Abstract
Location decisions are critical to a firm’s success, influencing multiple performance dimensions. While location factors, such as the legal framework, resource proximity, and presence of industrial clusters, have been widely studied in the previous literature, no scholar has explored the implications of locating manufacturing activities in mountain regions, despite the peculiarities characterizing this context and the potential tradeoffs associated with this choice. Building on the Resource-based view and using secondary economic–financial data of Alpine manufacturing firms, this research seeks to explore the impact of mountain location choices on four dimensions of firm performance: sales growth, labor productivity, profit margin, and profitability.The findings show that manufacturing firms in mountain regions have higher labor productivity and profit margins compared to those in non-mountain regions, while no significant differences are observed for profitability. Additionally, the results indicate a negative impact of mountain location on sales growth. The study presents several theoretical, managerial, and policy implications, including refuting the myth that manufacturing firms in mountain regions cannot compete with their counterparts located in non-mountain regions.