The Italian Automobile Industry and the Case of Fiat: One Country, One Company, One Market?

Abstract

In the current period of globalisation of economic processes and the pervasive nature of information technology, both territoriality and national and/or regional comparative advantages have been simultaneously reinforced. They in fact assume a key strategic value in the “new” behaviour of actors performing on a virtually world stage. The analysis of the Italian automobile system (represented, in reality, by a single large company, Fiat) clearly exemplifies this tendency, which has come to prominence in debates in the social sciences: its competitive dynamic can, in fact, be interpreted on the basis of the relations which it has established, historically, with the national system (as well as local and regional ones).