The role of organic districts in supporting companies' sustainable development

摘要

The main goal of this research is to analyse the features and to investigate the role of organic districts in the Italian context, throughout the use of business model (BM) tool, in order to understand their support in sustainable development of the different players involved. Through a survey questionnaire conducted on a sample of Italian organic districts, the districts' features, the role of the districts in supporting sustainable aspects and the related benefits perceived by companies belonging to such districts have been investigated. Finally, the findings reveal the sustainable business model features of these organisations. The paper enables to open the black box of organic districts, which are still under investigation in the literature.