This paper accounts for the determinants of sectoral specialization in knowledge intensive business services (KIBS), measured by the KIBs location quotient across the Italian provinces (NUTS3), using ISTAT province level panel data from 2012 to 2017. The aim is to see whether increases in agglomeration of activities measured by urbanisation economies and vertical linkages, controlling for knowledge base and absorptive capacity of provinces, push firms to specialize in Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS). More in detail the impact of agglomeration economies, Hirschman linkages between KIBS and their manufacturing users, and innovation activities will be identified by such variables (i.e. localization and urbanization economies; intermediate demand of KIBs services, a proxy for input-output linkages; information and communication technology, public expenditures in research and development). Spatial models, SAR, but especially an IV- that allow us to take into account the endogeneity problem related to some variables like population density and Intermediate demand –are employed in order to get spatial effects in explaining province specialization in KIBS. The results show evidence that urbanization economies and input-output linkages, positively affect specialization in KIBS between the provinces.

Nowadays information flow overload is typical for our daily life. Search for a tool to visualize complex information and big data has led to the emergence of new areas of research related to visualization (infographics, cognitive graphics, virtual reality, computer graphics, etc.) The main aim of these new types of graphical presentations of information is to compress and to simplify the information. From the well-known practically used types of diagrams, mind maps were selected as the most common, convenient, and simple method for the proper representation and design of professional knowledge, business ideas, projects, functions, or any other complex conceptual structures. Mind maps reflect hierarchical relationships among the concepts associated with the central key concept and radially presented around it; and allow the analyst to reflect in details the features and patterns of the domain with their specific relationships. The paper describes a classification of main errors and mistakes of mind-mapping analysts. There is a vast amount of research about the effectiveness of mind mapping as a learning tool. On the one hand, mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, on the other hand, to facilitate (accelerate) research, group projects, and case studies, problem solving, “brainstorming” or decision-making, as well as in various documents development. The analysis summarizes 10 years of pedagogical and practical experience of the authors in the development of business models based on mind maps. The paper is focused on the new typology of the main mistakes in mind-mapping, based on the analysis of more than 750 mind maps of both senior students of St. Petersburg State University and students of Executive MBA programs. Errors revealed include significant errors in development, in particular, semantic errors, including errors of understanding and fragmentation. In general, errors analysed in the paper are caused by lack of skills in systemic and structural analysis in terms of concepts categorization and generalization.

In the current economic era, named the knowledge economy, it is considered that knowledge is the most critical tool to create products and services. Knowledge transfer forces a focus on the knowledge-based economy, where access to tangible resources alone does not provide a sustainable competitive advantage (Marr & Spender, 2004). There are methods to measure tangible assets in businesses, for instance, financial statements, but sometimes not all intangible assets, as shown in this research. However, managing intangible assets has become crucial in businesses because it supports decision-making, innovation, and formulation of strategies for higher performance (Marr et al., 2004), in today’s fast-changing environments that include technological developments (Chen & Zhu, 2004). Therefore, the primary source of value creation reduces tangible assets or structural capital, and intangible assets become a more reliable source (Carson et al., 2004). Intellectual Capital (IC) is vital because it is a fundamental factor for generating and transferring knowledge, improved productivity and efficiency, and excellent business value. This research aims to analyze the correlation of IC on business performance. This research answers the question ‘do IC in firms spur its performance? The proposed research methodology is an analysis of multiple correlations. In the results, it is provided that the level of relationship between IC and business performance. In this research methodology, we applied a survey to 142 business in the services, commercial and industrial sectors. The survey measured the human, structural, and relational capitals and the financial, market, and operative performance. The results present that IC contributes 30.5% to economic performance, 36.2% to market performance, 46.3% to operational performance and 51% to total performance. To conclude, it was possible to identify that the IC may have some variations in human, structural and relational means, all influencing business performance. The greater the IC, the greater the effect on performance. However, IC must be correctly identified to create an organisation’s operational plan that improves financial, functional, and market performance. Still, developing strategic plans to make a one-of-a-kind company creates a more excellent value in the organisation. IC is not repetitive between organisations, not even in the same sector or specific situation. Still, it can be a great support to create a unique, solid, and irreplaceable company, depending on the organisation. Knowledge management is, therefore, a necessity. The development of organisational knowledge is the task and challenge of current administrators. Thus, this research provides a tool to identify businesses’ IC for performance improvement.

