The role of business associations in promoting networking. The Italian case of the “network contracts

This paper investigates the role of business associations in promoting inter-firm collaboration, in particular through the use of network contract - a particular type of formal collaboration recently introduced in Italy. Results indicate that business associations can favor and promote inter-firm collaboration in two ways: directly, being formally involved in a network contract and indirectly, through a number of initiatives (e.g. matching meetings, workshops ad so on), acting as facilitators of forms of inter-firm collaboration.