The aim of the project is to study the factors that foster the competitiveness of a family enterprise. The research takes place within the debate on the fundamental role of small-medium enterprises (and particularly family ones) in the Italian economy against the difficulties emerging from the new economic framework. Moreover, the research analyzes and enhances organizational learning and skill development, in order to understand the way and the path of (formal and informal) learning developed by the entrepreneurs within complex systems.

The main purpose of the research is the development of a methodology for the study of knowing in practice and the constitution of a model that can grasp the learning process and the development of entrepreneurial skills understanding the interweaving of formal and informal pathways. Through the narrative analysis of biographical interviews with entrepreneurs, the project will reconstruct the training and transmission of knowing in practice, which is largely tacit knowledge inscribed in the body, and that is used to give form to personal, social and professional identities. Furthermore, the research will focus on the innovative analysis of the role of women within family enterprise and, in particular, in the process of skill transmission to their children.

The sample for an initial exploratory analysis will be made up of small and medium enterprises in Trentino, with the aim of develop a model of analysis and intervention that will be subsequently tested in international contexts. The analysis will provide a model that can point out how happens the transmission of entrepreneurial skills within the family enterprises and will provide practical suggestions for their development in the specific community. The theoretical model will be comparatively tested with the American (in collaboration with the Bernelli University in Pennsylvania) and European (in collaboration with Advancia, Research Institute of the Chamber of Commerce of Paris) contexts.

Researchers: Silvia Gherardi (coordinator), Michela Giampietro (referent), Manuela Perrotta (Department of Sociology and Social Research), Italo Trevisan, Stefania Parrello (Department of Computer and Management Sciences)
Period: 2007-2008
Funding: Provincia Autonoma of Trento