In recent years, the concept of Intellectual Capital (IC) has acquired a crucial role in the university context. This because universities are characterized by a high intensity of adoption of intangible resources. Numerous studies have focused on IC performance reporting models, especially in the organizational context. Fewer studies, however, have considered the measurement of IC of universities. This paper aims to analyze the existing literature and identify the main metrics adopted for measuring IC in universities. To achieve this aim, we perform a systematic literature review of a sample of 71 articles and define a taxonomy of indicators of IC. The findings of this study highlight and categorize the main IC metrics and identify future research directions.

This paper explores the relationship between Entrepreneurial capital (EC), Leadership and Innovation performance (IP) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of the high-tech sector in Argentina. For this study survey data were collected in small and medium sized high-tech firms in Argentina using scales previously validated internationally. The data were collected from November 2020 to March 2021 (excluding the analysis of COVID-19 influence, and referring to year 2019) by mailing to the companies’ CEOs. The final sample comprises 200 companies from the technology-based sector located in Argentina. Hypothesis were tested using structural equation modelling in ADANCO. There is scarce research carried on how Entrepreneurial capital and leadership influence innovation performance as a key factor for survival in crisis times, for small and medium sized high-tech firms. This study aims to fill the literature gap by exploring the relationship between the Entrepreneurial capital (EC), the CEO leadership and the Innovation performance of technology-based small and medium enterprises (SMEs) on an emerging economy. This study brings useful and valuable information to managers of small and medium sized enterprises of the high-tech sector, by identifying the importance of entrepreneurial capital (EC) and leadership impact on innovation performance.

Although many authors (e.g., Seethamraju & Marjanovic, 2009; Antonucci, 2015; Kokkonen & Bandara, 2015; Antunes & Tate, 2019) recognize a vital role of knowledge in BPM, only a few articles study KM and BPM together. Due to the lack of attention to the topic in the existing literature, defining the scope of possible intersections between BPM and KM could bring an evolution in the research in both areas. To provide detailed grounds of the situation, we reviewed studies simultaneously focusing on KM and BPM. We used the systematic literature review method that consisted of three subsequent stages: literature search, analysis, and interpretation. The literature search goal was to form a sample of articles relevant to BPM and KM overlap. Articles simultaneously focusing on KM and BPM published in the BPM Journal and the Journal of KM were selected based on relevance to the research problem. A content analysis of selected papers was conducted to identify possible intersections between BPM and KM based on suggestions for further research and research gaps identified during the analysis. We identified themes that describe the research focusing on the overlap and connected them with concepts of BPM and KM. The analysis led to developing the framework of BPM and KM overlap and formulation of problems for further research. We found that the overlap is investigated through two main perspectives: knowledge-intensive business processes (kiBPs) and IS/ICT. The kiBPs perspective contains themes such as process-perspective knowledge mapping, KM processes and organizational learning influencing business process improvement, or process modeling influencing KM strategic alignment. The IS/ICT perspective contains themes such as Process KM systems or social BPM systems. The framework of BPM and KM overlap might be beneficial for business professionals as a guideline for selecting best practices that, once tailored to the organizational context, might increase BPM implementation efficiency and elevate BPM from the “information” level to the “knowledge” level, which will lead to the overall growth of business performance.

The faculty of Innovative Technologies of the University of Applied Science of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI), started in November 2020 a study for assessing the importance and the diffusion of a project management structure in the Swiss and north Italy small to large size companies. The study has been based on a structured survey, written in Italian, sent to a huge pool of Switzerland and Italian companies and it aims to understand how the organizational structure has been affected by the pandemic time we are living and by the management knowledge relating to managing projects. More precisely, the following research study focuses to analyze the organizational structure into the different operational contexts of the inquired companies and therefore its correlation with the project management maturity and the most relevant factors responsible for the project’s success or failure during this uncertain time. The research will provide objectives and results showing which is the common organizational structure related to a working context and its relations with management knowledge and project’ success achievement, clarifying how companies have been affected by the global pandemic situation in terms of managing projects.

