In the digital age, even more so after Covid19, both public and private organizations have developed an awareness of the need for digital transformation. Indeed, thanks to new digital technologies, it is possible to benefit from services and/or products that were previously unimaginable and that neither people, citizens, users, consumers nor organizations can do without. Moreover, given the upcoming challenges of the PNRR and the 2030 Agenda, which require the pursuit of sustainable digital development and efficiency goals, the topic of transforming organizations is more relevant than ever. However, digital transformation is not a simple process. Although the importance of this process is well known, a Forbes report (2020) demonstrates that about 70% of digital transformation initiatives do not achieve the intended results. One of the main reasons for this is the lack of ability to guide these initiatives through codified protocols or the provision of tools for planning, monitoring and evaluation. Even the literature on digital transformation, while definitive and empirical in terms of describing initiatives, impacts, and benefits, is still under-researched from the perspective of planning, monitoring, control, and evaluation systems. Thus, this research aims to develop a strategic planning model for developing, monitoring, and evaluating digital and sustainable transformation initiatives. The model draws on the soft systems literature. The model is based on the fundamental assumption that digital transformation follows the dynamics of soft systems. In fact, from a performance management perspective, digital transformation initiatives can be compared to the dynamics of R&D initiatives and thus soft systems, namely situations where performance cannot be measured by collecting data and evidence from physical devices or sensors and the focus is therefore on processes (Lazzarotti et al., 2011). With this in mind, the model identifies and describes the compelling dimensions to consider in the planning, monitoring and evaluation phase of digital transformation initiatives (Bremser and Barsky, 2004; García-Valderrama et al., 2008; Gwynne, 2015; Schwartz et al., 2011). In particular, these dimensions result from the combination and adaptation to the digital transformation perspective of the reference models of the balanced scorecard (Kaplan and Norton, 2007) and the logical framework approach (logframe) (Practical conceps, 1978). This combination is necessary to develop a model that is useful both in the strategic planning phase and in the ex-post evaluation. The research makes important theoretical and practical contributions. The study enriches the literature on digital transformation and proposes a model for designing, monitoring, and evaluating digital transformation initiatives. From a practical perspective, the proposed model aims to be a guiding and orienting tool for managers and practitioners that has normative and prescriptive value. Indeed, the model identifies the key dimensions to be considered in the planning phase of a digital transformation initiative, while describing the dimensions to be taken into account when monitoring the development of the initiative and the final evaluation of the impact achieved.

For more than ten years Italian community co-operatives have become an important social issue, a new form of collective enterprise that plays a role in regenerating local economies and social animation of the territories. This new form of business allows the civic forces to organize new services to satisfy some socio-economic needs of their communities. It creates collaboration networks with different stakeholders of the community and innovates both from the point of view of the evolution of the co-operative model as well as the practical implementation of the theories of community development (Bianchi, 2021). Community co-operatives are experimental laboratories of new forms of diversity coexistence and are based on organizational and management models that promote participation and involvement in independently of their productions, that could be of every kind: goods, artistic, recreational, social, cultural services. At the same time, because of their territorial nature, they combine the themes and values of active citizenship with those of environmental sustainability and solidarity. The contribution aims to investigate the characteristics and effective resilience capacity of these forms of “business” even in the face of the current pandemic crisis. We want to highlight the possible particularities of the approaches and solutions adopted and whether the distributed knowledge (social capital), that characterizes them, is actually used.

