Business networks and financial reporting: the Italian 'Reti d'Impresa'

Abstract

My thesis work presents the topic of business networks, also called inter-firm organizations. The phenomenon of aggregation of businesses has been widely discussed in the literature for years and according to different perspectives, depending on the reasons why companies decide to work together. In particular, the focus is on the Italian context, where the interest towards business aggregations has grown during the last 10 years due to the fact that a new type of collaboration among firms has emerged, thanks to the introduction of a legal tool called contratto di rete or network contract; the aim is to allow firms to formalize a network (the so called rete di impresa) in order to work together and achieve specific goals which are set out in this contract. Therefore, as far as the first part of the thesis is concerned, the network contract is presented with all its features, after a brief discussion on the general topic of business networks and an excursus on the types of networks which share some similarities with rete d’impresa. Regarding the core of the thesis, the purpose of this work is finding out what kind of information is produced in the context of rete di impresa. Starting from the concept of reporting entity, the question is: what is it to be represented? In the specific case of reti di impresa, there can be aggregation not endowed with legal and patrimonial autonomy, the so-called “network-object”, and those with legal personality called “network-subject.” Regarding the first type, it not mandatory to produce financial statements, which is required only for the latter one. Therefore, the goal is to understand if, in the case of network-subject, the type of reporting required is enough or what other solutions are suggested. The last part of the thesis is dedicated to a case study regarding a business network called “Interbau”, that operates in the construction field, in order to understand, in this case, how the information is actually produced.