Contribution to an Integrated Analytical Framework for the Study of the Relations between and within Agro-Food Firms

The globalization of markets, increased specialization in customers services, shorter lead times, are among the main factors influencing the change in firms organization. The firms disintegration is growing, leading to an increased demand for collaborative management along the supply chain. The relationship between economic agents represents a central aspect to be analysed in order to understand this new context which is “neither a perfectly planned structure, nor a merely spontaneous one” (Benassi M., 1995). These considerations are particularly interesting when applied to firms belonging to the agrofood system. They include very different technical-economic typologies as well as cultural and managerial backgrounds. In this context the role of vertical and horizontal relationships in influencing the system efficiency are particularly relevant. A collaborative management of the input and market access can, in fact, allow for a better exploitation of the external economies and flexible specialisation related economies, characterising well organized small and medium agro-food firms networks. The identification of the factors influencing the relationship between firms becomes consequently a priority. The main studies related to the inter and intra-firm relationship includes different approaches: Supply Chain Management (SCM), local enterprises systems (Clusters, Districts), Knowledge Networks, Organization Theory.