Viable public value generation is realized at the intersection of the public and the private realms, involving collaborative efforts aimed at tackling the wicked issues affecting collective well-being. Public private partnerships (PPP) and Public Private People Partnership (PPPP) are privileged organizational forms for the generation of public value. The idea that PPP and PPPP can bring collective benefits nurture their diffusion. They can be conceived of as inter-organizational relationships, characterized by: 1) mutual coordination of activities; 2) shared level of risk, and 3) an organizational agreement between the partners. Interorganizational relationships are usually hosted in project settings, which enact a context for eliciting interdependencies and enable public value co- generation. Although literature has investigated the challenges related to the management of projects in the public sector, unveiling “hard” and “soft” issues for their successful accomplishment, little is known on how projects can foster the knowledge assets for public value co-creation. The article pushes forward our understanding of the antecedents, processes, and implications of knowledge sharing in project settings aimed at public value co-creation, shedding lights into the factors which encourage public sector entities and private companies to cross-fertilize their assets to co-produce public value. A systematic literature review has been accomplished, trying to comprehensively integrate the scholarly debate about knowledge sharing dynamics within projects launched by public sector entities to engage private partners and people in public value co-creation. Altogether, 50 items were contemplated in this literature review. Four main themes emerged from the scholarly debate. Knowledge sharing and dissemination relies on contextual factors, which concern the institutional, technological, and social frameworks within which projects are implemented. Knowledge transfer is facilitated when public sector entities promote openness in the design and the implementation of value co- creation projects, introduce reliable technologies to support inter-organizational relationships, and establish trustworthy relationships with their partners. Appropriate organizational architectures should be designed to foster knowledge sharing. Two main solutions are available for this purpose: a conservative approach entails embedding boundary spanners in conventional organizational structures, enabling them to perform as bridges to promote inter-organizational exchanges; a radical way involve arranging a temporary flexible organization, which is hybridized by the partners and hybridizes their knowledge assets. Public managers should be adequately trained to effectively manage projects which are characterized by the engagement of private partners in the process of public value co-creation. Finally, the direct and indirect implications of knowledge dissemination on public value generation should be addressed.

As crisis become progressively more frequent and complex, better preparation to respond to them becomes more important. This contribution focuses on the investigation of the opportunities for supply chains to develop transformative resilience preparing to respond to crisis. In the most recent years, actors with superior logistics competences have become important players in the humanitarian field, in line with the crucial role of logistics in these complex and turbulent contexts. Logistics service providers (LSPs) offer supportive logistics services for different organizations and governments when they prepare to respond to major crises and disasters. Despite their crucial support, the academic literature on humanitarian logistics is still in developing when exploring the role that LSPs play in relief supply chains. The purpose of this paper is to identify what is the role of LSPs in humanitarian logistics and supply chain management, supporting the development of transformative resilience of supply chains in response to crisis. The paper is based on a literature review adopting a bibliometric approach, and from the analysis some insights and preliminary considerations emerges. The results could be interesting and useful for both academics and professionals and for both humanitarian and business sector. Going towards transformative resilience in humanitarian supply chains needs to focus on preparing actors and supply chains to respond to crisis, and LSPs may concretely support in this direction collaborating with humanitarian actors through platforms solutions.

This paper aims to better understand the application of stakeholder management within the university spin-offs (USOs) of the five Flemish universities (Belgium). Every organization, including USOs, must deal with different types of stakeholders. Even though a lot of research on USOs exists, as far as we know, no previous research has been done on how USOs manage their stakeholders. For this qualitative research 30 in-depth semi- structured interviews were conducted with executives from USOs to understand how they define, categorize, and manage their stakeholders. Moreover, the impact of COVID-19 on their stakeholder management is examined and an overview is conducted of the stakeholders in each development phase of the USOs. Based on these interviews, we found that stakeholder management is mostly done in a more intuitive way. However, it is shown stakeholder management becomes more important as the USO moves along the company life cycle.

