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This study aims to investigate the performance of filament-based material extrusion additive manufacturing (MEX), combined with debinding and sintering, as a novel approach to manufacturing ceramic components.

A commercial ZrO₂ filament was selected and analysed by infra-red (IR) spectroscopy, rheology and thermo-gravimetry. The influence of the print parameters (layer thickness, flow rate multiplier, printing speed) and sintering cycle were investigated to define a suitable printing and sintering strategy. Biaxial flexure tests were applied on sintered discs realised with optimised printing strategies, and the results were analysed via Weibull statistics to evaluate the mechanical properties of printed components. The hardness and thermal conductivity of sintered components were also tested.

Layer thickness and flow rate multiplier of the printing process were proved to have significant effect on the density of as-printed parts. Optimised samples display a sintered density >99% of the theoretical density, 20% linear sintering shrinkage, a characteristic flexural strength of 871 MPa with a Weibull modulus of 4.9, a Vickers hardness of 12.90 ± 0.3 GPa and a thermal conductivity of 3.62 W/mK. Gyroids were printed for demonstration purposes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first to apply biaxial flexure tests and Weibull statistics to additively manufactured MEX zirconia components, hence providing comparable results to other additive technologies. Moreover, fractography analysis builds the connection between printing defects and the fracture mechanism of bending. This study also provides guidelines for fabricating high-density zirconia components with MEX.

The recent literature on corporate governance and gender diversity underlines that those differences may go beyond a pure or direct effect on firms’ performance and in this vein, this study aims to investigate whether the presence of women in leading positions can affect the credit rating indicators.

The authors focus on Italian manufacturing firms, as well as small and medium firms (SMEs), that are often under-represented in previous studies, despite their importance in many economies. The authors extract data on directors and top managers as well as rating classes and credit score indicators, and using a fixed-effects model, the authors analyze the relationship between credit risk mitigation and the inclusion of women among top managers, consistently with the rising empirical literature focused on risk perceptions.

The authors find a significant negative relationship between female participation in top management and credit risk, with a greater impact associated with smaller firms, where the presence of a female top manager might make the difference. The results are robust to different model specifications and estimation strategies, and the authors find different magnitudes of the effects also according to the geographical location of the firm.

Because of the chosen sample of manufacturing firms, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to expand the study and test the approach elsewhere.

The authors add new and more robust empirical evidence of a negative relationship between female participation in the top management and credit risk by focusing on the entire population of Italian nonlisted manufacturing firms.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how important is co-location of R&D and production for firms originated from high-cost countries and to provide evidence of the relationship between the different strategies of location choices and co-location.

In order to investigate the relationship between R&D/design-production co-location and strategies of location choices for production, this paper uses a cluster analysis of 37 Italian firms that operate in fashion industry.

This article finds that co-location results in a dominant strategy for firms under the following conditions: high level of product customization, coordination difficulties between R&D and production, rapid change in production process technologies and product complexity difficult to be coded.

This paper presents some limitations in that it focuses only on fashion industry without considering other sectors.

This paper has some managerial implication in that offers some insight on decision making in organization. In particular offers some insights of how important is having an internal R&D/design function rather than collaborating with external designers in order to achieve competitive advantage in terms of product quality, product design and also brand name reputation.

This paper suggests that the co-location of R&D and production may improve the firms' performance considering the need for constant interaction between the two units. Moreover, it suggests that the co-location of R&D and production both within and external (within the firms' region and/or within the country) to the firms might be important. Furthermore, larger firms in terms of turnover have a greater preference to locate the R&D function close to the production function.

The purpose of this paper is to understand whether and how specific capabilities at the firm level can sustain firms during the process of international expansion in emerging markets (EMs).

A quantitative study was carried out, and the authors analyzed data from a sample of 271 manufacturing firms. A logistic regression was used to check for differences in the endowment of resources and capabilities of firms solely focussing on advanced markets (AMs) or extending their international scope to EMs as well.

Firms that expanded their business in EMs showed a significantly higher endowment of international experience and marketing capabilities compared with firms that focussed only on AMs. The authors found that the size of the firm is irrelevant: even small firms can reach EMs by leveraging an appropriate set of capabilities.

The study is cross-sectional and cannot provide a longitudinal view of the process of capability development. Future research will be needed to detail the process of capability development during the international expansion of firms into EMs.

Regardless of size, firms that plan to enter EMs should develop specific capabilities, especially marketing capabilities, to increase the likelihood of success. Already internationalized firms have a considerable advantage due to the knowledge they have accumulated in other markets.

This paper advances understanding of the process of the international expansion of firms in EMs from a resource-based perspective.

This paper aims to explore if firms located in industrial districts (IDs) have different adoption paths concerning Industry 4.0 technologies and get different results with respect to other similar firms located outside IDs.

The study is based on a quantitative analysis related to an original data set of 206 Italian manufacturing firms specializing in made in Italy industries and adopting Industry 4.0 technologies. A case study of a district firm is also presented to explain the rationale of investment strategies and results obtained.

The analysis shows that there are differences between district and non-district firms when Industry 4.0 technology investments are concerned (higher investment rate in big data/cloud and augmented reality for district firms than non-district ones). In contrast to a breakthrough view of the fourth industrial revolution, the study suggests that 4.0 technologies emphasize the peculiarities and competitiveness factors typical of the district model in terms of customization and flexibility. There are differences in the motivations of adoption (product diversification for district firms vs productivity enhancement for non-district firms) and in the results achieved.

The paper is one of the first attempts to empirically explore the technological innovation paths related to Industry 4.0 within IDs, therefore, contributing to the debate on the possible evolution of the district model

The purpose of this research is to better understand the human aspects of open innovation in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by exploring how intrinsic and extrinsic motivation influence enjoyment in helping others, knowledge sharing and knowledge hiding and consequently firms' open innovation.

We collected data with a survey among CEOs in 140 SMEs and performed confirmatory factor analysis applying structural equation modeling in IBM SPSS AMOS (v. 26).

Results reveal that intrinsic motivation is positively associated with helping behavior and knowledge sharing and negatively associated with knowledge hiding. We also confirm the positive relationship between extrinsic motivation and knowledge sharing. Moreover, we find that knowledge sharing increases and knowledge hiding decreases the firm-level open innovation. Especially in high-tech industry, knowledge sharing is a vital determinant of open innovation.

Responding to the calls for a deeper understanding of the individual-level factors that determine organization-level open innovation, in this research we focus on the human aspect of open innovation in SMEs. Open innovation is a widely recognized and implemented concept among large corporations and facilitates better understanding of new technological and market developments both within and outside of organizations. However, understanding of the microfoundations of open innovation in smaller firms is still limited, but this steam of research is growing rapidly.