Our study arose from a need to discover new knowledge about two types of language units: German modal verbs and medical terms of disease descriptions. The paper focuses on creating and enriching knowledge bases of language units’ meanings and their definitions and designing information technology providing the discovery of new knowledge. The discovery is based on a model named information technology-oriented (hereafter – ITO model), and its particular case called the filling model. There are three main differences between these two models and the spiral model. First, the ITO and filling models distinguish between two explicit knowledge representations: by words and computer codes. Second, the models include four additional transition processes: visualisation (computer codes → words), digitalisation (words → computer codes), conceptualisation, and annotating apart from processes already present in the spiral model of knowledge creation. Thirdly, they serve as a theoretical basis for developing information technology of goal-oriented discovery of new knowledge in large digital collections. The models combine the automatic and expert stages of enriching knowledge bases in the paradigm of human-computer symbiosis. The paper aims to consider the filling and ITO models. The latter is positioned as the digital transformation outcome of the spiral model of knowledge creation.

These days, business competition is more among supply chains (SCs) than between individual firms. So, knowledge is a critical resource that must be managed properly not only in single companies but also across SCs. Indeed, managing knowledge within a SC can help companies to promote better use of resources and gain value for customers. From a knowledge management (KM) perspective, this implies a shift of focus, from traditional intra-organizational KM practices to inter-organizational KM. Despite the increasing importance of KM in SCs, its implementation can still encounter several barriers, which must be investigated. This can help both research and practice on this topic. However, the current KM literature is very varied, and in the available studies, there is a lack even of basic definitions and classifications. In line with this, barriers affecting the implementation of KM practices in SCs are not presented in a comprehensive and consistent way, and not systematically categorized in line with KM practices in a way where firms can manage them easily. This study aims to highlight the contribution of previous related studies and investigate and re-categorize the potential barriers affecting the introduction and development of KM practices in SCs. An in-depth and up to date systematic literature review (SLR) was carried out as a means of evaluating and interpreting all available research relevant to the research topic. A total of 831 papers indexed in international citational databases (Scopus and WoS) were undergone evaluation process, and the content of a selection of papers was classified and analysed. This study makes a first attempt to provide a comprehensive list of 51 KM barriers re-classified into three categories namely, barriers related to the use of KM methods, barriers related to the KM application of IT tools, and barriers related to the KM-enabling supportive management measures. Theoretically, this study proposes a fresh contribution to explore the KM literature in SCs, specifically barriers to KM implementation. The main points that emerged which are particularly important include: i) summary of existing studies on barriers; ii) identification and re-classification of potential barriers which are the key factors affecting the adoption of successful inter-organizational KM. This will also help managers to systematically manage hindering factors and use properly the potential practices in their KM programs collaboratively with their SC partners.

Regional labels are intended to be a credible signal that helps simplify the information flow between the food producers and consumers about certain food products’ characteristics (mainly origin and quality). Presented paper shows results of the research on the consumer buying behaviour towards regional food in Pilsen Region in the Czech Republic and their recognition of the regional labels. The main goal of this study is to identify critical factors for regional food consumers’ segmentation that would be of assistance to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Pilsen Region, the food producers that want to improve their marketing approach on the regional food market. Results add to a longitudinal research that aims to study evolution of Czech regional labels and their role in support for the local SMEs. The paper builds on the qualitative data gathered on this topic previously and on-line quantitative research that was conducted in January – February 2020 in the Pilsen Region. Data from 258 respondents were processed. The application of decision trees analysis demonstrates the dominant influence of socio-demographic factors, such as age and education, on the respondents’ buying choices of the regional food.

This article aim is to review existing research on knowledge management (KM) in the context of contemporary digital transformation and its implications for business model innovation (BMI) in a hyperconnected environment. Using a systematic approach to literature review, this study contains papers that were collected from WoS and Scopus databases. 22 peer-reviewed articles formed the basis of analysis. The findings of this study suggest that KM is a key function in redesigning a firm’s business model and together with the use of the new digital technologies can promote the effective adaptation to an ever-changing environment. Thus, organization ought to make the necessary modifications in their KM processes to make the new ever more often digital knowledge accessible, as well as to shape existing knowledge in order to redesign their business models towards continued BMI.

