BOOKS BY GIOVANNI BATTISTA DAGNINO

Brand quali Barbecue Mafia, Cosanostra, Mafioso e Labellamafia clothing, che evocano immagini mentali discutibili, sembrano avere un mercato florido e un seguito di consumatori attenti ed esigenti. Questo volume esamina il paradosso connaturato al fenomeno commerciale dei brand con accezione negativa, contestualizzandone caratteristiche e tendenze nel tempo e nello spazio. Il testo è rivolto ai professionisti e agli esperti di marketing, nonché agli studiosi di branding e di comunicazione e agli studenti delle lauree triennali e magistrali e dei master universitari.

Various authors have brought forth the idea that the increase in context turbulence and the relentless change in today’s economic and competitive environments have rendered it essential for an effective strategy to combine both value appropriation and value creation (Porter, 1996; Moran & Ghoshal, 1999; Venkataraman & Sarasvathy, 2001; Hitt et al., 2001). However, the methodological basis and the assumptions that characterize contributions concerning value appropriation, on the one hand, and value creation, on the other, are notably different and in many respects opposite to one another. These profound methodological differences hinder the possibility of a combined consideration of value appropriation and value creation issues within a unitary interpretative framework (Schultze, 1994). By reinterpreting more conventional strategy studies in the light of the neoAustrian process view, this article builds a framework which is able to consider and render mutually compatible both value appropriation and value creation within the unitary process of firm development. In addition, the use of the neoAustrian approach as an interpretative lense enables an evolution of the resource-based theory that consents it, not only to grasp the mechanisms behind value appropriation, but also to suggest new ways of viewing post-industrial firm behavior that help to interpret its dynamic and proactive role in the value creation process.

This article aims to explore how and to what extent economics of the firm may take advantage through a transdisciplinary and bi-directional collaboration with both economic history and economic-regional sciences, and the related research methodologies. First, we investigate the pre-industrial putting-out-based historical roots of the present network forms of organizations. Second, we uncover an original framework of their evolution in economic thought. Third, we juxtapose and integrate the approaches to reticular systems worked out, respectively, by the economics of the firm (for firms and districts) and regional sciences (for urban and regional fabric). Fourth and eventually, as concerns the study of the network and territorial systems of firms and of cities, we advance a first sketch of the original double network connection between networks of firms and networks of cities, and highlight how - between economic disciplines related to the study of a local geographic territory - they are unfolding new and fertile possibilities for multidisciplinary collaborations and cross-fertilizations.