I contratti di rete: una lettura dei risultati economico-finanziari per macroarea geografica

The network contract was introduced by the policymaker to help Italian SMEs pursue competitiveness and innovation. As demonstrated by the previous edi- tions of this National Observatory, the network contract has been a useful instrument to get positive results both at the network and firm level, but only if some conditions in terms of network management and organisation are met. The present chapter aims at describing the economic-financial results of networked firms, through the analysis of balance-sheet data of about 16,000 firms, from 2017 to 2021. The goal is to describe the Italian scenario to contribute to the understanding of the network contract phenomenon and to help the policymaker evaluate its results.