SMEs DEVELOPMENT WITHIN INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERS – STRATEGIC CHALLENGE FOR CLUSTER MANAGEMENT

DEVELOPMENT OF CLUSTERS AND NETWORKS OF SMEs

ICT diffusion and strategic role within Italian SMEs

Information System literature is rich in studies concerning the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on organizations. This chapter, however, focuses on a specific context: small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). It presents an up-to-date picture of the ICT employed and of the activities ICT support within Italian SMEs. Moreover, it provides results regarding the relatio...

Industrial Clusters and Environmental Management

Industrial ecology in the strategic sustainable development model: strategic applications of industrial ecology

In a recent article of this journal, Robert et al. [Journal of Cleaner Production 10 (2002) 197] define five hierarchical and interdependent levels for a systems approach for strategic sustainable development (SSD) to move toward the desired outcome, the state of sustainability. This paper evaluates the concept of industrial ecology (IE) by considering its application and use in terms of the st...

Industrial Clusters and Environmental Policies: New Tools for Territorial Management

The paper deals with relationship between industrial policies and territorial environmental policies in industrial clusters, and proposes an innovative approach to the decision making. Because of the globalisation processes, the European SMEs operating in industrial clusters are showing difficulties in maintaining their market competitiveness and nourishing their capability to achieve economic ...