This paper provides a structured literature review (SLR) on knowledge management (KM), digital transformation, and Industry 4.0. The study aims to define all the interactions, ties, and interdependencies between the three research streams. As an essential role in a progressive discipline, our research summarises the state of the art of past and current literature using the Massaro’s et al. (2016) methodological paper. The researchers adopted the Scopus database and their analysis as tools for the Bibliometrix R package to collect bibliometric data. The analysis reveals 561 peer-reviewed of English articles. The study shows some research clusters that coincide with the following survey areas: KM and ICT, KM and frontier technologies, KM and decision-making, KM and Industry 4.0, and KM and innovation. Finally, this article’s originality emphasises the crucial role of digital transformation for KM development in Industry 4.0, addressing future research perspectives.

Nowadays, organizations are constantly facing new challenges and threats that may come in various forms, from both inside and outside companies’ boundaries. Natural disasters, pandemic diseases, terrorist attacks, economic recession, equipment failures, hacker attacks and human error are just a few examples of catastrophes that present them with new challenges and threats, both inside and outside the company borders. Such events, unpredictable and anomalous, with a huge impact on a large scale and completely unexpected, are generally labelled as Black Swans. The impacts experienced by such events transcend borders and geographic dimensions and negatively affect governments, businesses, transport, economic sectors and people. The era of digitization represents a new challenge for organizations, a means that could provoke new Black Swans and at the same time prevent others, multiplying the situations in which organizational skills are tested and creating highly competitive environments. Digital can therefore be considered on the one hand a driving force for the development of an organization, on the other a challenge for its resilience and antifragility. Technological change must be analysed not just as regards new business opportunities, but also with respect to potential vulnerabilities. The aim of this work is to understand the real effects of the digital transformation on the resilient characteristics of organizations. The research is based on a framework that articulates resilience into its key indicators, in order to create a link between organizational resilience and the trade-off of threats and opportunities caused by digitalization. The resilience transformation framework was used to analyse a case study in which evidence was provided of how the model can be applied in a backwards perspective, in order to understand how digitalization consolidates resilience in a real context and in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. The research shows that in the new millennium the company has transformed its business model, adopting a strategy that places sustainability at the centre of the value chain, making digitalization a key element at all levels and in all processes within company. The results clearly reflect the steps taken and the deep transformation of the company, accelerated in some way by the situations of profound turbulence caused by the pandemic. Indeed, the case study shows a highly connected digital infrastructure with a very high level of resilience.

Companies are called to cope with increasingly complex challenges. Among all, the reduced amount of resources available on our planet forecasts a dramatic future scenario. Circular Economy (CE) is one of the most promising strategies to manage resources efficiently. But also, the application of knowledge management in ensuring effective transition into a circular economy by developing a circular business model as an alternative to the conventional linear economic model is under-investigated. Knowledge coordination, creation, and dissemination capability of a firm are essential in developing the green industry. Furthermore, the knowledge creation, transmission, usage and sharing capabilities of a firm are critical to developing a sustainable sector. This article adopts a literature review approach to gain circular economy and knowledge management components and then shift to a lexical-analytical system that establishes the link between knowledge management and circular economy.

