Three essays in management

This dissertation examines different aspects of a sample of new Italian firms in high-tech sectors, specifically: life-science, engineering and knowledge intensive business services (KIBS). In the first essays, we review the relevant literature on Business Model concept by using the bibliometric analysis method. Bibliometric techniques introduce objective measures of evaluation of scientific publications, thus reducing the potential bias embedded in subjective evaluation. In particular, we have used the co-citation analysis to investigate the current state of the art, and the bibliographic coupling to identify the emerging trends in the discipline. The second study investigates the sources of competitive advantages that new Italian firms have adopted to define their strategic choice. Moreover, we have also tested if the combination of these elements have a positive effect on the firms’ performance. Finally, the third essay looks at a specific group of new firms, the so-called “high-growth” companies to understand the triggering factors of their growth. Considering the characteristics of high-growth firms vs. the low-growth ones, the article summarizes seventh key success factors where, both traditional indicators of innovative activity (presence of R&D, intensity of R&D, patents) and new indicators of open innovation models (cooperation with university, participation in fairs and events, use of external research reports and databases) emerge as significant.