Due to accelerated structural changes in the city administration of Dresden, a new administrative center is planned for several thousands of employees. In the framework of a scientific collaboration, inter alia we researched and evaluated demands of future city administrations by way of a participative workshop-series in order to inquire the employee´s and organisation´s implicit knowledge as an information basis for decision making in the subsequent architectural design works. In a series of workshops with representatives of the departments that will potentially move into the planned new building, explicit and implicit knowledge of the knowledge bearers was collected in various formats. The structure and content of the workshops was developed according to the Backcasting Method, which anticipates long-term objectives (framework specifications of the city administration and the project manager) and therefrom derives measures for achieving them. By analyzing the existing structures in the departments, discussing with the employees and validating their statements and needs made through the evaluation of references and the co-creative development of concept models, a catalogue of spatial needs was created. By use of this preliminary planning-process we were able to set a scientific foundation for subsequent design-and-development processes for architects, civil engineers, and interior designers of the envisioned public construction project. The bottom-up-approach will ensure a sustainable design for organisational and spatial issues for the municipality by purposefully using the implicit knowledge of the prospective users. The collected data give intelligence about future office development and about specific interlinkages of the departments in regards to communication, working methods, operations and future consolidations. The catalogue of spatial needs will be part of the architectural tender process for the “New Administration Centre” of Dresden 2019, which will be carried outin the format of a “Competitive Dialogue” between architectural offices and the city administration Dresden.

Based on the biggest project management professional association, the Project Management Institute’s report (2013), the oil and gas sector considered to be one out of the seven project intensive industries besides manufacturing, business services, finance and insurance, information services, construction and utilities. Out of the three segments of the oil industry (upstream, midstream and downstream), the upstream possess the biggest complexity level regarding the size and the novelty level of the projects. The purpose of this academic research paper is to assess the project management competencies of the different participants being involved into the project-related processes (project managers, their line managers and the staff of the project management office (PMO) in the upstream segment and to analyse the relationship between these competences and the different criteria of the project success. Bearing in mind this aim, the paper focuses on the following research questions: How does the project management competence contribute to the different criteria of the project success, i.e. (a) the project triangle, (b) client satisfaction, and (c) the stakeholder satisfaction? How could the organisational context influence the project management competencies’ contribution to the project success? Görög’s (2013) hierarchical project success criteria model and the main project management competency models (e.g. Crawford, 2005) provide the theoretical background of this paper. The 4th edition of the Individual Competence Baseline for Project, Programme & Portfolio Management issued by International Project Management Association (2015) also served as a basis to assess the project management competencies of the interviewees. Previous academic papers were not focusing on the link between the different criteria of the project success and project management competencies. In this research organisational barriers were also highlighted, which contributed to the realization of the project management competencies. They have strong impact on the actual workplace performance, thus they could block the competencies contribution to the successful completion of the projects. Understanding the relationship between the project management competencies and the different project success criteria could contribute to the further development of the professional workplace performance of the project managers.

The topic of public service improvement has received great attention all over the world in recent decades, in both private and public sectors. While there is a huge literature investigating components which are critical in formulating an organization strategy for achieving service quality improvement, in both public and private organizations, namely organizational variables affecting service quality (such as resources, organizational structure, performance management system), and contextual (internal and external) factors conditioning the achievement of higher performance, there are no studies analysing how the public sectors organizations reacts to the regulation imposing performance standards and how contextual factors may affect such organization response to new performance standards. In particular, many questions posed about regulation are concerned with the extent to which it assists with or damages attempts to maintain and raise the standards of public service performance. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the stream of public service performance (PSP) improvement by addressing the following research questions: How the organizations of public sector providers react to higher performance standards fixed by the regulators? How contextual factors affect such organization response? With this objective, after reviewing the literature dealing with the organizational variables that are believed to be linked to quality service and performance, the areas of service quality as well as the link contextual (internal and external) factors and performance, a reference framework is developed, which is used as a guide model for the empirical analysis which was carried out on 15 public service providers in Italian water and electricity sectors. The results of the empirical investigation indicate organizational variables mainly affected by higher performance standards imposed by the regulation are resources and performance management systems. They also reveal the existence of clusters of firms. This will provide an interesting practical implication, by making the regulator aware that the achievement of high performances in the public service in order to be compliant with the new standards entails a change in the organizations of service providers, not so much in terms of organizational structure as in terms of the required resources and the design of the PMS. On the other hand, the study gives a number of examples about how a sample of firms has responded to the introduction of the new standards and how such response is affected by contextual factors.

