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This paper aims to analyze the problematic relationship between the Left, the commercial revolution and the progressive growth of mass consumption during the Italian economic miracle.

Taking for example the city of Bologna, the most important city run by the Italian communist party, the paper problematizes the socio-economic and political – institutional processes connected with the emergence of “American-like” commercial and distribution strategies, and of consumerist identities.

Bologna’s administrators governed the commerce through a rationalization supported by urban planning, including the establishment of a chain of “associated supermarkets”, built on municipal areas and financed by a mixed-capital company set up for that purpose. At the same time, they sought to protect small retailers to gain their political consensus and to contain crisis-related anxieties among the consumers, a category which has still an uncertain identity in Italy.

Much remains to be seen in the characteristics of the Italian miracle, and in the manner it was ruled. The case of Bologna illuminates an important piece of the Italian Left’s attempt to interpret and to lead the modernization of the country.

The onset of the 1997 Asian financial crisis took the world by surprise. Its severity and the alarming speed at which it spread sent shock waves around the world. There is still no consensus as to the real causes of this catastrophe although a steep fall in export demand with exchange rates pegged to an appreciating US dollar clearly caused current account deficit problems, which were exacerbated by imprudent bank lending and debt management practices. The economies of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and the Philippines were vulnerable to speculative runs on their currencies and rapid foreign investment repatriation with a collapse of investor confidence. It soon became evident that globalisation has its downside for economies unable to withstand the massive capital surges caused by hedge fund manipulation.

This paper aims to approach the issue of premium offers in Italy by discussing the case study of Fabbri, a firm operating since 1905 in the business of liqueurs, syrups and semi-manufactured products for ice cream.

The research takes into analysis three marketing schemes, all related to direct premium promotions, adopted by Fabbri at various times during the twentieth century. The evolution of the company’s marketing strategy is outlined drawing on several types of sources: archive documents, posters and labels and audiovisual material. It is analysed in the socio-economic and legal context of twentieth century Italy, and in comparison with premium offers in the USA and Europe.

The study argues that direct premium may represent a long-lasting and efficient marketing strategy when a firm is able to adapt it to a context that changes over time. Fabbri not only used premium offers to launch its products but also to consolidate its brand image.

By showing that innovative promotions are not necessarily connected to large firms, Fabbri’s case suggests that further research should be carried out to outline marketing policies carried out by small to medium enterprises.

Much has been written on premium offers in the USA and in Europe, but very little on such types of promotions in Italy, especially with reference to direct premiums. This study fills this gap and documents that a small family-owned firm was able to carry out innovative marketing policies as far as in the 1920s.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the presence and influence of US advertising in Italy between the early 1950s and the mid-1970s.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the presence and influence of US advertising in Italy between the early 1950s and the mid-1970s.

The paper argues that there is a need to further qualify and deconstruct the notion of “Americanization” by integrating the now well-established notions of “hybridization” and “mediation” with more specific attention to the competing “hearts and souls”, the different strategies and discursive practices that different individual actors (American, British and Italian) operating within the Italian advertising business tried to instil into goods and consumers and the economic and cultural results that they achieved.

This is the first research on the history of Italian advertising that fully places it within a transnational and comparative perspective using so far unpublished records, aiming at moving beyond traditional, eastbound Americanization frameworks through a detailed empirical investigation.

The entrepreneur is the main decision-maker in small and medium-sized enterprises and is the principal force in the implementation of a firm's international strategy. Research has paid limited attention to the intangible aspects of human capital, namely behavioural competencies that may have an impact on the entrepreneur's ability to take advantage of international opportunities. This study addresses this gap, identifying the behavioural competencies that distinguish entrepreneurs who pursue a stronger internationalisation expansion beyond the European market.

A competency modelling process is implemented for a sample of Italian entrepreneurs. Data on behavioural competencies are obtained through the coding of behavioural event interviews administrated to the entrepreneurs. Export intensity is adopted as a performance criterion to classify the entrepreneurs.

Three behavioural competencies (change catalyst, teamwork and organisational learning orientation) emerged as more significantly activated by entrepreneurs who show a higher export intensity in the global market.

The exploratory nature of the study, conducted in a small sample and in a specific geographical area, may reduce the generalisability of the findings.

Entrepreneurs can become aware of the behavioural competencies needed for the implementation of internationalisation processes. Additionally, training programmes can be designed to promote the development of these behaviours.

