Managing digital trasformation in the context of SMEs: The relevance of collaboration.

Industry 4.0 technologies are shaping the drivers of the competitive advantage. Firms, especially SMEs, are adopting these technologies facing barriers and difficulties toward the digitalization process. A strategy to overcome these barriers is to leverage on the collaboration with firm’s network of actors, in which a key role is represented by KIBS and technology providers. This thesis is focused on the impacts of Industry 4.0 for SMEs, the relevancy of collaboration and key role of technology providers and KIBS, analyzing the geographical dimension of these relationships, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives.