well as for team members. We address this issue, exploring the following research question: To what extent is the individual flexibility influenced by the network structure? The conceptual framework is used to articulate the research questions investigated with respect to the Television drama serials production. Their project-team organizing combined with their capacity to dissolve and recreate over time make it an interesting field to develop. We contribute to the organizational literature, providing a clear operationalization of individual flexibility construct and its role on affecting project performance. Second, we contribute to the organizational network literature addressing the effects yielded by the network structure-structural holes and network closure- on the individual flexibility.

Motivated by the need to understand which are the underlying forces that trigger network evolution, we develop a multilevel theoretical and empirically testable model to examine the relationship between changes in the external environment and network change. We refer to network change as the dissolution or replacement of an interorganizational tie, adding also the case of the formation of new ties with new or preexisting partners. Previous research has paid scant attention to the organizational consequences of quantum change enveloping entire industries in favor of an emphasis on continuous change. To highlight radical change we introduce the concept of environmental jolt. The September 11 terrorist attacks provide us with a natural experiment to test our hypotheses on the antecedents and the consequences of network change. Since network change can be explained at multiple levels, we incorporate firm-level variables as moderators. The empirical setting is the global airline industry, which can be regarded as a constantly changing network of alliances. The study reveals that firms react to environmental jolts by forming homophilous ties and transitive triads as opposed to the non jolt periods. Moreover, we find that, all else being equal, firms that adopt a brokerage posture will have positive returns. However, we find that in the face of an environmental jolt brokerage relates negatively to firm performance. Furthermore, we find that the negative relationship between brokerage and performance during an environmental jolt is more significant for larger firms. Our findings suggest that jolts are an important predictor of network change, that they significantly affect operational returns and should be thus incorporated in studies of network dynamics.

The objective of this study is to provide empirical evidence on how ownership structure and owner’s identity affect performance, in the banking industry by using a panel of Indonesia banks over the period 2000–2009. Firstly, we analysed the impact of the presence of multiple blockholders on bank ownership structure and performance. Building on multiple agency and principal-principal theories, we investigated whether the presence and shares dispersion across blockholders with different identities (i.e. central and regional government; families; foreign banks and financial institutions) affected bank performance, in terms of profitability and efficiency. We found that the number of blockholders has a negative effect on banks’ performance, while blockholders’ concentration has a positive effect. Moreover, we observed that the dispersion of ownership across different types of blockholders has a negative effect on banks’ performance. We interpret such results as evidence that, when heterogeneous blockholders are present, the disadvantage from conflicts of interests between blockholders seems to outweigh the advantage of the increase in additional monitoring by additional blockholder. Secondly, we conducted a joint analysis of the static, selection, and dynamic effects of different types of ownership on banks’ performance. We found that regional banks and foreign banks have a higher profitability and efficiency as compared to domestic private banks. In the short-run, foreign acquisitions and domestic M&As reduce the level of overhead costs, while in the long-run they increase the Net Interest Margin (NIM). Further, we analysed NIM determinants, to asses the impact of ownership on bank business orientation. Our findings lend support to our prediction that the NIM determinants differs accordingly to the type of bank ownership. We also observed that banks that experienced changes in ownership, such as foreign-acquired banks, manifest different interest margin determinants with respect to domestic or foreign banks that did not experience ownership rearrangements.

The present PhD dissertation is dedicated to the general topic of knowledge transfer from academia to industry and the role of various measures at both institutional and university levels in support of commercialization of university research. The overall contribution of the present dissertation work refers to presenting an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the main critical issues that currently exist with regard to commercial exploitation of academic research, while providing evidence on the role of previously underexplored areas (e.g. strategic use of academic patents; female academic patenting) in a general debate on the ways to successful knowledge transfer from academia to industry. The first paper, included in the present PhD dissertation, aims to address this gap by developing a taxonomy of literature, based on a comprehensive review of the existing body of research on government measures in support of knowledge transfer from academia to industry. The results of the review reveal that there is a considerable gap in the analysis of the impact and relative effectiveness of the public policy measures, especially in what regards the measures aimed at building knowledge and expertise among academic faculty and technology transfer agents. The second paper, presented as a part of the dissertation, focuses on the role of interorganizational collaborations and their effect on the likelihood of an academic patent to remain unused, and points to the strategic management of patents by universities. In the third paper I turn to the issue of female participation in patenting and commercialization; in particular, I find evidence on the positive role of university and its internal support structures in closing the gender gap in female academic patenting. The results of the research, carried out for the present dissertation, provide important implications for policy makers in crafting measures to increase the efficient use of university knowledge stock.

The original idea of the thesis draws on interrelated assumptions: 1) among the tools used, in the markets for technology, for the acquisition of external knowledge, the licensing agreements are acknowledged as one of the most important contractual mechanisms; 2) the liabilities of newness and the liabilities of smallness force new venture to strongly rely on external knowledge sources. Albeit the relevance of this topic, little attention has been paid so far to its investigation, especially in the licensing context; 3) nowadays there is an increasing trend in licensing practices, but the literature on markets for technology focuses almost exclusively on the incentives and rationales that foster firms’ decisions to trade their technologies, under-investigating the role of the acquiring firm, the licensee, overlooking the demand side of the market. Therefore, the thesis investigates the inward licensing phenomenon within the context of new ventures. The main questions that new venture licensee has to address if it decides to undertake an inward licensing strategy, can be summarized as follows: 1) Is convenient for a new venture to choose, as initial technology strategy, the implementation of an inward licensing ? 2) Does this decision affect its survival probabilities? 3) Does the age, at which a new venture becomes a licensee, affect its innovative capabilities? Is it better to undertake a licensing-in strategy soon after founding or to postpone this strategy until the new venture has accumulated significant resources? The findings suggest that new ventures licensees survive less than their non-licensee counterparts; the survival rates are directly connected to the time taken by firms to reach the market;being engaged in licensing-in deals some years after its inception allows a new venture licensee to increase its subsequent capacity to produce innovations.

L’elaborato ha lo scopo di presentare le nuove opportunità di business offerte dal Web. Il rivoluzionario cambiamento che la pervasività della Rete e tutte le attività correlate stanno portando, ha posto le aziende davanti ad un diverso modo di relazionarsi con i propri consumatori, che sono sempre più informati, consapevoli ed esigenti, e con la concorrenza. La sfida da accettare per rimanere competitivi sul mercato è significativa e il mutamento in rapido sviluppo: gli aspetti che contraddistinguono questo nuovo paradigma digitale sono, infatti, velocità, mutevolezza, ma al tempo stesso misurabilità, ponderabilità, previsione. Grazie agli strumenti tecnologici a disposizione e alle dinamiche proprie dei diversi spazi web (siti, social network, blog, forum) è possibile tracciare più facilmente, rispetto al passato, l’impatto di iniziative, lanci di prodotto, promozioni e pubblicità, misurandone il ritorno sull’investimento, oltre che la percezione dell’utente finale. Un approccio datacentrico al marketing, attraverso analisi di monitoraggio della rete, permette quindi al brand investimenti più mirati e ponderati sulla base di stime e previsioni. Tra le più significative strategie di marketing digitale sono citate: social advertising, keyword advertising, digital PR, social media, email marketing e molte altre. Sono riportate anche due case history: una come ottimo esempio di co-creation in cui il brand ha coinvolto direttamente il pubblico nel processo di produzione del prodotto, affidando ai fan della Pagina Facebook ufficiale la scelta dei gusti degli yogurt da mettere in vendita. La seconda, caso internazionale di lead generation, ha permesso al brand di misurare la conversione dei visitatori del sito (previa compilazione di popin) in reali acquirenti, collegando i dati di traffico del sito a quelli delle vendite. Esempio di come online e offline comunichino strettamente. / The paper aims to show the new business opportunities offered by the Web. The pervasiveness and all the activities linked to the Internet are driving revolutionary changings that are putting Companies to face with a different kind of approach to their customers (more than ever well-informed, aware and discerning) and to their competitors. The challenge the Companies have to deal with to stay competitive is substantial and the market is evolving faster than ever: the aspects characterizing this new digital paradigm are, in effect, speed and variability and at the same time measurability, predictability and ponderability. Thanks to the ultimate technologic tools and to the evolving dynamics of social media itself (websites, social network, blog, forum) it is now possible to easily track, in comparison with the past, the impact of initiatives, product launches, advertising and offers measuring the Return on Investments (ROI) and, even more strategic, the perception of the final customer. A data-centric marketing approach, through Web monitoring analysis, allows brands to make more focused and weighted investments based on forecasts and evaluations. Between the most significant marketing strategies are mentioned: social advertising, digital PR, social media management, email marketing and many others. Two case histories are presented in this study: one as a perfect co-creation example in which the brand directly involved users in the production process, committing the fans of the official Facebook page to choose the flavours of the yogurts to sell. The second one, international lead generation case history, allowed the brand to measure the website visitors (prior to fill the popin) conversion rate to real buyers, linking the datas coming from the website to the sales datas. A perfect example on how online and offline are closely communicating.