The global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic represents a challenge for nations in 2020, not just in health issues, but even in well-being, job adaptation, digital competence for the future and develop new types of entrepreneurship among populations (ILO-OECD, 2020). The impact of COVID-19 on workers, workplaces and homes across the globe have been a digital-changing move, but at the same time drastic (Kniffin et al., 2021). The traditional work dynamics were transformed in short-time and in this new landscape, sudden implications for entrepreneurs, employees, teams and organizations emerged not only in digital issues, but even with the decreased physical and mental well-being status of the people (Xiao et al., 2021). Even though previous studies pointed well-being and its positive relationship with job performance and satisfaction (Wright and Cropanzano, 2000; Cotton and Hart, 2003; Van De Voorde, Paauwe and Van Veldhoven, 2012). This study is focusing on the impact of the perception of well-being during this pandemic and its objective is understand possible emerging changes in work and entrepreneurship derived of COVID-19 lockdown. In addition, categorical factors of age, gender, educational level, type of work or entrepreneurship, type of income source and the modality of adaptation are included to generate differentiated effects in the sample. The method used to collect data was an online adapted questionnaire that capture the job dynamics inside homes and lifestyles adequations, changes in income sources and modifications of habits (Pennebaker, Ashokummar and Vergani, 2020). The instrument was deployed online from August 1 to October 1, 2020 and the respondents were mexican people who had the chance of adapting their job or entrepreneurship in remote-work. We received 587 responses valid (age 18-21 years=63.7% and women=65.8% of the sample). Variables of the first section integrated an index, that we named Index of Perception of Well-Being in Covid-19 pandemic (iWB-19) by using a structural equation model to verify the validity of the information (Hair et al., 2010, 2012, 2018; Iacobucci, 2010). In summary, the lockdown has generated different emotional conditions among people, especially in well-being perception, changes of work dynamics and entrepreneurship perception. However, the future implications of these results are in economic and educational fields. Promotion of well-being habits inside organizations, the digital and resilience adaptation for future careers (Hite and McDonald, 2020) and new challenges for digital-inclusive education, remote working and digital entrepreneurship (Felstead and Henseke, 2017) are the challenges to face to 2030.

Knowledge workers are often emphatically introduced in the literature as nearly omniscient super workers. Consequently, it can be reasonably expected that these special employees are particularly agile and adapt very well to unusual circumstances. Let us now consider a context where an organizational design known as Holacracy, a framework where hierarchy is downplayed, where self-organizing team are entitled with authority and decision-making, is developed to support knowledge workers in their endeavours. The outcome of such a combination should be exceptional and coping successfully with exceptional working circumstance such as ‘forced to be working from home’ should not be much of a challenge. Unfortunately, the reality shows otherwise. The current pandemic-induced situation has created an unprecedented context for studying knowledge workers’ behaviour under unusual working circumstances. To better understand the true nature of this knowledge worker and the limits of working-from-home, an empirical qualitative study encapsulating 7 semi-directed interviewed is conducted. The knowledge workers interviewed are part of a large telco and information technology company based in the Netherlands. The results show a contrasted reality; some of the very features that constitutes a knowledge worker and her or his work (autonomy and independence; proactivity; knowledgeable, skilled, and doing meaningful work; importance of teamwork; efficiency gains; self-confidence) are confirmed. Simultaneously, other unusual aspects emerged (better efficiency in office context; decrease in engagement and motivation, poorer quality of communication and relationships with peers; lack of work structure; health issues; unsustainable workload; ergonomic and organizational structure issues). The originality of this paper resides in the fact that most of existing studies about flexible working are about voluntary remote working while this paper investigates a compulsory remote working that not all workers are happy with. The results of this study may benefit practitioners and firms that are considering developing working-from-home, partially or totally in designing their flexible and remote working strategy.

Since late twentieth century, the concept of smart city has been a central topic in public and academic debate. The smart city term is commonly used by local administrators and policy maker to promote and to prepare the cities for the future challenges. There are recent definitions of smart city but is very difficult to define the characteristics that describe how to become a smart city and how a local administration is committed to achieving this goal. Using a project team with multidisciplinary skills is a popular tool in all types of organizations to respond to complex challenges. In this perspective, the project team can represent a tool for involving people and stakeholders in the Smart cities process. One way of clarifying a team management structure is to consider the work which needs to be done to manage members. Although the details vary between professions and according to the level of gender, age, seniority, competence, knowledge of the members, in principle someone has to be responsible for the management tasks. Descriptions of different team management are useful for research purposes, but also help teams and their managers to clarify their structure and the options open to them to make improvements. The aim study is to provide a better understanding of the nature of multidisciplinary project teams, out to investigate the important features of a particular multidisciplinary team and understanding how is led and how its member is managed. Infact, multidisciplinary team’ is a term used to describe a variety of different interprofessional working arrangements. A single case study design was used. The study design is qualitative based on participant observation, in depth interviews, and questionnaires. Data were collected by participant observation and semi structured interviews over a period of 6 months on a multidisciplinary team on smart city project of Catanzaro city. The team was observed through action research. The results of this study describe the implementation process of a smart city project and characteristics of teamwork project. In particular, extensive reflections are employed on the concepts of orientation, leadership and team coordination as well as the skills employed and knowledge management. The results offer practical indications to policy makers and local administrators on the development of a smart city project through the analysis and use of multidisciplinary teams. The framework suggests directions and agendas for smart city research and outlines practical implications for government professionals.

