Corporate Europe in the US: Olivetti's acquisition of Underwood fifty years on

While Italy's catch-up in the course of the twentieth century has been nothing short of extraordinary, it has failed to produce a large number of global business players. Nonetheless, half a century ago an Italian company concluded what was at the time the largest-ever foreign takeover of a US company. The paper analyses Olivetti's acquisition of Underwood and frames it in the broader picture of the literature on the management and performance...