Italy

This chapter consists of sections on Introduction, Historical Overview, The Environment for Entrepreneurship and Toward the Future. Introduction, as follows:The Italian Republic covers 301,308 square kilometres, neighbouring Austria, France, Slovenia, and Switzerland. Rome (see Exhibit 12.1) is the capital of Italy. Italian territory enclaves two different states, i.e., San Marino and the Vatican.Not long ago, large firms — including family firms such as Fiat — were praised while SMEs remained in their shadow. Kenney wrote, “Fiat … makes buses, trolleys, the G.91 fighter plane of the North American Treaty Organization, steel, household appliances, and a myriad other things … It does business with flair” (1961, p. 599). As recently as the 1970s, the Italian government did not foster small and medium enterprises (SMEs); however, it was lax in extracting tax from owner–managers (Bagnasco and Messori, 1975). Until the mid-1980s, the concept of entrepreneurship enjoyed very little popularity in Italy. Amatori and Colli wrote, “To the most important ideologies which dominated the intellectual climate — Catholic, Marxist, Idealistic — ‘entrepreneur’ appeared a minor if not negative, characteristic of the national scenario. He or she was often blamed as a ‘freeloader’ of public resources, an exploiter of workers, a fiscal evader — essentially a social actor inclined to violate common rules of society in favor of self-interest” (2004, p. 243). Today, public funds encourage entrepreneurial spirit in Italy. Famous for its industrial districts, Italy has a tradition of cooperation (Defourny and Nyssens, 2010), and entrepreneurs are cooperating to be competitive. Legislation facilitates collaboration…