Learning is a keystone for the development of a collective intelligence environment. Specifically, in a collaborative effort within inter-organizational ecosystems, learning can create new knowledge with the potential to influence behaviour and activate organisational collaboration as well as redesign social aspects and reconfigure the existing norms and values. To mobilise collective intelligence, creating crowdsourcing environments can be considered as learning experience tools that provide information based on real-life contexts. For migrants and refugees learning to access and feed reliable information can be a fundamental path toward their integration into a host community. To validate the possibility of developing a collective intelligence environment in a form of a wiki-space for (and by) migrants, this paper adopts the Triple-Loop Learning mechanism and the three learning drivers (what, how, and why) developed by the easyRights project. To do that, the paper presents the lessons learned from two hackathon initiatives organised in Palermo in Italy and in Malaga in Spain. The two subsequent hackathon initiatives had the scope to a) frame the wiki-space as an informative and crowdsourcing environment, b) create reliable content, and c) activate the necessary governance to guarantee its sustainability after the project’s termination for the very complex and ambiguous procedure of job seeking. The results led to a shared solution among the two cities as a service to sustain migrants’ job seeking in the form of a wiki-space with two collective learning spheres: the methodology (the how dimension), and the platform itself (what, how, why dimensions). Through the findings from the two pilots’ learning experiences, the paper essentially discusses how the project targets a systemic change by revisiting the existing knowledge in the organizations and creating a crowdsourcing platform of collective intelligence through a new mechanism that feeds the creation of values in different extents (societal, approach and service) toward a more inclusive society.

Digital innovation of public services has overcome the technology-driven phase and entered the technology-enabled phase towards organisational and governance transformation. This shift offers PAs several opportunities to improve decision-making and orient policy action, but also to engage in profoundly transformative processes affecting – among the others- organisational structure, culture and behaviours, processes, employees’ requirements and abilities, information systems and technological infrastructure. The present study starts from the assumption that to seize this transformative opportunity, public administrations (PAs) are required to engage in reflection and learning processes, both at the individual and the organisational level. Also, it assumes that these processes need to take place at all levels and across multiple sectors and organisational units. Relying on the preliminary results of the ESPON Project DIGISER (espon.eu/DIGISER), this study analyses how the exposition of participant cities to the Project and its conceptual and analytical frameworks can set the ground for reflection on their digital and organisational transformation and practices. In particular, this paper illustrates the methodological approach and tools developed, focusing on the activities revolving around an extensive survey about digital service innovation carried out in 250 European Cities. In addition to the survey itself, the study illustrates visual and narrative tools developed to give feedback to participants, highlighting their potential in terms of reflection drivers. The contribution then discusses to what extent (i) filling the survey allowed a better understanding of the digital innovation process and its relation with existing organisational structures; and (ii) the critical reading of the results contributed to triggering reflection and raising awareness among the respondents. Evidence gathered during the data collection shows that completing the survey has required the identification of respondents from different sectors and with different levels of skills and responsibilities, thus confirming its potential in activating reflection on the survey topic and supporting cross-silo interactions and knowledge sharing. Also, exposure to the survey and to its results has improved respondents’ awareness about the organisational structure, opening up to new collaborations and enhancing situational awareness among PA employees. Finally, the experiment carried out shows a high exploratory potential, as it proved able to support reflection on new envisioning about public service design and provision. Even if further testing is required to corroborate these preliminary reflections, the illustrated methodological approach has promising profiles in terms of its ability to support reflection on digital transformation processes within PAs.

Financial Technology (FinTech) is the latest innovative solution in the finance sector, an emerging disruptive technology to provide financial services. The usage of Blockchain (core technology in FinTech) and Cryptocurrency technologies have getting more attention to the investors, regulators, investment industry, and consumers. Blockchain technology is the most famous digital technology to successfully achieve the trusted and secured financial transactions (Bai and Sarkis, 2020); cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that hold high potential aimed at using for investments or transactions. The technology of Blockchain can ease the new method for production of eco-friendly products (Saberi et al., 2016), integrating various environmental protective initiatives by monitoring the parameters required for production like emissions, processing of raw materials, and energy consumption. Blockchain can enhance the access to the consumers for using green energy, strengthen the environmental protection programs implementation, and decrease the stakeholders’ involvement in the initiatives of low- carbon energy (Upadhyay et al., 2021). However, the applications of FinTech also have certain obstacles. FinTech startups are facing difficulties like data security threats, money laundering issues, user retention and experience problems, and so on, while implementing the technology in their business life cycle. Hence, the present paper has the objective of investigating the impact and sustainability of adopting blockchain and cryptocurrencies on FinTech for an eco-friendly nature. Quantitative methodology based on survey questionnaires data has been used. The respondents are 150 students of the University of Amsterdam (Netherland). This methodology involves three stages: in the first stage, the adoption level of blockchain and cryptocurrency applications is measured; the second stage involves a pilot study that needs to be performed for the validation of questionnaires from the target respondents; then, the data are analyzed using descriptive statistics. The result of this analysis indicates that the level of impact of blockchain and cryptocurrencies is at the intermediate level. The real usage of these technologies is low or not fully received by peoples, showing high resistance against these technologies. Moreover, privacy has high significance in adopting blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies applications. Hence, the necessity of governmental regulations is increasing for providing guidelines to ensure the growth of FinTech in the near future. Therefore, the current paper may assist FinTech startups in making decisions to evaluate the potential use of blockchain and cryptocurrencies technology for their services and businesses, providing them useful elements to make strategic business decisions.

Companies are constantly looking for new ways to innovate and integrate external knowledge into their innovation processes. In the era of makerspaces, a new source for collaborative innovation has evolved. As research shows, the users of makerspaces, so called makers, tend to be highly creative and innovative. That makes this tech-savvy community very promising for companies to collaborate with during innovation processes. Prior research revealed that makers and companies are open to collaborate. However, we still know little about how makers can be engaged in corporate innovation processes and in which phases (ideation, prototyping, test and launch) they are interested in for collaboration. Our quantitative study tackles this research gap and specifically looks into what might motivate makers to collaborate with companies in new product development processes. We find four distinct maker types that differ in their collaboration motives: reward enjoyers, knowledge hunters, opportunity seekers and intrinsic enthusiasts.

Today’s industry is fast-paced, dynamic and in a continuous process of evolution and change, like never seen before. This paper focuses mainly on the consumers’ behavioural shifts and questions how the global pandemic changed consumer preferences towards more sustainable and socially responsible businesses. As sustainability and accountability become a more urgent concern, brands need to escalate their efforts to reflect the customers’ values and beliefs since consumers more than ever want to know where materials come from, how products are made, and the working conditions of the people involved in the manufacturing are fair. The empirical research consisted of a mix-methods approach that included a survey performed on 227 Gen-Zers, extending previous studies on generational theory, a focus group, and an implicit association test (IAT). Results show that sustainability practices are very important for the samples’ perception of the brand (through rational thinking); however, the focus group and the IAT showed otherwise. Although sustainability practices remain pertinent, participants in the study demonstrated different behaviours according to the role they play in society, i.e. as individuals (moral values); or as consumers (mainly price and feeling of belonging).

In the current era, modern cities meet several challenges in providing citizens with an appropriate level of services to manage urban development. Knowledge management and digital transformation are recurrent themes in governments agendas and technologies support policymakers as well as enable citizens towards a knowledge and digital-based perspective. In other words, in the past few years, thanks to the digitization process, city administrations have been capable of ensuring transparency and participation in the decision. In such a context, open data represents a valuable trend to face the threats opposing urban development. They can significantly improve the effectiveness of local policies and the quality of life of citizens. Open data, publicly shared by modern cities, made this process possible. They allow researchers and private citizens to investigate matters related to public services, providing powerful insights for policymakers improving the shared value inside the city borders. This study investigates how the transportation sector has been affected by policymakers’ decisions during the period of lock-down established in the area of the metropolitan city of Rome. The data used for the purpose of the study are related to the car accidents that occurred before and during the pandemic emergency, provided by an open data initiative of the municipality of Rome. This research provides useful insights about how the Italian policymakers managed the crisis due to the pandemic emergency. Investigating how specific policies actually affect mobility represents a valuable point of comparison in managing comparable future crises. It also shows how it is possible to spread technology and data-oriented culture to lead to an actual improvement of the open data provided by public administrations in quantity as well as in quality. Thus, a technology and data- oriented culture can represent the indispensable base for open innovation to be applied to the Italian’s public services.