Bridging the literature on international entrepreneurship, cross-cultural studies and competency-based research, this study highlights the role of behavioural competencies in the internationalisation process from a micro level of analysis. This article proposes a competency framework that can be adopted to assess a broader portfolio of entrepreneurs' behaviours.

The “economic miracle” in postwar Italy was accompanied by a rapid increase in the industrial accident and illness rates. Italian workers demanded occupational safety and health enforcement mechanisms that would be more accessible to grass‐roots workers' groups and unions. In the early 1970s local “Occupational Medicine Services” were voluntarily established in many regions. The entire health care system was decentralised in 1978, giving regions exclusive authority to implement occupational safety and health standards within Local Health Units (USLs). The concrete results of these reforms are investigated and the validity of the assumptions of the calls for decentralisation. The difficulties encountered by leftist‐administered regions in attempting to translate their political commitments into significant health and safety improvements are documented. The track‐record of the USLs is examined. An ironic consequence of decentralisation has been that the concentration of all health care activities in the USL has swallowed up occupational safety and health. As a result it is less politically visible and less responsive to worker input.

The equation of unified knowledge says that S = f (A,P) which means that the practical solution to a given problem is a function of the existing, empirical, actual realities and the future, potential, best possible conditions of general stable equilibrium which both pure and practical reason, exhaustive in the Kantian sense, show as being within the realm of potential realities beyond any doubt. The first classical revolution in economic thinking, included in factor “P” of the equation, conceived the economic and financial problems in terms of a model of ideal conditions of stable equilibrium but neglected the full consideration of the existing, actual conditions. That is the main reason why, in the end, it failed. The second modern revolution, included in factor “A” of the equation, conceived the economic and financial problems in terms of the existing, actual conditions, usually in disequilibrium or unstable equilibrium (in case of stagnation) and neglected the sense of right direction expressed in factor “P” or the realization of general, stable equilibrium. That is the main reason why the modern revolution failed in the past and is failing in front of our eyes in the present. The equation of unified knowledge, perceived as a sui generis synthesis between classical and modern thinking has been applied rigorously and systematically in writing the enclosed American‐British economic, monetary, financial and social stabilization plans. In the final analysis, a new economic philosophy, based on a synthesis between classical and modern thinking, called here the new economics of unified knowledge, is applied to solve the malaise of the twentieth century which resulted from a confusion between thinking in terms of stable equilibrium on the one hand and disequilibrium or unstable equilibrium on the other.

The purpose of this paper is to enrich country of origin (COO) effect in international marketing theory by adding the understanding of temporal dynamism into COO research.

Utilizing a qualitative and interdisciplinary phenomenological approach, this paper analyses historical and contemporary sources triangulated with contemporary primary interview data. The example of how perceptions of Italians about the values typical of the British Sixties varied over time periods is presented.

COO perceptions are both malleable and in evolution. Results show that values from earlier peak periods of appeal can be combined and recombined differently over time due to the varying historical and contemporary resonances of COO values.

This study focuses on COO applied to two product areas, fashion and music, over a limited time period, in a two-country study and so the findings are not fully generalizable, but rather are transferable to similar contexts.

The fact that COO is neither static nor atemporal facilitates a segmented approach for international marketing managers to review and renew international brands. This enriched COO theory provides a rich and variable resource for developing and revitalizing brands.

The major contribution of this paper is that temporal dynamism, never before discussed in international marketing theory, renders COO theory more timeless; this addresses some critiques recently made about its relevance and practicality. The second contribution is the original research design that models interdisciplinary scholarship, enabling a thorough historical look at international marketing.

The rise of East Asia to most dynamic center of processes of capital accumulation on a world scale is a phenomenon of the 1970s and 1980s. As a first approximation, the extent of this rise can be gauged from the trends depicted in figure 1. The figure shows the most conspicuous instances of “catching‐up” with the level of per capita income of the “organic core” of the capitalist world‐economy since the Second World War. As defined elsewhere, the organic core consists of all the countries that over the last half‐century or so have consistently occupied the top positions of the ranking of GNPs per capita and, in virtue of that position, have set (individually and collectively) the standards of wealth which all their governments have sought to maintain and all other governments have sought to attain. Broadly speaking, three regions have constituted the organic core since the Second World War: North America, Western Europe and Australasia (Arrighi, 1991: 41–2; Arrighi, 1990).

Whenever capitalism in the West appears to be dragging with unresolved problems, then quite a few people, including professional economists, begin to think that perhaps socialism is a better alternative. Conversely, in the East even a larger number of people, including economists (who are not activists), seriously believe that in view of their shortages and meagre incomes capitalism would be a better alternative.