The past decade has witnessed a surge of research interest in social entrepreneurship organizations (SEOs). This has resulted in important insights concerning the role of SEOs in fostering social challenges. The crisis of both public and private profit-driven models meet the arising of new initiatives designed to meet the minor and often abandoned cultural heritage consumption need. Drawing on the domain of SEOs and social bricolage framework, these initiatives are able to pursuing the social and the economic mission together and not in a sequential way. This paper aims to analyse how SEOs that use strategies of social bricolage can improve the development and diffusion of social innovation. In this first phase of our research we carried out a comparative case study of fifteen cultural SEOs in the South of Italy. First results show that SEOs in the domain of minor cultural heritage adopt an innovative business model and unravel organizational dimensions falling into the social bricolage. The relation between social bricolage dimensions and social business model criteria produces outcomes in which social innovation can be expressed. Our study enhances current understanding of the social dimensions of business model involved in social innovation production of cultural SEOs. This research aims to be a benchmark of the social innovation initiatives in the field of minor cultural heritage management.

With the advent of the Digital Transformation, Healthcare Systems have switched from paper to electronic health records (EMR). However, there are few critical issues related to data governance (e.g., transparency of data, traceability, immutability, privacy and security) that need to be addressed in the upcoming years. Blockchain (BT) is a decentralized digital ledger and an innovative technology with the potential to address such issues. A pivotal role when implementing a blockchain-based solution, in healthcare as in other fields, is played by the stakeholders involved in the digitalization process, and in their respective readiness, that can be defined as the availability and capacity of the various stakeholders to adopt the new technology, both individually and collectively. Readiness represents a factor that affects the correct implementation of blockchain-based solutions and is commonly declined in the literature by means of different dimensions: motivational readiness, engagement readiness, technological readiness and structural readiness. Readiness is particularly important for those stakeholders who are nodes of the blockchain network, as they have the fundamental role of keeping and exchanging the information necessary for its operations. However, in the literature we have not encountered any work analyzing the differences between stakeholders that are nodes and those that are not-nodes of the BT network, not only in terms of type but also in readiness. This work aims at identifying what is the difference between the readiness dimensions of stakeholder-nodes respects stakeholders-non-nodes in BT-based projects applied to EMR and how readiness impacts blockchain-based projects, especially when it concerns the stakeholders that are nodes of the BT network and those that are not. The chosen methodology is the multiple case studies; three different projects have been selected that use BT in different ways to manage EMRs. Through semi-structured interviews, it was possible to identify the stakeholders interested in these projects, determine which of these represent nodes of the network and which non-nodes, and identify the different dimensions of readiness that characterize them.

It`s the changed that education made and the introduction of Informatic Technologies (ICT), gave in a drastic way to get ahead with external healt factors such as the pandemic (COVID-19) It`s importat to say that the University of Guadalajara has a proyect named B-learning, this with the objetive tthat the students can work and studie at the same time, they have to go only twice at week. On 2019 it was a pilot test, that became a reality, but the problems come up because here in Mexico we are use to go to school and have classes face to face and also we use ITC just for social media and we don’t use it for learning or educational tool. Early January 2020 this proyect had a lot of competitive advantages for the University of Guadalajara and now all this proyects are being structured, this just for the purpose to support all the students. Previously the University had inverted classes, this means the student explain all the topics for the class and the professor help with all doubts. In another aspect, courses were taught as they were previously called mixed and today with the name of hybrid education. This research are the results of the investigation we did on February 2020 to December 2020, we tried to explain how evolve hybrid education at the University of Guadalajara. The most important is doing the cultural change in the education of Mexico, we tried to explain that it’s possible to make hybrid education and we can make the entire student more competitive. Beside all those closed companies, we think in alternatives for new jobs and strategies to maintain business.