Le medie imprese multinazionali del “quarto capitalismo”

The paper provides an analysis of the internationalization of medium-size Italian industrial enterprises that aims to become multinational companies. This work takes inspiration from the essay by Mariotti and Mutinelli (2009) on the evolution of Italian multinational enterprises and the role of “fourth capitalism”, but it differs from essay of these authors because it adopts different databases and it looks at many other variables apart from employment, which is instead the only variable used by Mariotti and Mutinelli. Moreover, the present paper concentrates specifically on industrial multinational firms of “fourth capitalism”, that is the set of the medium and medium-large firms that mostly grow in the foreign markets either through exports or through foreign direct investment. It also offers an empirical descriptive picture regarding the performance of medium-size Italian multinational enterprises with respect to large multinational companies and also against those medium size enterprises that are not multinational companies because they are poorly equipped to deal with the internationalization process in its complexity and its risks. However, the descriptive analysis provided allow us to draw a profile of medium-sized multinational companies characterized by a complex strategy towards internationalization, where innovation has a key role, but equally important are the flexibility and specialization in production, since even these latter elements guide the choices to invest and produce abroad. But it is also important the commercial dimension, that leads to point to the direct supervision of foreign markets and looking very carefully to customers, offering them a wide range of services. Finally, the paper points out some critical issues such as high taxation, insufficient institutional support for internationalization, the high external costs, such as energy, lack of skilled human capital available in the labor market due to inadequate policy training