Federica Belfanti

Creating Shared Value (CSV) is a new managerial concept introduced by Michael E. Porter and Mark Kramer in 2011, suggesting the need for companies to integrate economic and social considerations in their strategies, to generate competitiveness. Clusters provide a significant potential for the sustainable development in a region, encouraging responsible business practices and joint activities. Since the outset, literature on CSV has stressed the role played by cluster development in generating shared value for the entire cluster community and for the society at large, suggesting that clusters might be conducive to shared value creation and not just to higher productivity, new business formation or innovations. Despite recent research has shed some light on how and to what extent clusters and shared value creation fruitfully engage in a variety of cases, literature on the topic is still in its infancy. Therefore, this thesis aims at filling such empirical and conceptual gap understanding the role of cluster development in CSV when firms pursue CSV strategies by enabling and enhancing local cluster development. By relying on both qualitative and quantitative analysis, the work aims at understanding how firms launch, adopt and implement CSV strategies within cluster initiatives and which critical success factors along the process.