Arbor vitae: alla ricerca di un modello d’impresa per la valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale periferico

In the era of globalization, are there are companies that enhance the peripheral cultural heritage? Which ones? What is their business model? What are their key organizational processes? With the aim to answer these questions, we fi rst carried out a desk survey on the basis of which, according to the proxies “longevity” and “territorial roots”, we selected three Italian companies operating in three different traditional manufacturing sectors. Field research has led to map the core organizational processes through which the selected companies give voice and visibility to the uniqueness of the cultural heritage in which they are embedded. Starting from the empirical evidence, we developed an ideal-typical fi rm model metaphorically called arbor vitae. In a dialectic frame between deduction and induction, the model offers policy makers a tool to identify and encourage fi rm behaviors oriented to the enhancement of peripheral cultural heritage and also to the business decision makers an original theoretical framework to strategically interpret the hologramatic relationship firm-territory.