The main assumption of our conference paper is that in the contemporary, ever-changing, precarious economic environment that can be described by the concept of digital transformation, it is particularly worthwhile to reintroduce the evergreen question whether traditional strategic planning and long-term strategic goal-setting, and strategic implementation based on them, are still valid concepts. We investigate this question by a brief literature review that intends to underpin the problems related to the classical models of strategic planning as well as its alternatives. Our main conclusion is that, based on the latest research results, strategy formation (and planning within it) are not outdated concepts. This is the case since 1. the implementation of a pre-defined strategy can be interpreted as a rational organizational act; 2. the failure rate of the implementation of pre-defined strategies does not disprove the validity of this traditional approach. In the discussion part of our paper we also briefly touch upon the situations in which traditional planning, to our view, can be effective, as well as on potential areas for future research related to digital transformation.

The paper aims to fill in the gap of investigating the role of strategic project portfolio management and to introduce a case study that focuses on a new strategic project portfolio management model and its application at a Hungarian IT service provider company. The model integrates strategic management, project management and knowledge management in order to set up the strategic project portfolio and to support the successful planning and realization of strategic projects. There are several approaches to create an organizational strategy (Hunger and Wheelen, 2011). However, they all share a common feature that the foundation of a successful strategy is the analysis of internal conditions and external environment. The way, how the mission and vision statements, as well as the strategic goals are formulated, the strategy for business units are defined, and the operational plans are derived, varies from organizations to organizations. Even more different is, how strategic projects are identified. The main challenge is to create a project portfolio that is aligned with the organizational strategy and provides the balance between exploration and exploitation (Kaiser et al., 2015, Kerzner, 2017, Kopmann et al., 2017, Pemsel and Wiewiora, 2013, Pinto, 2019). The theoretical part of the paper introduces a new model of developing an organizational strategy and the strategic project portfolio. It is based on the traditional approach of strategic planning, and it is combined with the project planning processes. Scorecard systems provide the interface of these planning systems. Projects are directly linked to strategic goals and the project portfolio is managed at the strategic level. The practical part demonstrates how this model can be applied in an organization. A Hungarian IT service provider company was selected where the model had been introduced and project management office (PMO) had been created in order to conduct the strategic project portfolio. The new model introduction, the strategic project proposal selection process as well as the project-related knowledge management practice is investigated.

The use of Communities of Practice (CoPs) to support knowledge sharing and collaboration within organisations has been increasing over the years. Today, many different companies from various sectors are deliberately resorting to CoPs to better managing cognitive assets and improving business performance. In particular, the availability of the new web-based technologies, like for example Enterprise Social Media platforms, are promoting the widespread utilisation of virtual CoPs, i.e. CoPs that make use of ICTs to enable distant and asynchronous communications among members. Even though the “marriage” of Social Media with CoPs seems to be perfect, studies that investigate the use of the new social applications in the context of CoPs are still scarce. To contribute to fill this gap, the present paper analyses the factors that influence the frequency of CoP access by means of a Social Media platform. Specifically, the paper illustrates and discusses the results of a survey which involved 262 employees of an international engineering project-based service company that eight years ago established several global CoPs in order to improve internal knowledge exchange and collaboration processes. At present, inside the company there are 20 active communities, involving about 1,400 project execution employees, whose functioning is supported by a Social Media platform dubbed Connect. The survey, that included 22 questions, was administered online between September and October 2018. The findings of the survey have allowed to identify some factors that result to be strictly correlated with the frequency of use of the Social Media platform to interact with the others community members. Among others these are: position in the company, role inside the community, individual motivation, kind of use, perceived technical and organizational obstacles. The paper contributes to advance the research about the adoption of Social Media technologies as knowledge management tools by identifying some factors that influence their use inside a CoP. It also provides useful suggestions to managers who intend to promote the development of Social Media enabled virtual Communities of Practices. The main limitation of the study is that it bases on the experience of only one company working in a specific industry with specific knowledge needs and capabilities. In spite of this, the findings provide interesting insights that can be a basis for future investigations as well as suggestions to managers willing to create and sustain virtual CoPs.

Despite increasing scholarly interest in the topic of innovation in the family firms, our understanding is still incomplete and inconsistent and the question of innovativeness of successors and family SMEs remains relatively unexplored (Botero et al. 2015). Our empirical research explores the relationship between the knowledge transfer in family SMEs and innovativeness of successors and of family SMEs during the succession process. Conducting a quantitative empirical research, our research results indicate that “early inclusion into family SME” and “learning by doing” are the most valued forms of the transfer of founder’s tacit and experiential knowledge and skills to the successor and are the most important for their and the family SMEs’ innovativeness. Regarding the external knowledge transfer, our research revealed that working experiences in other firms and external training are of high importance and positively correlated with innovativeness of successors and of family SMEs.

The objective of this article is to identify knowledge management practices in technology-based SMEs in the South of Brazil. This is an empirical, qualitative, and descriptive study. Data were collected in interviews with directors of technology-based SMEs in the South of Brazil, following a semi-structured interview script, adapted from Kianto and Andreeva (2014) and validated by Dávila (2016). Data were analyzed using thematic and content analysis with triangulation of evidence: bibliographic review; content from primary data sources, and data obtained from secondary sources. This paper contributes to advancing research into knowledge management practices, which are recognized as important organizational strategies, capable of driving better performance and strengthening organizations’ competitiveness. Notwithstanding, this paper’s stand-out contribution is made by its empirical results. The evidence collected in technology-based SMEs in the South of Brazil demonstrates that knowledge is recognized as a strategic resource. However, these SMEs do not have management strategies for implementation of knowledge management programs, although their practices related to organizational structure and organizational culture are better explained. This finding is attributed to the fact that the organizations analyzed are located in a technological incubator, which encourages knowledge assimilation and sharing between employees and firms, and its application to promotion of an innovation culture. The practical results of this paper provide a basis for executives and managers interested in the subject to decide which knowledge management practices they should adopt to achieve the best strategic and operational results in Brazilian technology-based SMEs. The main findings also highlight the most important knowledge management practices that can explain the capacity that the firms studied have to share their existing knowledge among their employees, seeking to promote an innovation culture.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are highly vulnerable in times of crisis and are affected by various financial and human risks (Vargo & Servilha, 2011). One strategy for adapting and responding proactively is to develop the potential for organizational resilience. This can be understood by four capacities: to anticipate, to respond, to monitor and to learn (Hollnagel, 2010). These can be developed through the strategic management of the knowledge resource using the practices of Knowledge Management (KM). In turn, these, can be grouped according to the knowledge creation spiral of Nonaka, Takeuchi and Umemoto (1996), in actions aimed at externalization, socialization, combination and internalization. The literature addresses some KM practices related to resilience in a segmented way, such as the work of Chalfant and Comfort (2015) and Patil and Kant (2016). In this way, this study identified knowledge management practices to improve/boost resilience capabilities in the organizational environment. The application of phase 4 of the framework developed by Fraga, Varvakis and Sell (2018) was used as a base in a small business in the information technology industry to identify practices related to resilience capabilities. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, and knowledge management practices related to each resilience capacity were indicated. The application of the framework allowed the connection of knowledge management practices identified through the processes of socialization, externalization, combination and internalization, making possible the understanding of the critical aspects of the resilience potential, reducing the risks of loss of knowledge and avoiding the reinvention of know-how of employees in SMEs. It is worth noting that the use of knowledge spiral lenses to look at each resilience capacity facilitated the grouping of KM practices. It is suggested that KM techniques and tools be identified and instituted according to organizational strategies. Thus, in this study, the Nonaka and Takeuchi (1997) spiral presented an adherence to resilience capacities and their characteristics found in SMEs. This contribution is relevant, since many studies mention the importance of KM for resilience, and this research allowed the proposal of specific practices to improve the potential for resilience in this particular context.

Collaborative applications – also known as collaborative software – are increasingly being used by companies. The applications are meant to support intensive, effortless cooperation among team members, management and clients at any place and at any time. The uniqueness is their combination with social media and Web 2.0 functionalities (McAfee, 2009). The aim of this contribution is to identify the actual, in-field benefits of software-supported collaboration for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) thus far reported in the literature. We review and summarise the findings of former research on the use of collaborative software. The term collaborative software is used to describe Web-based applications (platforms) to support communication and collaboration in enterprises. For our research of the literature we used the ProQuest and EBSCO databases, which included highly ranked journals in the field of SMEs. Only peer reviewed empirical research papers dealing with the use of collaborative software were included in the review. Our research questions were: 1. Which studies have focused on the use of collaborative software in SMEs? 2. What benefits of software-supported collaboration in SMEs have been found? 3. What were the other main findings of the studies? On the basis of the collected results we will discuss the intended vs. actual benefits software-supported collaboration have for SMEs. To the best of our knowledge, there is no other review of the benefits of collaborative software potentially relevant for SMEs, making this review is an important addition to other contributions in the field. The results provide valuable (albeit less comprehensive than we hoped) information to managers and practitioners in SMEs, helping them to decide their IT strategy and the importance of collaborative software therein. Knowledge about the benefits of software-supported collaboration as well as impacts on employee- and organisational-work design is useful for the effective implementation and use of collaborative software.

