An ontology-based model for SME network contracts

Even if collaboration is considered an effective solution to improve business strategies, SMEs often lack common principles and common forms of contractual coordination. Several policies implemented by E.U. have addressed the setup of a comprehensive SME policy framework. However, European institutions seem to have focused more on organizational devices to conduct business activities rather than on contractual forms of coordination. In April 2009, Italy adopted a law in network contract to promote the development of interfirm cooperation strategies to foster enterprises’ innovation and growth. Even if this law represents a novelty in Europe and may offer new challenges and hints, it still presents some lacks in its formulation. The current research aims at presenting the Italian law for network contract, by highlighting both its potentialities and its defects. A formal model to support the design of a SME network was proposed, by providing both an ontology-based model to help the definition of the contract in a structured way, and a basic workflow to identify the important phases of the network design, i.e., the feasibility study and the negotiation. In this way, the network rules and criteria for controlling the network members’ contributions are defined. Mathematical tools derived from performance optimization were exploited.