Ownership and Location in the Small Domestic Appliances Industry: The De’Longhi Case
Breaking up the Global Value Chain
ISBN: 978-1-78743-072-3, eISBN: 978-1-78743-071-6
Publication date: 4 August 2017
Abstract
Ownership and location decisions are at the core of the development of multinational enterprises (MNEs) as they deeply impact the creation and appropriation of value in global value chains. Such decisions have been treated by extant literature mostly as oppositions characterized by trade-off alternatives, such as internalization versus externalization and domestic versus offshoring. In this chapter, we discuss the development of a multinational company, that is, De’Longhi, as it has adjusted both ownership and location choices several times over the last 15 years. The case shows that in growing firms, such as De’Longhi, ownership and location decisions are interrelated among each other and with several factors including: interdependences between value chain activities, corporate strategy, organizational culture and the time horizon of the above choices.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank all participants and discussants of the 2016 Advances in International Management Meeting in Milan for helpful comments. Authors are also grateful to De’Longhi Group for its support, in particular to all the managers who participated during company visits both in Italy and in China. The authors owe a special thanks to Roberto Ceschin (Group HR Director) and Nicola Serafin (Chief Technology and Operation Officer) for valuable discussions and comments on the first draft of the chapter. The usual disclaimers apply.
Research funded by MIUR and ICRIOS.
Even if this chapter is the result of a joint effort, sections “Research method, De’Longhi case study, Ownership and location decisions in China, Ownership and location decisions in Romania, Value chain configuration of De’Longhi” should be attributed to Diego Campagnolo, while the remaining sections to both Authors equally.
Citation
Campagnolo, D. and Camuffo, A. (2017), "Ownership and Location in the Small Domestic Appliances Industry: The De’Longhi Case", Breaking up the Global Value Chain (Advances in International Management, Vol. 30), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 3-27. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1571-502720170000030002
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited