This study deals with the emerging phenomenon of the sharing economy and sustainability. This phenomenon is observed within the context of the sharing wardrobe, namely the opportunity for consumers to get the availability of fashion clothes for rent and swap them with other users through the use of online platforms managed by firms that are steering these new ways of fashion consumption. Various scholars observed in recent years how the sharing economy has changed the way to address sustainability – in all its perspectives – in societies as well as in business-to- consumer relationships and how firms are challenging these changes also through their value propositions. Anyway, the novelties brought by both the sharing economy and technology platforms supporting its development are still ongoing, thus further research efforts have been called for in recent academic literature. This is one more reason to observe the new phenomenon of sharing wardrobe, to investigate how firms address their value proposition combining a new offering with sustainable goals. The findings from various initiatives in different countries (Spain, United States, United Kingdom, and New Zealand among others) show new customers’ needs, the promotion of sustainability-oriented values, and the emerging of new market practices as the main constituencies of value propositions in this domain. These results encourage further research that might highlight the effects on consumers – in their relationships with businesses and through the effect of technologies – as well as in the societal realm.

The goal of this study is to advance understanding on project resilience by shedding light on resilience practices in a project that is understood as a temporary organization. While doing so, we investigated one specific collaborative and knowledge intensive innovation project, in which knowledge integration is at central core for project outcomes. Temporary innovation projects among diverse actors are grounded by adversities in employment of knowledge base, organizing project activities and interaction with environment. In this qualitative study we investigate resilience practices through which project actors address adversities of innovation project. We identified iterative process, rich interaction and knowledge flows as resilience practices. By shedding light on resilience practices in projects we contribute to research on organizational resilience and suggest that projects are important sources of organizational resilience.

The work aims to model the behavior of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as representatives of civil society to investigate how they contribute to the development of Innovation Value Chains (IVCs) under consideration of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) keys and practices. Specifically, we examined how the presence of NGOs within a network influences the diffusion of RRI practices among ecosystem actors and whether a strong orientation of NGOs to RRI practices implies a stronger push of partners towards RRI. In addition, the impact of NGOs on the diffusion of knowledge and heterogeneity of innovative networks is analyzed. To this aim, we adopt the Agent-Based Modelling and Simulation (ABM&S) as the main methodology. ABM can model a heterogeneous population of actors who interact both with each other and the environment in a complex system with unpredictable results, without previous knowledge or assumptions about higher-level phenomena resulting from the agents’ activities; moreover, it enables us to understand the dynamics of the system and not just the final state. An experimental setting is proposed, and different simulation experiments are performed. The experiments show that NGOs contribute to the diffusion of RRI practices within the ecosystem when adopting intermediate values of RRI to evaluate the possibility of joining innovative consortia. In fact, using an excessively stringent selective strategy on RRI keys results in a worse performance regarding the diffusion of RRI throughout the ecosystem. Moreover, very RRI-oriented NGOs imply a greater diffusion of knowledge and heterogeneity but subordinately to their limited involvement. The work provides useful insights to Research Funding Organizations in developing guidelines for promoting RRI practices and facilitates Research Performing Organizations in adopting RRI best practices and managing innovative dynamic networks.

Cities of tomorrow as smart communities use information and communication technologies to drive innovation and promote sustainable and inclusive urban growth, improving the quality of life, and developing cities as inclusive and smart communities. A smart city helps shape the city of the future as sustainable community. An inclusive city helps support sustainable urban development, strengthening a collaborative and participatory space of action. Smart cities help the city to identify a pathway for sustainable future, building sustainable and inclusive cities as smart communities. Cities select a pathway for building an inclusive city, promoting a smart city vision and developing a smart community.

