Risorse di conoscenza e strategie del valore: una verifica empirica sui processi di acquisizione delle aziende di distretto italiane

The paper intends to provide in the first instance an explanation of the mechanisms of knowledge transfer and knowledge creation within districts, according to the theoretical perspective of the resource-based theory. We highlight that knowledge transfer mechanisms do not always stimulate knowledge creation processes in district firms, but represent levers that the firm strategy can opportunely use to generate new knowledge and therefore create new value (which increases the economic capital of the firm). The objective of this work is to empirically verify the importance of the knowledge transfer mechanisms in the value strategies of those companies that aim at increasing their intellectual capital through the acquisition of district firms identified as target firms. The results of the analysis demonstrate that the value strategies pursued by acquiring firms that are outside the districts to which the target firms belong, induce attributing values to the target firm’s intellectual capital that
are significantly higher than those attributed, in comparable circumstances, by acquiring firms that are within the target firms’ districts of reference.