| KEYNOTE
SPEAKERS |
Small
businesses have been suffering from the negative consequences of the
current economic crisis to a greater degree than other types of firms.
This is true both due to their more fragile financial structure
as well as their weakened abilities to diversify production and maintain
control over demand.
Faced with the changes taking place, which are causing small
firms to adopt purely defensive or wait-and-see strategies, may seem –
in the majority of cases – a losing approach.
It is necessary, on the contrary, to take advantage of new opportunities
offered by the post-crisis context, to aim at new business models, to
strengthen entrepreneurial and managerial skills, to make investments in
technological and organizational innovations.
Furthermore necessary are marketing policies, as well as more
structured and self-aware internationalization strategies, new
governance rules and improving the ability to provide financing.
Moreover imperative would be alternative ways of measuring firm
performance and new forms of creating alliances and relationships with
other firms in districts or the productive networks in which they exist.
The foundation of these innovative processes constitutes a challenge not
only for entrepreneurs and for the organizations and institutions which
provide support for the aforesaid, but also for small businesses
scholars, who need to be able to propose appropriate and viable models
as well as means of reaching those goals.
A main aim of the meeting is to contribute to the research and
deliberation concerning the adoption of policies needed to face the
current challenges, delving deeper into analyses of the problems and
opportunities at hand, into accounts of successful and unsuccessful
experiences, and the transformation processes taking place in
territorial small business systems.
Another key concern will be the initiatives adopted or capable of
being adopted by bodies and institutions to favour the evolutionary
processes required to carry out the abovesaid.
To that end interested scholars are invited to present the results of
their research.
Contributions will be accepted from both Italian and
international authors, in Italian or English. |
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