Innovation ecosystems’ main purpose is to foster innovation. While referring to these ecosystems, the local dimension presents several advantages: indeed, the closeness could improve the interactions between the actors. However, the openness related to the global innovation ecosystems enable efficiently the collaborations across the organizations. The aim of this research, indeed, is to deepen the trade-off between the local approach versus the internationalization strategy implemented with the multinational. In line with our purpose, we developed firstly a case study approach to directly observe the phenomenon and secondly, we developed a system dynamics simulation, which allows us to compare the innovation value generated by both the ecosystems.

With this work we want to analyse the evidence in the literature of the capacity of immigrant female entrepreneurs to interpret the change and try to understand the possible ways in which the literature will address the different topics individuated. This survey aims to highlight in which subject area more attention has been paid to female immigrant entrepreneurship and help to understand possible future research areas in which to develop the topic. Through the analysis of the literature, we aim to know which features can enable female enterprises to seize the crisis as an opportunity. The analysis was conducted through the structured literature review (SLR) on 295 documents about female immigrant entrepreneurship; the contributions (articles, book chapters, and books) have been divided in five article focus. An analysis of the content was carried out to identify the research methodologies used and the thematic areas of reference. This paper outlines how the topic of immigrant women’s entrepreneurship has been addressed in the literature, in different subject areas, particularly in Business, Management and Accounting, and Economics, Econometric and Finance. The use of an only one database, even though SCOPUS represents one of the most used scientific search engines, can be a limitation of this survey, as well as the manual analysis of the results of the SLR. On the other hand, the use of only one database can allow to identify the subject in which the research is mostly carried out and consider only referenced documents. This survey can have many practical implications. First, can point out the main research areas in which the topic has been developed, and the ones in which it can be developed in the future because of the shortage of surveys in these thematic areas. It can also contribute, in practice, to identify the common models of female entrepreneurship and the issues related to the different research areas.

The Covid 19 pandemic has imposed different ways of working to traditional methods, a restructuring of corporate organizations and thus a profound change in the routines of individuals. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse the main areas of research related to the new flexible working arrangements, with particular attention to the impact they have on the status of women. The study proposed here is part of an ongoing research project in the field of gender studies and is also part of a broader interdisciplinary investigation. In order to identify the topics dealt with and the investigation methods used, a structured literature review (SLR) was carried out. Specifically, 205 international contributions (articles, books and book chapters) on the selected SCOPUS database were analysed. This work stems from the need to provide an overview of the vast and varied literature on the subject, in order to understand the gender implications inherent in the development of flexible working models. The Covid-19 health emergency makes the topic of current interest. The literature review highlights that standardized models should be avoided and calls for tailor-made solutions to exploit the potential of smart working.

Equity crowdfunding (ECF) has rapidly spread around the world, however its use by university spin-offs (USOs) is still extremely limited. This study adopts an inductive qualitative research design to explore the views of CEOs and founders of the few USOs that used ECF. The research findings reveal that several reasons lead USOs to resort to ECF and bypass traditional tools. These ventures have little public (and university) support and funding, as well as they seem less attractive to traditional investors who tend to support initiatives with a high technology readiness level (TRL). ECF supports USOs through a crowd of investors who commit not only funds but also other (often missing) resources of strategic importance. Notably, this system allows USOs to have an initial test on the market, get broad consensus, and bring people on board. The results show that there are both benefits and challenges for businesses using ECF. First, the crowd provides key resources such as knowledge, networks, relationships, and skills useful for the growth and development of USOs or the related technologies. USOs received support for product/technology validation, patent development, and increasing the level of TRL. Crowd engagement was particularly high due to the contribution of USOs to the development of technologies useful for the entire community and for ethical or sustainable reasons. Investors supports the research and disclose a strong commitment to the ethical/sustainable impacts of USOs; many of them became business ambassador of the initiative. ECF campaigns and investors had a role of “facilitator” of knowledge transfer on the market and valorization of research results. Also, an increased public engagement emerged. The presence of new investors helped USOs to mitigate the uncertainty perceived surrounding the initiative. However, these new people are sometimes difficult to manage, and this requires efforts, time, and ongoing relationships. Some risks arise from investors who may use some data and some companies may compete. Crowd’s lack of scientific culture – or misinformation – is sometimes a real problem, as well as the limited presence of platform’s scientific consultants. In general, the differences between applied and theoretical research need to be considered, as well as technological obstacles and the risk of not arriving at the desired output. The research is the first to analyze the connections between USOs and ECF. It contributes to the literature on crowdfunding and technology transfer and has implications for strategic decisions of CEOs/founders of USOs, universities, policymakers, governments.

