Formal Inter-firm Cooperation and International Expansion: How Italian SMEs are Using the Network Contract

Among different forms of networks available to companies, we decided to focus our research on formal networks, namely the network contract, an example of which is a new legislative tool introduced by the Italian government in 2009 to support company innovation and competitiveness We believe that firms’ commitment (somehow implied by the creation of a common entity and the establishment of specific functioning rules as indicated by the law) and related formal links, may have greater influence on firms’ decisions than loose relationships characterizing other types of organizational networks.Consequently, this chapter aims to analyze if and how the internationalization process of single nodes is affected by network relationships; therefore our research question is: Does SMEs’ involvement in formal networks contribute to start or, augment, its international expansion?