Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze Additive Manufacturing (AM) in SMEs to investigate its effects
on competitiveness and performance. Thanks to the analysis of an Italian gold jewelry
district’s firms, the paper examines the effects related to AM on firms
highlighting empirical evidences suitable for other industry contexts. Thanks to latent
content analysis, six conceptual themes have emerged concerning the main effects of AM.
Such categories are process innovation, customer satisfaction, costs, revenues, profits,
and sustainable competitive advantage. As a results, the introduction of AM has
increased the firms’ competitiveness by strengthening customer satisfaction and
revenues, and may be therefore interpreted as a viable growing strategy for SMEs.
Furthermore, thanks to AM customers’ demand and payment availability have
increased and evident advantages on firms’ performance have been recorded.