This study explores the idea of a significant business, framing it through the key concepts that define it and illustrating it through a case study that narrates the evolution of a century-old company. Born as an intellectual response to the economic and financial
crisis of 2008, the significant business is conceived as an entity capable of enduring over time through the creation of value and its distribution within the community in which it operates. The significant business should be also aware of its own identity and of the
need to innovate itself over time considering the synergies and the collaborations that the territory offers, to continue to create wealth. This contribution is part of a series of works that, resulting from numerous action-research projects coordinated by Professor Carlo Bagnoli, have seen as protagonists the companies and their strategic innovation.
The starting point of many of these projects is the Manifesto of the Significant Company (Bagnoli et al. 2015), which aims at imagining a business model able to explore and innovate the company to increase its competitiveness, and also to restore meaning to the company itself, through the definition of its own identity. Contributing to previous works, this book explores the idea of significant enterprise by adopting a business and a historical perspective. The first part of the book deals with the business perspective, to introduce the value model commonly used in action research studies undertaken by the spin-off Strategy Innovation of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and to describe the specific model of a significant business. The second part of the book narrates the story of a centuries-long business, Barovier&Toso S.r.l., exploring its evolutions. Focusing on the different perspectives that shaped the key concepts and narrating the path followed by a centenary company, this work hopes to shed further light on this fascinating theme together with the reader.