This study aim is to examine how businesses can overcome the current challenges (e.g. lack of resources) of sustainable innovation by engaging customers in their value co-creation strategies. Such strategies are based on consumers’ open-mindedness with regard to environmental sustainability, in particular in the face of the negative environmental impact of the fash fashion industry. Green knowledge encompasses the skills and attitudes that enable individuals to improve their relationship with the natural environment and its conservation. On the road to sustainability, customers are seen as sources of green knowledge and translators of such knowledge into innovation outputs. Engaging consumers in value co-creation therefore becomes a driver for improved relationships between the business and the natural environment, whereby green solutions are shared and improved by both the business and its consumers. The process of opening up to customers and co-creating value is especially valid in the textile sector where there has been a significant increase in the production of low-cost clothing that mimics current luxury items, which leads to significant volumes of waste every year. This study proposes that customers’ open-minded helps to overcome co-creation challenges. This study contributes to current efforts to design and implement sustainable innovation strategies in businesses in the textile industry. The research has found that an open-minded attitude in consumers results in the creation of green knowledge that contributes to both incremental and radical eco-innovation in the textile sector.

The study is a continuation of the research by Durst and Zieba (2019) related to knowledge risks and their potential outcomes. This present study makes an update on the literature on knowledge risks and green transformation and describes knowledge risks that can be faced in this process. The paper offers new insights for researchers dealing with the topic of knowledge risks in the context of green transformation and ways of handling them. The study provides useful information for managers and owners of companies who are not always aware of the dark side of knowledge and risks related to it. Additionally, companies are more and more often challenged with the need to make the green transformation and this process can also be a tricky one. At this stage of development, the proposed study is of theoretical character. This limitation will be overcome in future research activities that involve a large sample of organizations from various countries and sectors.

This paper aims to explore how researchers studied the role and implications of the concepts of vulnerability and risk in direct relation to knowledge management systems. Our approach is based on a bibliometric analysis of the papers in the last 20 years and indexed in Scopus using the specialized software VOSviewer. Although knowledge risks have been analyzed from different perspectives, knowledge vulnerabilities have not been studied yet. In any system, vulnerabilities represent the roots of all possible risks, and they should be known when systems are designed for diminishing the probable negative consequences of risks occurrences. VOSviewer analyses of different keywords and expressions related to the search topic show semantic clusters constructed with similar concepts and the intensity of the links between the focal concept and the other concepts. That allows us to see the knowledge gaps in the research area and how to orient the future research. Findings show that in the literature dedicated to knowledge management systems, there are no studies focusing on knowledge vulnerabilities, although they generate the knowledge risks when the context changes become favorable. Thus, our study shows a clear knowledge gap between the generic risk management theory and knowledge management systems with respect to knowledge vulnerabilities. The contribution of this paper comes from revealing this knowledge gap and showing this way a new potential direction for research in knowledge management systems – the correlation between vulnerabilities and risks within knowledge management systems.