Sustainable competitiveness and growth of SMEs are increasingly determined by their capability to make use of digital technologies which are generating opportunities for developing new growth routes based on digitization. This paper reports the findings of a study how SMEs in the Basque region of Spain assess their digital maturity. The main purpose of this research is to gain insights into the development of digital capabilities of SMEs that support their digital based growth. The DIGROW-Framework of digital maturity (North et al. 2018) was used to assess the digitization capabilities of SMEs in the Basque region in northern Spain. In cooperation with the regional business associations, a self-assessment questionnaire was sent to members and resulted in a return of 550 questionnaires by November 2018. The study provides rich information on the digitization approaches of SMEs in the Basque region. It sheds light on the learning paths of digital transformation of SMEs. In particular, its originality and value resides in the application of a maturity framework based on dynamic capability theory to a wide range of SMEs. The model is easily applicable also to SMEs of other countries or regions. Study results allow regional business associations as well as local and regional government to develop strategies and support measures to foster digital growth of SMEs. The survey also demonstrated that the applied maturity model provides guidance to SMEs to raise awareness of owners, managers and employees towards required capabilities as well as opportunities/threats, to create a shared understanding on what “digitally enabled growth” means for the firm, to anchor pilot initiatives in an overall “picture” of digitalization and to define learning objectives.

Over recent years, in the International scenarios, very few routes have been entered to face the lack of the management dimension within Culture Sector. The contribution of economic disciplines to culture has mainly concerned political economy, rather than corporate disciplines, very often depriving the Cultural landscape of the needed profitable complementarities coming from the interaction between public and private entities. However, the very complexity of cultural heritage – for the territorial extension, to the landscape dimension, for the multiplicity of institutional levels called into question, for the intertwining of protection and valorization policies – should invoke the definition of interdisciplinary corporate operative solutions in order to respond to practical challenges and create value for all the stakeholders involved. In this framework, the paper aims to define a theoretical and practical performance and measurement model ready to make cultural assets productive, thus demonstrate the impact of managerial private and public tools through to Cultural networks. Without regard to any other production, authors will grade different combinations of managerial models and analysis with the view to ultimately define an innovative model in order to determine, under qualitative and quantitative terms, the consistent enhancement of artistic and cultural assets within a public-private company perspective. The work is articulated in four steps: first, a proper analysis of existing task and general environment strategic models is in-depth; then, the assessment of a selection among those as the ideal base for Cultural Sector is shown; moreover, the definition of a new model is analyzed and its economic-financial political feasibility analysis based on a ROI outcomes quantification and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is tackled. The approach undertaken appears to be totally innovative for the original definition of a new forge for the fulfillment of both companies and institutions needs and objectives, in order to fulfill the gap between theory and praxis managerial model applied to Culture. The potential of the research seems evident in consideration of the high feasibility in worldwide contextual realism and companies range, and consequent profitability of the application of the model, since the research represents a full strategic portfolio service package in order to follow the integrated Cultural investment cycle, transcending conventional indicators for the achievement of a medium and long‐term economic, social and political value creation. The attractiveness of the model is going to be crucial for the differentiation of business culture and decision makers in order to contribute to the re-launch of different territorial policies and to contribute to the development of the transparent competitive cultural performances of capital-intensive market. From this point of view, the incentives resulting from the model’s application will eventually draw all different stakeholders to differently combined competences and endowments in order to undertake more collaborative and profitable action plan as to acquire a proactive role in the political decision-making, anticipating economic and occupational circumstances and needs.