As one of the fastest growing industries in the world (R. Baggio, 2013), Tourism is a key player in sustainable development (Serra and Jakulin, 2006). Consistent with their role in the global economy, international and regional governments require organizations to transform the way they conduct their business towards sustainability outcomes (Chofreh et al. 2017). Specifically, firms are called to evolve the classic way of business, towards a model in which to develop, according to collective needs such as environmental and social sustainability (Meda, 2018) results consistent with the expectations of its stakeholders (Luthra and Mangla 2018). The present work, through an empirical survey conducted on several case studies with the combination of quantitative and qualitative data (Gummesson, 2017) useful to investigate the business models used by the parties involved, highlights the considerable development of business realities related to the tourism sector, specifically the sea, linked to sustainable business models. The selected firmss, although they have little capital, staff and, in some cases, even experience, strong of their link with a territory with high environmental value, show a growth almost stable over time, despite the difficulties presented by the global pandemic crisis. The sustainable business model of these firms is also distinguished by the digital innovation component. The use of digital technologies, and in particular social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, the website, and the possibility of booking online (in four cases out of five), it’s an essential tool for addressing what appears to be the target audience: foreign tourism.

This research aims to study the nature of the relationship between digitalization and organizational resilience (OR). Further, it examines the role of Knowledge Sharing (KS) as mediator of digitilazation and OR relationship. To investigate the conceptual framework, a quantitative approach has been adapted using Smart PLS 3.0. Based on the analysis of 264 valid responses using the Structural Equation Modeling approach (PLS-SEM), results showed that digitalization has a significant and positive impact on OR. KS was found playing significantly a mediating role in the relatioship between digitalization and OR. Furthermore, company size and years of experience were found to be significant moderators in the modeling of OR. Finally, findings showed that coefficients of determination of KS and OR were augmented based on unobserved heterogeneity analysis.

Concern for unsustainable development has reached its peak, and it is vital to promote and design sustainable production and consumption. Although there are many studies in different fields and many concepts such as sustainable supply chain, symbiotic industry, symbiotic marketing, and sustainable marketing concepts in literature, there is no holistic concept that will cover all of them. They usually have a narrow focus on industrial activity or only marketing strategy. Therefore, we propose the concept/model of Symbiotic Sustainable Marketing, which we believe can protect environmental, business, and consumer interests and needs. In the sense of sustainable marketing, we observed that most sub-concepts priority to either the environment or the business. These practices, which can sometimes be called green, eco-friendly, or environmentally conscious, can reflect on the consumer at an extra cost and may challenge the implementation of sustainable marketing strategies. This study provides an overview and examines the environmental and organizational developments that have contributed to the widespread acceptance of symbiotic sustainable marketing as a way of doing business. We reviewed essential articles in the literature by Scopus and Wos database. We proposed a new concept of sustainable marketing strategy that will be examined within a symbiotic relationship by the framework of a win-win for each side for the planet, profit, and people. In this vein, we compiled all related studies and a strategy and model presented to contribute to the sustainable marketing paradigm and guide entrepreneurs and business practitioners. Accordingly, all studies on Scopus and Web of Science that reviewed, strengths and weaknesses are pointed out, and a new conceptual model is presented that could be helpful for sustainable marketing.

The aim of this work is to analyze the Gender Equality issue within the context of Intellectual capital and performances with specific reference to knowledge organizations. The final purpose of the article is to investigate the relevance of gender issues in knowledge-based organizations including universities and firms and to provide a complete mapping of IC, gender equality and performance by identifying a rich set of indicators which integrate the existing literature both published in international peer-reviewed papers and in the grey literature, e.g. practical-based reports, produced within knowledge- intensive firms. We propose a map of the indicators grouped according to the three dimensions of the IC (human capital, structural capital, relational capital).