Sustainability means different things to different organisations, likewise indicators of sustainable business performance. Within the broader field of knowledge management, it refers to the efficient utilization of knowledge management through joint collaborations and active interactions among team members. Hence sustainability thrives in an environment that supports knowledge sharing. This systematic literature review critically investigates the enablers of knowledge management that potentially drives sustainable business performance of SMEs using the PRISMA methodological approach. We identified seven enablers of knowledge management out of sixty-four academic papers that were reviewed. These are information technology, knowledge sharing, management commitment, innovation capability, stakeholder engagement, resources, and effective leadership. Based on the synthesis of these enablers, a conceptual model was designed to depict the interconnections and linkages between the enablers of knowledge management and sustainable business performance. Certain theoretical underpinnings were drawn, particularly with respect to indicators of sustainable business performance. In line with mainstream research, we believe sustainable business performance is contingent upon economic, social, and contextual factors. Our study is the first to have systematically reviewed enablers of knowledge management that drive sustainable business performance among SMEs. We have also set agenda for future research directions by way of testing our conceptual model using the formulated hypotheses. Besides the theoretical contributions, our study offers practitioners new and compelling insights of applying the various enablers of knowledge management towards achieving sustainable business performance.

This paper introduces the project “Digital Sensemaking” (DIGI-Sense) that tackles human needs in the envisioned digital revolution (Industry4.0, humanoid robots, Internet of Behaviours, Cyber-Physical-Systems) to enable meaningful transformation processes. Psychologists of work argue that digitalization at the workplace can lead to an overflow of information which challenges decision-making and sensemaking at work. Studies in organizational research show that sensemaking is fundamental for meaningful work1 experience of individuals and organizations because it plays a central role to give meaning to processes, shared experiences and to rationalize decisions and established routines. In digital transformation processes, well-known work processes easily become alienated to workers, embodied knowledge and material cornerstones are likely to become obsolete. Therefore, DIGI-Sense explores sensemaking in digitalization processes that incorporate tangible elements, digital twins, and robotics. As embodiment, materialities, movements, and aesthetics are core to sensemaking, the methodological design of the empirical study incorporates methods in social sciences and juxtaposes these more traditional approaches with methods from visual studies, arts-based initiatives and artscience collaboration in the form of a series of experimentations with performance artists. This paper will introduce the theoretical background and the development of the methodological approach applied in this research project.

The aim of this paper is to reveal the influence of the knowledge management (KM) process and the organization’s agile attributes that facilitates organizations or firms to retrieve and survive as well as to increase their resilience and sustain organizational competitiveness. The emerging perspectives of ‘organizational agility’ key enabling attributes considered as an important gadget in the knowledge economy. Organizational agility in the organizational knowledge development process, facilitates organizations to achieve their competitive advantage through integrating the KM process, system, and sustainable knowledge transfer capability. Due to today’s highly volatile business environment, respectively organizations are under tremendous pressure on developing their organizational development strategy. Since then, they have been struggling with how to increase their resilience and sustain organizational competitiveness to prevent and react to the waves of disruption, organizations need to develop resilience capacity through knowledge management process and organizational agility to facilitate them to retain their competitive advantage. The impact of organizational agility in organizational knowledge development process visualized in this paper as a ‘capability enhancer of an organization’ (CEO)’ approach or system that enhances organizations’ resilience capabilities. It empowers them to reckon out 3R strategy, i.e., recognize, respond, and to regain their organizational competency from the unwanted turmoil, which occurs in the marketplace. To take the advantage of that change through radical organizational development being flexible, adaptable, capable, and enable (FACE) they can also allocate its agile resources that may work as stimuli on organizational resilience.

