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This study seeks to consider the recent evolution of the Italian policy in the field of marine protected areas (MPAs). In particular, it aims to point out the increasing role played by Italian regions in establishing and managing MPAs. This evolution is to be described by focusing attention on the North Adriatic case.

After a brief introduction on the legislative framework, points of weakness and strength of the Italian experience in the field of MPAs are discussed. Different initiatives for promoting and implementing an MPA strategy are analyzed through the North Adriatic case study, pointing out the increasing role played by the regions in the design and implementation of protection policies.

The analysis shows how regions direct greater attention to the involvement of the public and economic sector in the design and implementation of protection policies, and to the definition of more flexible management tools. This element clearly confirms the general and overall tendency towards more regional‐based forms of environmental policy, even in coastal and marine affairs. However, in order to improve the environmental gains and implement sustainable forms of economic development, these regional initiatives should be better linked to a more comprehensive coastal zone management framework, which is still lacking. From this perspective, a national strategy for the Italian coast system could strongly contribute to increasing the role and effectiveness of regional initiatives aimed at protecting coastal and marine ecosystems.

The North Adriatic case shows the growing need for integrated policies in different scale projects, enhancing the involvement of local communities toward their own territory.

Building upon the insights of the resource-based view and internationalization theories, the purpose of this paper is to examine the role networks play in SMEs' readiness for internationalization. By investigating three different types of knowledge sharing, namely economic-setting, market-specific and customer-specific, the study analyzes their effect on SMEs' readiness for internationalization.

The four research hypotheses derived by from the analysis of the literature have been investigated by applying the multiple regression technique. By means of an online survey, 300 valid questionnaires were collected and information from a sample of Italian SMEs belonging to 11 agro-food consortia have been analyzed.

The results suggest that SMEs' readiness for internationalization could be supported by sharing customer-specific, market-specific and economic-setting knowledge with other firms operating within the same agro-food consortium. Additionally, data analysis highlights a negative relation between the risk perception in the process and readiness for internationalization, suggesting the importance of knowledge sharing in reducing the criticality issues of being a newcomer entering international markets.

From a theoretical perspective, this study aims to fill the gap in knowledge management and international relationship marketing literature. Since proposes a combination of different kinds of knowledge that contribute to reducing the criticalities SMEs must face by identifying useful information to be conveyed within the network. From a managerial perspective, the study provides useful insights for the agro-food sector, highlighting how experiential and network knowledge constitutes a pre-condition for managing internationalization complexity and discovering opportunities on foreign markets.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and empirically validate a repertoire of management behaviors associated with the adoption of lean systems, showing how a subset of such behaviors differentiates more advanced lean systems in a specific setting.

The study applies regression analysis and non-parametric hypothesis testing to an original data set coming from field research of 26 cases of adoption of lean operations practices.

The study: identifies in the lean literature a repertoire of management behaviors that support lean implementations and complement the adoption of lean practices; provides a way to operationalize them; validates this repertoire of behaviors; and shows that a subset of these behaviors is associated with more advanced lean implementations, suggesting the necessity to adopt a situational approach to lean leadership.

The findings have boundary conditions, defined by the national, industrial, and size context in which the study was conducted.

The study provides practical guidance for lean system implementation suggesting a repertoire of management behaviors within which firms can identify and validate specific, appropriate subsets of behaviors aligned with the company strategy, culture, size, environment, bundle of lean operation practices adopted, and maturity stage of lean adoption.

This is the first study to provide quantitative, non-anecdotal evidence of the relationship between specific management behaviors and the successful implementation of lean operations practices. It offers a novel method to operationalize and measure lean management behaviors.

Ownership and location decisions are at the core of the development of multinational enterprises (MNEs) as they deeply impact the creation and appropriation of value in global value chains. Such decisions have been treated by extant literature mostly as oppositions characterized by trade-off alternatives, such as internalization versus externalization and domestic versus offshoring. In this chapter, we discuss the development of a multinational company, that is, De’Longhi, as it has adjusted both ownership and location choices several times over the last 15 years. The case shows that in growing firms, such as De’Longhi, ownership and location decisions are interrelated among each other and with several factors including: interdependences between value chain activities, corporate strategy, organizational culture and the time horizon of the above choices.

Although leadership in lean systems is influenced by context, the mechanisms linking contextual factors (CFs) to leadership have not been explored. This study aims to present a framework for analyzing how context influences lean leadership competencies (LLCs).

The framework’s design was based on insights from literature and refined through an empirical study of a large manufacturing plant formally committed to lean. The evolution of CFs over time was monitored in this study, allowing for analyzing how these triggered the need for using LLCs.

The framework proved to be useful for as follows: the assessment of LLCs in different hierarchical levels; the analysis of how CFs and LLCs interact in specific “leadership events”; and the identification of improvement opportunities for supporting leadership. Four design propositions emerged from the empirical study, offering complimentary guidance for using the framework.

The framework was tested in one company, and therefore generalizations about its effectiveness need further applications.

The framework may be used fully or partly by practitioners. For instance, the assessment of LLCs can be used as a standalone tool according to the specific needs of practitioners. Also, by producing rich descriptions of LLCs and CFs, the framework may inform lean leadership development programs.

The framework allows for a systematic analysis of how a broad range of CFs influence LLCs, thus operationalizing an idea that so far has been discussed mostly on a theoretical level.