As citizen participation and participatory governance have become central concepts in the cultural policies at EU level, we are interested in understanding what this entails in practice. While, generally speaking, participation has been deeply scrutinized in political science and public administration literature, how citizens become participants in a process of co-creation of culture, who benefits from this participation and why is rarely discussed. By focusing on the European Capital of Culture initiative, which has become widely recognized as one of the most prominent EU cultural initiatives, we offer a thorough analysis of the participatory practices and of the challenges to participation that unfolds over the development of the ECoC projects. Adopting a Systematic Literature Review, we discuss the variety of participatory practices in real cases of ECoC, many of which, however, cannot be labelled as practices of “participatory governance”. We contribute to the stream of research on citizen participation, highlighting the selective practices that are hidden under the veil of inclusivity. These results are valuable both from a theoretical and a practical perspective.

The aim of this paper is to present ways to make explicit the existing knowledge of the specialty coffee agribusiness system. The recognition of agriculture as a rapidly expanding segment involving primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy necessitates solutions from various areas of knowledge. Specialty coffee, among the products of the agribusiness system, will be addressed in this paper as an example due to the complexity of maintaining quality during the various stages of transformation from coffee beans into the finished product. This research is based on field visits, interactions and a systematic search of the literature. Perspectives from the agribusiness sector present managerial focuses and address critical factors for its success. It is in the novelty of generating value through knowledge as a fundamental element that the originality of this paper stands out. Explicit knowledge of the specialty coffee agribusiness system will contribute to the evolution of the market in all links of the agribusiness system, resulting in a collaborative, knowledge-intensive agribusiness system. The results show the domains, elements and value of knowledge in the Specialty Coffee Agribusiness System (SCAS), which will serve as the basis for the elaboration of the Specialty Coffee Domain Ontology and a Conceptual Framework of SCAS.

An Italian company, which some years ago activated an Information Technology (IT) innovation process, has had to manage several requests pertaining to the founding of new IT projects or of introducing procedure improvements. After some years, the office in charge of this work activated an in-depth study of the procedure and its results to maximise the value of the IT implementations. Some weak points were identified and some different procedures were simulated to analyse the impact of the data and of the data treatment on the results. A new approach, which methodologically improved the data acquisition procedure as well as the request evaluation and selection, was then defined. At the same time, the office decided to activate the knowledge resources of the organisation, in order to actually improve the whole IT innovation process and reduce or control the complaints that are inevitable after any selection activity that has to reject some proposals and fund and activate others. Some actions were implemented to involve other offices in the IT innovation process, for their competences in relation to some aspects of the innovation requests, and to facilitate cooperation and improve communication with the company sectors that were and are still used to proposing projects or procedure improvements. After one year, the new approach produced interesting results, in relation to the IT request quality and to the reactions to the first steps of an organisational change process that was oriented towards improving knowledge sharing, cooperation and effective and transparent communication. Some procedural improvements have not yet been implemented, because such a drastic change could produce a negative reaction, and the possible consequences still need to be studied not only in relation to the quality of the request evaluation and selection, but also considering any possible organisational effects. A synthesis is here proposed of the analytical tools, which were used to methodologically and operationally analyse the past experience and to identify some weak points, and the organisational tools, which were then used to activate and share knowledge, starting from a new relationship between the involved actors, and to attempt to activate an organisational change, that is, from a centralised activity to a shared communication space, and finally to put it to the test.

The paper analyzes the VAIC (Value Added Intellectual Coefficient) and the subsequent developments 20 years after the first formulation made by Ante Pulic. The paper deeply analyzes the concept and proposes future directions for research and applications of the methodology. Three main directions for research are described: (i) value creation for stakeholders and investment in human capital; (ii) sustainability of knowledge-based strategies from an economic and social point of view; (iii) a framework for continuous increase of knowledge work productivity. Two real applications of calculation of the Knowledge Work Productivity are described.

Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) are private enterprises or organizations mainly concerned with providing knowledge-intensive inputs to the business processes of other organizations, including private and public sector clients, that rely heavily on professional knowledge and which involve economic activities intended to result in the creation, accumulation or dissemination of knowledge. KIBS firms, such as advertising and market research, accountancy and management consulting, IT services, engineering and technical services, represent a core feature of the knowledge-based economy functioning as innovation carriers, knowledge facilitators and innovations sources. KIBS play, also, an important role in local and regional economies as source of added value and their growing importance as emergent players is a major attribute of knowledge economy and more generally in the debate about innovation systems, knowledge driven economic dynamics and competitiveness. Their role, as co-producers of innovation, in enhancing Small and MEdium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is particularly relevant because of their prominent support in enabling SMEs to innovate in a more effective, cost-effective, and/or timely manner. The paper investigates the application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in conjunction with Financial Ratios Analysis (FRA) to estimate and compare the performance of KIBS industry in Italy over the period 2012-2017. In particular, we evaluated the three main NACE (Nomenclature générale des Activités économiques dans les Communautés Européennes) segments that identify KIBS services: NACE 72 (computing services), NACE 73 (research and development) and NACE 74 (other professional business activities). FRA, for its simplicity, has been achieved a widespread use in practice. A financial or accounting ratio is a relative magnitude of two selected numerical values taken from an enterprise’s financial statements. DEA is a mathematical programming technique that estimates the relative efficiency of production units (Decision Making Units – DMU), computing a comparative ratio of weighted outputs to weighted inputs for each DMU and identifies best-practice frontiers over the examined data. The results obtained from the efficiency estimates and the financial ratios are used to rate firms according to these performances. The empirical investigation proposed reveals that the results of FRA approach do not provide sufficient and complete information on the efficiency of KIBS firms, while major advantages behind using of DEA are related to its structural characteristic in measuring performance and identifying opportunities for possible efficiency improvements by looking at the differences between efficient companies and inefficient ones. The empirical results obtained from the analysis of the general sector of KIBS can be further extended and focused to the comparison of firms belonging to a more specific industry sub-sector in order to benefit managers of those companies to gain insight from the industry financial performance benchmarking process.

The essential of presented paper is to introduce the outcomes of own research based on questionnaire survey, interviews, observation, analysis of educational events and experimental lessons, which aims to understand the principles and complexity of teaching in the MBA professional study programs in the context of application of activation methods of teaching towards the support of desirable managers‘ competencies gaining.

The debate on performance evaluation of start-ups, especially the academic-based ones, is still open. The traditional assessment methods are designed for companies that operate in a structured manner, in which analysts have developed a certain experience and benchmarking capabilities. Therefore performance measurement systems suitable for this context have to be still identified and ‘calibrated’: stakeholders need specific tools in evaluating investments towards a spin-off rather than another. The paper proposes a partly qualitative and partly quantitative methodology to evaluate the performance of a spin-off. The methodology has been developed within an Erasmus+ research project, co-funded by the European Commission, called SOLA (Spin-off Lean Acceleration). The partners involved in this project are 9 European and Latin-American universities and their Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs). A new Canvas model (the so-called LAC- Lean Acceleration Canvas) was developed and tested, more specific and suited to the context of academic spin-offs. The methodology proposes to monitor the main risk areas (market, technological, implementation, governance, and financial risk). For each of these areas, at first a framework is proposed that can support the qualitative assessment of the potential. In the second part, a set of metrics is proposed that helps to monitor the performances and to understand if the spinoff is growing in the right direction. Moreover, the methodology was applied to the spin-offs at the University of Calabria (Italy). This paper describes the first results obtained by the application of the methodology.

Studies on corporate governance have undergone rapid development since the last decades of the twentieth century, when both entrepreneurs and company men began to pay considerable attention to the subject. However, the actual debate began in the early nineties when, following the numerous financial scandals, companies were forced to better define the control mechanisms within them. Most reported cases of corporate failure are attributed to corporate governance practices (Appiah, 2013). We have begun to assist on a global scale, the important role attributed to the mechanisms of Corporate Governance as their correct application is closely related to company performance (Donaldson, 2003). On the basis of these considerations, the idea of the present work arises which, through a quantitative approach, investigates how the different composition and structure of the board influences the performance of the companies. The companies being analyzed are the mechanical companies listed on the Milan stock exchange for the three-year period 2015-2016-2017. We chose to analyze the mechanical companies thanks to the role they play in our country, in terms of employment, in terms of international trade and above all with reference to the strategic role they fulfill, strongly contributing to the development of the country and to the preservation of the levels of competition from the entire industrial sector. In the elaboration of the dataset, with regard to the governance data, the analysis of the corporate governance relations published annually by each company was used. To relate the governance variables to company performance we used a single financial statement indicator: the ROE (accounting measure), the most popular financial measure was used. I risultati del presente lavoro dimostrano che la dimensione del Consiglio di amministrazione ha un’influenza positiva sulla redditività delle società ed anche la maggiore presenza di donne all’interno del CdA. This study intends to examine how board diversity in companies operating in engineering, impact on performance. After a brief introduction to Corporate governance and firm performance, the work shows an adequate review of the most significant national and international literature on the subject. The research method used to analyze the topic is empirical using governance variable from corporate governance reports. This work tries to study deeply the impact of board diversity on firm performance by some listed company.