Over the last decade, B Corp Certification arose as a new business opportunity, an alternative to traditional ones and aimed to offer a new approach to managing sustainability issues. This certification attests that a business meets high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials. Empirical evidence in this domain is divergent, highlighting in some cases how B Corps’ willingness to pursue non-economic goals could undermine the financial performance of these entities. However, pursuing a more significant public benefit may improve legitimacy and stakeholder relationships, improving financial performance. Accordingly, this work tries to shed light on this divergent evidence, exploring the relationship between the B Impact Scores and firms’ financial performance. We apply a cross-sectional study using an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) approach to verify how non-economic goals affect B Corps financial performance, testing the five single dimensions of the B Impact Score and the impact of the overall assessment. We consider all the 169 B Corps operating in Italy, referring to the B Lab directory. Empirical findings denote that the overall assessment does not impact B Corps financial performance, whilst some dimensions of the B Impact scores are positively related to firms’ financial performance. This research fits the stakeholder management research field, investigating how additional and non-financial disclosure regarding sustainability issues improves stakeholders’ relations and firms’ reputation capital. Our main contribution is to adopt for the first time a quantitative approach in the context of the Italian B Corps, pointed to verify whether additional efforts to meet social and environmental instances are financially rewarded. We have only selected spin-offs with at least one academic member on TMT and which have been started in a university.

Industry 4.0 is an issue that has already reached most companies, although its implementation still varies significantly. This variance is mostly due to the fact that planning and implementing networked technologies in companies requires new forms of interdisciplinary collaboration. The approach developed in this paper provides guidance to manufacturing companies to identify and exploit digitally enabled market opportunities and to start a project-based learning process to transform the organization. We propose an approach using only remote guidance for competence building on digital transformation to increase companies’ ability to act. The proposed approach nurtured on existing digital transformation frameworks and agile project management tools suitable to achieve cognitive learning goals from the simple to the difficult, from the straightforward to the complex. By that it mitigates shortcomings with regard to application in practice. An integrated virtual supported training format for companies addresses therefore initial knowledge building, assessment options, derivation of focus areas, development of target scenarios and implementation experience. Numerous theoretical principles on digital transformation can be found in the literature. Approaches that translate these into practical procedures can only be found to a limited extent. Therefore, the originality of this paper is to propose a project- based approach that can enable companies not only to assess their digital maturity level and plan its increase, but at the same time to initiate a learning process for implementation. It enables employees to communicate inside and outside the organization, share knowledge/data and organize joint projects. So that the collaboration between team members of different disciplines is encouraged. The developed approach offers companies the opportunity to launch coordinated holistic initiatives for digital growth. Supported by agile development approaches, this can also be done location-independently in distributed teams. So, the effort for bringing distributed teams together can be reduced and interdisciplinary work is enhanced.

Understanding the reasons why some areas are more attractive than others is strategic for all municipalities located in weak socio-economic contexts, which need new development opportunities to strengthen their economies and tackle the depopulation trends. Single or multiple factors can act as triggers or detractors in inner areas and fragile territories: one of these is the real estate market, which is strictly related to different social and economic issues. In order to identify adequate strategies, policies and actions, data and indicators from different sources must be jointly analysed. For this purpose, a five-phase methodological approach, based on a sequence of knowledge management operations, is proposed, so that an adequate knowledge base could support multiple analyses. Its application on the fragile of the Eporediese area (Northern Italy), consisting of 54 municipalities, led to the identification and collection of more than 35 indicators, to their organization in a GIS and finally to the utilization of this preliminary knowledge base for analytical purposes. Different statistical analyses were performed and interesting results achieved on the existing relationships between real estate market variables, the presence of urban services and the main characteristics of the population. In particular, property listing prices and the advertisements frequency emerged as key factors to be jointly considered with social vulnerability aspects. Moreover, results pointed out other interesting variables, such as the Digital Transformation Indicator and the Urban Development Indicator, to be further explored in future research developments. Also the current version of the GIS has to be further tested and extended by selecting and adding more variables and data from other data sources, with the aim of properly support local authorities, scholars and study centres in identifying, collecting, organising, using and sharing multi- level data.

