The purpose of this study was to explore the servitization approach in order to understand the development of this trend among small Italian companies. In doing so, this study adopted a qualitative method and data were collected via in-depth interviews with managers of firms belonging to the footwear industry-an important sector for the Italian economy. Data analysis was realised through NVivo software, thereby providing a first understanding of the drivers that lead these companies to become 'servitized', as well as the main obstacles they face when considering providing services beyond their core offering. This study suggests important implications both for managers and marketing scholars. For academics, it extends the existing knowledge of the factors that influence this organisational and managerial change, and enriches the body of knowledge of the main drivers of and barriers to servitization. For practitioners, it helps in the understanding of the main advantages and potential obstacles to developing a servitization process.
The purpose of this paper is to understand how Italian micro-entrepreneurs responded to the economic crisis and strategies they adopted to deal with it. A comparison between male and female entrepreneurs is presented, in order to understand if they adopted similar or different strategies. The paper also aims to understand if variables, other than gender, influenced strategies adopted to face the economic crisis. Drawing from a telephone questionnaire survey involving a sample of 300 (150 male and 150 female) owners of Italian micro-enterprises, located in Marche Region, findings suggest that entrepreneurs mostly dealt with the crisis through a defensive approach (restructuring and resizing strategies). Compared to men, female entrepreneurs had a lower propensity towards offensive strategies (innovation, development and growth). Differences in the approach towards the crisis were also identified with respect to company's age, industry and impact of the crisis. These findings contribute to the debate on gender-based differences in behaviors, attitudes and preferences. Moreover, they can help to identify economic policy measures useful to help men and women entrepreneurs to address the crisis. Policy-makers who want to support female entrepreneurship should consider these aspects, in order to identify tools and policies that can help female firms to resist the crisis more effectively in the short-term and to seize new market opportunities in the recovery phase. The sample is restricted to sole proprietors and to a limited geographical context. So further analysis should involve companies of different sizes and located in different geographical contexts, both in Italy and abroad. Jel classification: L10; L26
PurposeThe motivation for this study comes from decision making related to strategic marketing orientations in international markets. The authors examine if customer orientation and customer relationship orientation perform as two distinct constructs in driving firm innovativeness, and how together they support business growth among export firms. This study aims to suggest a customer-centric strategy for export firms that drive innovativeness and growth.Design/methodology/approachAn international corporation specialized in company information services provided a list of the contact information of Italian companies. The authors sent an email request to respond to an online survey and received 416 effective responses from firms operating in export markets. The authors propose and empirically test a model in which customer orientation, customer relationship orientation and innovativeness predict business growth. This model controls for the effects of firm size, industry and customer type (B2B vs. B2C).FindingsThe study findings suggest that customer orientation and customer relationship orientation are two distinct strategic orientations driving innovativeness. However, they do not directly affect business growth. Instead, they require the innovativeness of an exporter to materialize as business growth.Practical implicationsThe results of the study recommend business strategies focusing not only on customer needs and satisfaction but also on retaining current customers and building customer relationships in international markets. Firms can learn from international customers and develop effective customer-centric strategies to spread the acquired information into the internal decision-making as it contributes to firm innovativeness and business growth in international markets.Originality/valueThis study is one of the pioneering studies combining customer orientation and customer relationship orientation, showing their theoretical and empirical divergence. This study is also among the first which tests how the two strategic orientations together with innovativeness promote business growth among export firms. The authors add understanding of the synergistic effects both of using customer information and developing deeper relationships on firm innovativeness and performance among exporters.
Industrial Computed Tomography (CT) has recently gained a prominent role in the field of dimensional metrology as a powerful 3D coordinate measurement technique. Its main advantage is the ability of measuring both inner and outer features of geometrically complex workpieces without altering or damaging them. The settings with which CT data are acquired can contribute to the uncertainty of measurements; these settings are chosen by the users in an intuitive way, resulting in high variability of the measurement outcome. There is currently no available holistic model that can (1) describe the relationship between CT setup parameters and measurement uncertainty, or (2) determine the optimal parameters for a given measurement task. In this study, we propose an analytical method to optimize imaging parameters for multi-material measurements. The proposed method takes as input information about the nominal workpiece geometry and material composition. For a given workpiece position and orientation, the optimal photon energy is calculated to maximize edge detectability and minimize image noise. Subsequently, tube voltage and pre-filter are chosen to ensure that the generated X-ray spectrum is quasi-monochromatic around the optimal photon energy. Focal spot size is chosen to minimize resolution, while also avoiding blurring. Then, the corresponding tube power is evaluated as well as the tube current. Finally, integration time is minimized so that the gray values of air are still in the linear range of the detector. The presented method was implemented into a software application and validated through simulation of CT scans of multimaterial workpieces. Measurements with predicted parameters were found to be more accurate than those performed with parameters chosen by expert users.
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