La crescita internazionale delle imprese italiane attraverso alleanze strategiche e joint venture: i risultati di un'analisi empirica

The paper shows the results of an empirical analysis regarding a sample of international agreements developed by Italian firms in the 2000-2008 period. The analysis is based on a database of 1068 agreements drawn from a database compiled by the author through an exhaustive perusal of Italian and international newspaper. The international agreements considered in the analysis are all those agreements that required some form of partnership between an Italian firms and a foreign partner ranging from equity agreements based on the creation of a new legal entity (joint-ventures) to all the other forms of agreement that do not are characterised by some kind of equity investment and that are defined in the present paper as alliances. The analysis shows that Italian firms have been quite active in their international expansion in recent years and that the motivations behind these strategies are quite diversified and not limited to defensive reasons. The paper shows that Italian firms have been a more active players in the international arena then previously thought when the analysis was just limited to their international presence through direct investments.