In recent years, the use by researchers of co-citation analysis –of documents (DCA), authors, keywords, etc.– trying to identify and/or visualize the ‘intellectual structure’ or ‘knowledge base’ of different areas, fields and/or disciplines –including the field of supply chain management–, have been gaining prominence in a growing number of scientific journals. However, the technique of bibliographic coupling analysis (BCA) between scientific documents (Kessler, 1963), which seeks to identify active research “fronts” in a scientific field or discipline –and, particularly suitable for detecting current trends and future research priorities– has been less commonly applied. This study used this last technique of analysis to identify and visualize the existence of active research ‘fronts’ in the context of the papers on ‘supply chain resilience’ (SCR) recently published in a wide variety of journals. The aim is not only to complement and expand the results obtained in prior studies. Based on the results obtained in our literature review, this paper also outlines directions and promising ways for future research. Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science –in particular, one of its indexes: the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)–, was the database used to carry out this research. A total of 234 “peer-reviewed journal articles” recorded between 2017 and December 27, 2021 were retrieved. With regards to the methodology, bibliometric methods were utilized, as well as social network analysis (SNA). In particular, the analytical techniques employed –adopting a “quantitative” method of a deductive character– allowed us the identification of some of the most active research “fronts” in the scientific literature related to the topic under analysis. This study shows the typical limitations resulting from the utilization of bibliometric methods/practical and theoretical implications are also potentially relevant to a number of different audiences. We believe that this study is of value for novel researchers before doing research since it allows the identification of the active research “fronts,” which shape the vanguard of knowledge and reveal current trends and future directions in the field under examination.

Within this study, we elaborate on the state-of-the-art within the academic literature ranging around flood protection, climate change and critical success factors (CSFs) by conducting a bibliometric analysis with subsequent snowball sampling procedure paired with a citation-network analysis. Further, we analyse CSFs in hindsight of an approx. 100 Mio. EUR pilot-project located in Germany and their implementation within the knowledge management framework of the latter project. Finally, we propose a guideline for mega- project realisations, concluding remarks and future avenues of research.

The increased knowledge intensification of work directed the business process management (BPM) research from ‘traditional’ routine and repetitive business processes to knowledge-intensive business processes (kiBPs). No agreement on universal “kiBPs” definition or conceptualization has been reached, and we have found no attempts to systemize kiBPs research. Therefore, we conducted a structured literature review (SLR) to improve the state of the art. The SLR consisted of three stages: literature search, extracting relevant papers, and content analysis. In the literature search stage, we retrieved peer- reviewed journal papers by applying a search query using “knowledge-intensive business process*” as a topic in Scopus and WoS databases and ended up with an initial sample of 71 papers. Next, the number of papers in the sample was decreased to 28 by applying a series of exclusion criteria. In the content analysis stage, relevant papers were coded to find content related to kiBPs characteristics or topics in kiBPs research. The content analysis allowed us to develop the framework of kiBPs characteristics, which showed that the primary reason for processes to be labelled knowledge-intensive is the uncertainty and unpredictability of their inputs, flows and outputs. Due to uncertainty and unpredictability associated with them, kiBPs strongly rely on knowledge workers and thus are being referred to as decision-oriented, collaborative, creative and innovative. Thus, the structure of kiBPs is being developed only during the process execution, which makes kiBPs goal-oriented rather than structure-oriented. KiBPs characteristics that distinguish them from “traditional” processes directly influence the topics of kiBPs research that were included in the framework of kiBPs research also developed within our study. Uncertainty and unpredictability of kiBPs are being addressed by incorporating knowledge perspective into kiBPs improvement methodologies and lead to multiple studies investigating the influence of knowledge processes on kiBPs performance. The unstructured and decision-oriented nature of kiBPs is being addressed in studies dedicated to kiBPs modelling and case management systems. We see frameworks developed in this study as beneficial for scientific and business communities. The framework of the kiBPs characteristics might serve as a basis for empirical research within the field and show business practitioners which characteristics of kiBPs should be addressed to improve process performance. The framework of the kiBPs research might serve as a starting point for researchers interested in the field and allow business practitioners to identify and elevate constraints in kiBPs management methods.

