Europ. Countrys. · Vol. 10 · 2018 · No. 1 · p. 38-57 DOI: 10.2478/euco-2018-0003 European Countryside MENDELU BEING EXCELLENT ENTREPRENEURS IN HIGHLY MARGINAL AREAS: THE CASE OF THE AGRI-FOOD SECTOR IN THE PROVINCE OF REGGIO CALABRIA Dario Musolino1, Vincenzo Crea2, Claudio Marcianò3 1 Dario Musolino, Senior Researcher at the Centre for Research on Regional Economics, Transport and Tourism (CERTeT), Bocconi University, Via G. Roentgen 1, 20136 Milan, Italy; Contract Professor at the Department of Economics and Political Science, Aosta Valley University, Str. Cappuccini, 2, 11100 Aosta Italy; e-mail:
[email protected],
[email protected]. 2 Vincenzo Crea, Researcher at the Agraria Department of the Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy; e.mail:
[email protected]. 3 Claudio Marcianò, Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics at the Agraria Department of the Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy; e.mail:
[email protected]. 38/179 Received 18 April 2017; Accepted 30 January 2018 Abstract: The paper presents and discusses the findings of a field research study undertaken in a rural area in the province of Reggio Calabria, in Southern Italy, focused on firms belonging to the agri-food sector, in particular, on the excellent firms. Its objective is to point out how, even in rural and extremely marginal areas, and in unfavourable socio-economic and institutional contexts, it is possible that excellent firms were born and grew, and that they became competitive at the national and global scale. The paper therefore analyses these entrepreneurial case studies in-depth, using a methodologically mixed approach: on the one hand, focusing on their economic performance (quantitative analysis), and, on the other hand, investigating their strategy by means of direct open interviews.