Our research asked the following main questions: how the characteristics of professionals service firms allow them to successfully innovate in exploiting through exploring by combining internal and external factors of innovation and how these ambidextrous organisations perceive these factors; and how do successful innovators in professional service firms use corporate entrepreneurship models in their new service development processes? With a goal to shed light on innovation in professional knowledge intensive business service firms’ (PKIBS), we concluded a qualitative analysis of ten globally acting law firms, providing business legal services. We analyse the internal and factors of innovation that are critical for PKIBS’ innovation. We suggest how these firms become ambidextrous in changing environment. Our findings show that this kind of firms has particular type of ambidexterity due to their specific characteristics. As PKIBS are very dependant on its human capital, governance structure, and the high expectations of their clients, their ambidexterity is structural, but also contextual at the same time. In addition, we suggest 3 types of corporate entrepreneurship models that international PKIBS use to enhance innovation in turbulent environments. We looked at how law firms going through turbulent environments were using corporate entrepreneurship activities as a part of their strategies to be more innovative. Using visual mapping methodology, we developed three types of innovation patterns in the law firms. We suggest that corporate entrepreneurship models depend on successful application of mainly three elements: who participates in corporate entrepreneurship initiatives; what are the formal processes that enhances these initiatives; and what are the policies applied to this type of behaviour.

Flexibility is a term that recalls many different aspects in the life of organizations and employees. This thesis explores two different forms of flexibility to understand whether it can be strategically used by Human Resource Management as a tool to increase the performance of organizations. The first chapter of this thesis is conceived as an introduction to various forms of flexibility with a particular focus on numerical and temporal flexibility, which are at the core of Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. Chapter 2 analyzes aspects linked to numerical flexibility, namely the possibility of organizations to adjust workforce. The wider use of non-standard forms of employment of the last two decades and the economic crisis that characterized the last fifteen years changed the paradigm of the standard open-ended contract. As employers more frequently resort to more flexible arrangements to adjust to changing market conditions, it is crucial to understand the drivers of these choices and whether atypical contracts are distinctive to low skilled jobs or HRM practices can make a difference. Chapter 2 specifically explores the link- ages between specific characteristics of job and the deployment of atypical contracts. While previous literature highlighted the effects of single characteristics in the choice of employers towards permanent or atypical contracts, we bring together various characteristics that create configurations that can explain these choices using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). We found evidence that firms limit the deployment of atypical contracts not only in case of firm-specific and complex tasks, but also in case of simple and non-specific tasks when supported by HRM practices aimed at increasing internal flexibility. Firms can take advantage of a stable workforce by strategically using HRM flexibility practices as an alternative to numerical flexibility. Chapter 3 deals with the issue of temporal flexibility and is addressed in this thesis as a kind of flexibility that brings together the needs of both employees and employers. On one hand, the stronger request for autonomy and an increased work-family balance of employees brings organizations to increase the availability of programs and benefits to accommodate workers’ needs. On the other hand, these programs have proved to have positive effects on various job outcomes such as job satisfaction, motivation and performance and reduced absenteeism and turnover and therefore might be used by organizations to increase individual performance. Especially in a context like the public sector, that doesn’t allow great monetary incentives due to budget constraints, flexibility programs should be considered important tools to increase job outcomes. The implementation and the real effects of these programs, however, remain important topics that need to be addressed, as if not specifically tailored, these measures might not lead to the expected result. Chapter 3 deals with the effects of a flexitime program on absenteeism, overtime and hours worked using panel data from an Italian public health agency. We use a conditional DiD model and a flexible conditional DiD model to investigate how employee’s behavior changed in a four-year time period and the year right after entering the program. We found no results supporting the idea that the mere implementation of the program helps to reduce absenteeism. We argue that because individual motivational aspects might be the reason behind our results, organizations need to consider individual characteristics in order to obtain positive results from flexibility programs.

Productivity, i.e., the efficiency with which nations, industries and firms use resources to achieve economically valuable results, is perhaps the most important measure available to policy-makers to gauge the health of an economic system. Early empirical explorations based on country- or industry-level data relied on representative firm paradigms. However, the increasing availability of firm-level data has provided robust evidence for the existence and persistence of wide productivity differentials among firms. In particular, questions regarding what supports such wide heterogeneity, which factors matter most, whether factors influencing productivity can be controlled by firms or are purely external products of the operating environment and which policies can be used to boost productivity growth are all of primary importance. This thesis contributes to the empirical literature on firm productivity with three core papers. The first re-examines the slowdown in productivity in Italian manufacturing by studying the link between innovation, imitation and human capital, which sustained wide heterogeneity of firm productivity behind the aggregate flat productivity trend. The second paper extends analysis to the services sector, in particular to tourism. At a very disaggregated level, it identifies the various sources of differences in productive efficiency of hotels stemming from entrepreneurial and managerial factors, and external to firm factors. The third paper examines the effect of public policy in tourism. A methodological advance is proposed by defining an econometric framework, which allows us to identify and estimate not only the direct but also the indirect effects which public policies may have on hotel performance, in a dynamic treatment setting.