The objective of this study is analyzing how sustainability can be fed by knowledge at the company level and how it can be implemented within the company’s overall strategic choices. Dealing with the issue of sustainability is certainly a complex matter, since it embraces concepts and dynamics aimed at: creating value rather than profit, long-term rather than short-term horizons and the satisfaction of stakeholders rather than that of shareholders. It is certainly a complex target, that must be put into a system capable of enhancing the management’s efforts. In this sense, knowledge management (KM) is a useful ally to consolidate the competitive advantage, to outline efficient business practices, to share knowledge and therefore to seek company going concern and development. The link between the latter and the issue of sustainability cannot be ignored, even if it’s no easy to understand the verse of the relationship. However, in the course of the study carried out on this issue, and supported by the empirical analysis conducted, some imbalances with respect to this relationship emerged when the effort was made to translate it into strategy. Although the concept is consolidated and linear, at least from a conceptual point of view, when putting it into practice the scenario become much more complex. The world is changing and with it the logic behind many business practices, both internal and external. Lagging behind on the issue of sustainability and its relative connection to KM would mean missing out on new opportunities. Without going any deeper into this important concept, we can say that it has none the less been inserted in order to make a focus by explaining, albeit in a simplistic line, why these can be considered as an important driver for the relationship between KM and sustainability. The study ends with the specific discussion of the empirical analysis, carried out on a sample referring to the top 20 listed companies in Italy. Thanks to the latter it has been possible to highlight, through percentages and mathematical ratios, the aforementioned relationships from a statistical point of view, creating a link between the theory analyzed and the practice identified in this research field.

Data-driven innovation is a key pillar for economic development in the 21st century, and the role and value of data in developing new products, services and business models has gained attention. This study presents the user journeys of five data-driven start-ups, and the study discusses the opportunities and barriers the entrepreneurs have met when aiming to use public data in the business development process. The study shows that young entrepreneurial firms identify opportunities – but face substantial barriers when striving to take advantage of data that can be used in value creating activities. The study reveals three important insights: first, the ecosystem for data-driven innovation is immature. Differences in culture, communication and work methods across stakeholders and sectors affect and delay the process of gaining access to data. Second, access is needed as well as network and expertise that make the process of accessing and applying data easier and quicker. Third, guidance and assistance is needed in the process of gaining access to external and public data.

The empirical study explains how the phenomenon of knowledge hub enables institutions establish collaborative linkages to boost their innovative performance. Knowledge hub helps cluster firms to develop an indispensable capability, anchored through exchange of knowledge locally, for accelerating growth and innovation in Asian region. Gaining sustenance from Dynamic Capability View (DCV), the study investigates perceived enterprises’ innovation performance as a result of inter-organizational relationships embedded with social ties and knowledge sharing among each other. This research proposes a moderated mediation effect on innovation performance, reflected through vigorous ICT enterprise innovations; supportive relationships pursuing emerging ICT initiatives and finally frequent transfer of knowledge with ultra-modern innovation concepts. It explains how inter-organizational relationships based on robust trust and commitment lead organizations to achieve higher levels of innovation performance, while sharing important knowledge among each other. It also examines the interaction effect of social capital on association between inter-organizational relationships on firms’ innovation performance with knowledge sharing as mediator. Cross-sectional data was collected from managerial level employees working in ICT enterprises in Pakistan. Model 4 of Process by Andrew Hayes was used to test the influence of inter-organizational relationships on enterprises’ innovation performance with mediation of knowledge sharing. Model 1 tested moderation for determining the interaction effect of social capital on relationship between inter-organizational relationships and knowledge sharing. Moderated mediation, exhibiting the conditional indirect effect was analyzed through model 8. The study findings stated that in knowledge hub, ICT businesses are collaborating to build strong social relationships while sharing practical experiences and support each other through abstract resources for achieving higher levels of innovative outcomes. Inter- organizational relationships have an affirmative impact on innovation performance, invariably, knowledge sharing mediates the correlation between both. The influence of inter-organizational relationships on innovation performance through knowledge sharing is significant for firms with strong social capital. Consistently, social capital considerably moderates the relationships, as such organizations co-ordinate and work jointly with other organizations for driving service and product improvements. The research steers focus towards developing relationships among ICT enterprises, building ties based on faith and exchange key information consistently to help and polish each other’s innovation capabilities.