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Recently, the sharing economy has attracted considerable attention. This emerging paradigm is driven by powerful technological forces and has the potential to change the way consumers access very important markets such as the car market. Indeed, access-based consumption may attract more participants as it enables consumers’ freedom of lifestyle and more flexible identity projects. The empirical literature has so far paid very little attention to car sharing services; when it has, it has focussed mainly on people who are already using them. The purpose of this paper is to consider the drivers behind the adoption intention of car sharing services.

A large multinational survey is carried out in three European capitals: London, Madrid and Paris. Using quota sampling, 2,159 licensed car drivers are recruited through the online panel of TNS Sofres. The sample is representative of the population of licensed car drivers in each city. The questionnaire is developed using established scales from previous research. An OLS regression analysis is performed to test our hypotheses, with a likelihood of choosing a car sharing option as the dependent variable.

The study demonstrates that knowledge, environmentalism, possession-self link and involvement with cars are important determinants of consumer behaviour in the car sharing services market. In addition, the user demographics suggest a target market of younger, predominantly male and urban customers. The empirical findings are consistent across the three capital cities, implying that providers can market their car sharing services in a similar manner.

As important determinants of consumer behaviour in the car sharing services market are underlined, several managerial implications arise from the study. Car sharing providers should promote awareness to help people not only to expand their experience with the service but also to be informed about the potential environmental benefits. Further, a stronger possession-self link in the automotive context is suggestive of a greater willingness to use car sharing systems. Managers should also take into account that it is much more difficult to engage individuals in car sharing services who are highly involved with car, than those who express very little attachment to the product. As people under 45 years old are far more likely to use these services, this generation effect is progressively moving the frontiers of the car retailing sector to a broader mobility service sector.

The foremost contribution of this paper is to demonstrate empirically how consumer intention to use car sharing is driven. To do so, the study addresses the general population of car drivers, interviewing users of the service as well as non-users.

Library Workstations as Revolutionary Tools. Computers have been described ad nauseum as having a revolutionary effect on Western society in the elimination of mundane tasks, reduction of paper records, and sheer speed in handling repetitive calculations. Although there are those who would argue with these claims, thousands of computers routinely handle everything from switching traffic signals to controlling the positions of satellites in orbit to manipulating millions of bibliographic records.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model of innovation and internationalization for small- and medium enterprises (SMEs) and at testing it on tradition-based firms. These are SMEs whose productions reflect their territory's cultural identity. They are often micro-firms and weak in global markets. Since these firms characterize the European and Italian offer, the scientific challenge is to verify whether there are possible strategic paths, mainly based on interfirm collaboration and dynamic knowledge, that can help them getting higher levels of competitiveness. More specifically, the proposed model aims at understanding if it is possible to overcome these firms’ weaknesses through collaboration in networking perspective.

Methodology uses theoretical backgrounds in order to define hypotheses. The main approach starts from contributions on RBT and dynamic capabilities and their possible linkages in the internationalization perspective. Thus, considering the aims, the paper analyze if according to resource-based approach, dynamic capabilities allow entrepreneurs to seek opportunities which become strategic resources for a sustainable competitive advantage. This issue is analyzed both in theoretical terms and in its empirical implications in artistic craft sector. The empirical research has been designed in order to explain knowledge creation and transfer processes, in terms of firms’ competitiveness. Particularly, the analysis adopts multiple case studies methodology.

Tradition-based “Made in Italy” SMEs, as depicted in the empirical analysis, are characterized by limited size and scarce financial resources. This situation determines a difficult access to innovation in order to compete in global market. Thus, the research has highlighted that the only internationalization path, useful for this kind of firms, is cooperation, in a networking perspective. Firms that succeed in this process not only set the basis for survival but even to gain competitive advantage.

Through this analysis, the paper proposes a model of innovation and internationalization for SMEs’ development. Particularly, the model will be replicable to all those firms that are expression of cultural identity (e.g. “made in”) and of tradition, for which innovation and internationalization can represent useful keys to compete globally.

The paper provides a connection between RBT, dynamic capabilities and internationalization theories applied to tradition-based sectors, such as craft, in search of innovation, in order to compete internationally. So the paper investigates also on the internationalization and networking processes, in order to verify if combined dynamic capabilities and resources are able to make these firms more competitive. Moreover, the research field is quite unexplored and represents an important step in the theoretical and empirical evolution.