Alberto Di Minin on the Web

I am an Assistant Professor
 @ Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa - Italy

My research work deals with:

• R&D and Intellectual Property Management
• International Management
• Business Model Innovation

Does Open Innovation Work in a Downturn?

Our study of Open Innovation in the Centro Ricerche FIAT
will appear on the Spring Issue of the
California Management Review

In a recent contribution on Harvard Business Review, Henry Chesbrough argues that the ideas behind Open Innovation are "recession-proof". We support Hank's ideas, bringing back from the 1990s the application of Open Innovation in the Centro Ricerche FIAT.

Our article titled "FIAT Open Innovation in a Downturn" features a review of the reforms that started to take place in Orbassano in 1992. Ideas that can be easily traced back to Hank's Open Innovation paradigm were applied by CRF's management with great success.

We decided to work on this paper almost one year ago, as many started to write and comment on the latest success of FIAT and the superiority of its technology.. starting with well.. President Obama:

"Fiat has demonstrated that it can build the clean, fuel-efficient cars that are the future of the industry"  President Barack Obama: Washington DC, April 30th 2009

CRF's technologies featured also on the cover of the Italian edition of the Magazine Wired, which emphasized the role of:

"The knights that were able to save FIAT and to buy America with three patents, while dreaming an engine with (almost) zero emissions"
Riccardo Luna, Wired Magazine, January 2010

Our contribution offers scholars a documented analysis on how Open Innovation was applied and worked out during a deep downturn: we studied and commented for our readers very interesting details of CRF's strategy during the 90s.  Also, we think that our work can offer a contribution to explain the success of a turnaround orchestrated by CEO Marchionne in more recent times, whose philosophy was summarized in another article on HBR:

"Being a leader at FIAT is a lifestyle decision. It's not the Buena Vista Social Club! Most of the management meetings are held on weekends.."
Sergio Marchionne, "Fiat's extreme makeover" Harvard Business Review ,
December 2008

Andrea, Federico and I are in debt to Gian Carlo Michellone, Paolo Dondo, Sergio Imperiale, Massimo Casali and Nevio Di Giusto for their priceless help and patience in walking us behind the scenes of CRF. Special thanks go to Henry Chesbrough, Vittorio Chiesa, Fabrizio Cesaroni, Stephen Cohen, and Alexander Stern for their comments on earlier versions of the article. And obviously.. the authors are grateful to two anonymous CMR reviewers for their insightful suggestions.

Apply for a Ph.D. in Management

Deadline is May 15th 2010

Our Ph.D. Faculty working on: intellectual property management, health management, green economy, open innovation, business model innovation, R&D management, science and technology policy, regional development, energy policies & management.

Through the generous support of various partners, and after the success of the event organize last year in Florence...

 
on November 16th 2009 we inaugurated the Global Entrepreneurship Week in Italy.

The event took place at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna.

Take a look at the program of a very special day

My Book came out!!

It is in Italian, and you will find many of the ideas
I discuss in my dissertation.

Take a look at it, buy it, own it..

On November the 20th 2008, entrepreneurs managers, banks and universities discussed together with enthusiasm about the power of entrepreneurship to create value for our economy.

This workshop, organized by Andrea Piccaluga and me, was the Florence event of Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Don't miss out the Italian scholarships
for the United World Colleges!

Click here for news regarding the scholarship,
or on the picture above for a piece broadcasted on La Sette

Alberto in the News

take a look...

Presented to the public in Washington D.C. the book
edited by Jeffrey Macher and David Mowery.

Alberto co-authored Chapter 3 on the Semiconductor Industry

READ IT ONLINE

Recently the Public Forum Institute of the Ewing Marion Kaufmann Foundation listed it for the
best entrepreneurial publications of 2008. 

The review calls the collected studies “…an excellent guide to industry trends”.

OPEN: (Italian) Business Models for Innovation  

On March the 18th 2008
Henry Chesbrough,
Prof Riccardo Varaldo and Alberto
have presented to the public
the Italian edition of
"Open Business Models".

We applied Henry's models to
23 great cases of
Italian innovation

Get your copy!

From right to left:
Prof Riccardo Varaldo, Dr. Henry Chersbrough and Alberto

Alberto is the winner of the second prize
in the 2007 Sloan Industry Studies
Dissertation Award Competition

A big Thank You to the Sloan Foundation,

and to all my friends and colleagues that I acknolwedge in my dissertation.

Here they are

Get in touch with me for more info.

I am investigating how Research and Development Labs are changing the organization and management of their Human Resources, as new practices of Open Innovation become the dominant paradigm.

Get in touch with me if your company would like to take part to this initiative.
 

More info just published here: