Enhancement Of Agile Innovation In The Context Of Italian SMEs

Abstract

Italian SMEs are currently not truly experiencing agile innovation benefits, due to the traditional business approach of the system in which they operate. At a general level, research has shown that companies adopting agile strategies in their innovation processes are observing positive impactful returns, especially when particular pre-conditions for a correct implementation are present. Starting from the existing work on agile innovation, this thesis tries to extend the scope to a peculiar geographic business perspective by asking: in the Italian SMEs context, what should a company change to enhance agility in its innovation process? Based on the pillar ideas that literature offers in terms of concepts definition - exemplifying the notions of Italian SMEs, agility and innovation - two interviews were designed to explore new meaningful insights coming from a single-case study. The selected company is Elite s.r.l., an Italian SME representing an unusual encouraging example with respect to the respective population when exploring agile innovation. The consequent analysis of Elite’s information – mainly qualitative, along with some quantitative references – argued in favour of the positive influence which three factors have on agile innovation enhancement: the passion of the HR dedicated to the innovation process, the organization of the innovation process around the figure of a business-oriented project manager, and the complete customer-focus of the innovation process value creation. Although the case study investigation helped both to enrich the framing of the three research hypotheses and to provide a first partial endorsement, further studies are suggested to provide stronger understanding of this organizational subject.