This study investigates how managers and entrepreneurs can learn about the interplay between leadership and followership from jazz musicians. The jazz metaphor is no stranger to management, with application in several fields such as organisation theory, innovation and leadership. The finest expression of jazz occurs during the “jam sessions”, described as relatively informal musical events where jazz musicians play improvised solos using different tunes and chord progressions. To “jam” means improvising music without extensive preparation or predefined arrangements and often without knowing the other participants in advance. One of the most distinctive yet overlooked features in jazz improvisation occurring in jam sessions is the practice of taking turns soloing and supporting, switching between leading and following. In jazz, leadership is an activity that is shared among the group, with individuals taking turns according to their skills or the demands of the environment and the moment. Several scholars have argued about the need for novel approaches to tackling the “grand challenges” of our volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous (VUCA) times, which need new leadership and coordination mechanisms. Like jazz musicians, future managers and entrepreneurs will need to develop confidence in interpreting vague cues, processing incomplete knowledge, facing unstructured tasks and unprecedented problems, and yet taking action. The literature has not yet investigated the strategies and routines for the operationalisation of creative and shared leadership, and we believe that the metaphor of jazz could offer interesting insights. The purpose of this study is to identify the codes and conventions that might allow members of an organisation or team to promote creativity by switching between moments of leadership and others of followership. Furthermore, we wish to investigate how this skill might be trained and stimulated. The study is organised as follows. First, we start with observing the jazz world through participant observation in jam sessions and interviews with jazz musicians. Second, we model practices and patterns of jazz, and we report our insights and findings to the world of management, providing contributions to both research and practice. Third, we discuss the role of challenge-based initiatives such as hackathons, which share several similarities with jam sessions, as promising platforms for managers and entrepreneurs to improvise, experiment and nurture creative and shared leadership, just like jazz musicians do through their unique jams.

The aim of this paper is to introduce and discuss the design and the main contents of a survey-based research methodology supporting data collection to better understand how food companies identifies and manage levers, practices and initiatives of positional innovation. After a literature review aimed to briefly modelling theory about the role and the characteristics of the positional innovation, and on the base of a first testing of the survey-based research methodology, the article presents then a set of empirical evidences gathered in the Italian context useful to clarify theory and to show how the various conceptual issues may be operatively and effectively applied. In order to implement the survey-based research methodology to investigate more widely experiences and practices of positional innovation in food industry, a dedicated questionnaire has been elaborated. The items of the questionnaire have been built combining the results of a desk research with empirical deductive data collected through dedicated focus groups and interviews with experts and opinion leaders. A first test of the questionnaire has been carried out on a sample of Italian leading companies in food industry through collecting public available data. The questionnaire includes currently three main sections: Section 1 – Company’s data; Section 2 – The main goals of the positional innovation strategy; 3- The intended levers and actions implemented by companies to manage practically positional innovation. Although there is an increasing need to inform companies producing mature and “not technology-driven” goods as food about how to analyse, shape and renew their management and innovation practices, there is still a general lack of empirical data around the real goals, orientations, needs, expectations that food industries feel and put in place to revise and innovate their products in terms of perceived value. Accordingly, it is of strategic value to build knowledge and collect data around positional innovation experiences and practices for the development and the sustainability of the food industry. In order to fill this gap, this paper provides then a survey-based research methodology capable to theoretically support the data collection grounding a better understanding of the managerial initiatives of positional innovation defined and implemented by food companies. On the base of the testing of the research design and methods, it emerges from one side the strength and the quality of the tool to identify significant knowledge domains and collect related data about positional innovation; and, on the other side, the variety and the multifaceted aspects through which positional innovation can be operatively translated and managed.