In this paper we carry out a qualitative survey concerning the relationship between the expectations of entrepreneurs and the investment choices made by firms in Italy (2007-14). Namely, our goal consists in highlighting the elements which characterize the years of the crisis in comparison with the immediately preceding period. We will conclude that the time lag required to give rise to investment decisions may be estimated at no less than  two years. Such a lag  may be explained not only by the physiological delay which qualifies the response of the investment expenditure to the cyclical dynamics, but also by the increasing uncertainty scenario which economic agents have taken into account. Moreover, the evidence that the higher is the correlation the more recent is the year taken into consideration may imply that the economic crisis has emphasized a different elasticity of investments to entrepreneurs’ expectations.