Knowledge is the most important resources of an organization as depicted in the knowledge-based theory of the firm. Systems to gather knowledge and process it to be useful for decision making are vital. Further, knowledge is time sensitive and hence loses relevance as environment changes. Agriculture and especially seed sector in Africa is one sector which require creation of a seed business knowledge ecosystem to aid in timely exchange of knowledge across, governments, seed companies, supply chain partners and farmers. When knowledge is exchanged between the aforementioned entities, it allows humans to relay thoughts, relay perceptions of environment and adapt hence take advantage of opportunities or minimize potential threats in their operating environments, leading to production and distribution of the required amount of seeds to enhance agricultural productivity and hence reduce hunger and poverty in the African continent. The paper used cross sectional survey design of papers published in the African seed sector as at end of March 2019. The aim of the review was to establish key findings and recommendations advanced with view of providing a workbench to find out whether the recommendations and the findings have been made use of by the time of writing the paper. The authors make the conclusion that its not easy to establish the readers of each report published and value of the information derived from reading the paper and implementing the appropriate recommendations. Due to the shortcomings of housing knowledge in published reports, the authors propose an ICT based seed knowledge ecosystem which will allow aggregation and disaggregation of seed information for ease of decision making. The proposed ecosystem to be dubbed the Africa Seed Sermo will provide an interactive dynamic adaptive system which will enable conversions between actors, online surveys, opinion poling, voting issues, management of awards/pay-outs/registration fees possible. Additionally it will change the landscape of seed related literature to make data gathering, storage, processing and archiving easy creating a solid base for information generation which when integrated with the intellectual capacity of interpretation, comparison, connections and conversations build the intended knowledge for agricultural transformation.

The rise of sharing economy, made possible by technological evolution, has changed the way people make use of underutilized goods and has also changed the competition dynamics between incumbents and new players of many sectors. One sector that has been more revolutionized by the sharing economy is the tourism industry, given the rise of many new intermediaries and new players. Among them, Airbnb, an online marketplace that enable people to list, find and book rooms around the world, has very quickly changed the rule of competition of the hospitality industry. Given the strong position in the tourism sector, Airbnb has become a new competitor of hotels, that need to understand how to react and to compete against it. Previous research has already analysed some perspectives of AirBnB rise phenomenon, but the results vary a lot depending on the context and they are still far to be somehow conclusive regarding the systematic description of sector behaviour. Thus, given the previous outcomes on the possible disruptive effect of Airbnb on the hotel industry have not reached a final and unique conclusion, and given the importance for hotels to constantly update their strategic choices, the present study has the aim of replying to the following two research questions: “Does Airbnb impact negatively the hotel economic performance?” and “What are the key moderators among hotel’s online and offline positioning strategies, capabilities, and characteristics of the Airbnb’s local supply?”. Overall, the present study contributes to the emerging literature debate on the economic impacts of sharing economy on the incumbent hotel industry across an even broader variety of consumer markets. From a managerial point of view, this study informs hotels that they are no longer just competing with other hotels in their markets. They are also competing with Airbnb, and other home-sharing services, in their neighbourhood. A way to succeed, as demonstrated by this study, is to develop the appropriate capabilities to defend their economic performance and to look closely at why Airbnb is succeeding, to fight back and protect their investment.

Recent innovation in digital technologies have triggered public sector organisation in search for improvement of their performance. Social media and participatory web are allowing public sector organisations to implement new form of civil engagements for citizens and to enhance their performance, contributing to the growth of the community. The paper aims to investigate if and how IT tools (web and social media) affect performance management systems in public-sector cultural organisations, provoking also changes in the relationship with visitors, donors and the local community. The paper adopts a case-study approach, investigating the Archaeological Park of Paestum (PAE), an autonomous museum of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism. Relying on interviews to top-management and consultants as well as on questionnaire to visitors, triangulated with data from official documents, we found that digital technologies have a positive impact of on the performance of PAE, in terms of revenue, donations and sponsorship received, number of visitors, and changes in internal routines. Findings from the study provide interesting implications for policy-makers regarding the effectiveness of digital technologies, highlighting that public sector entities can improve their global performance investing in innovations and social media.

Food consumer behavior has changed substantially over the past decades. The contemporary food consumer has become more critical and outspoken, demanding more relevant, accurate and reliable information necessary for his/her food decision making or learning. This new context makes research studies on the relationship between the behaviours of food consumer and food information user quite important. Several studies addressed the role of food information in food consumption activities. However, literature lacks of a holistic overview of the dimensions impacting on consumer’s perception of the value of food information when he/she is involved in food a food consumption process. The recent wave of the so-called “Internet-of-Food” (IoF) provide consumer with countless mobile apps and food-related objects and devices which are augmented with sensing, computing and communication capabilities in order to provide advanced information services. Nevertheless, the available research lacks in defining an approach capable to analyze the value of information provided to targeted audiences by Food Information Services (FISs).This paper intends to fill these gaps through a literature review of scientific research that combines knowledge on food consumer’s and food information user’s behaviours to identify main value dimensions in food information services that constitute a base for a multidimensional framework to identify the value proposition of a FIS.

This study investigates the effect of cross-country differences on online hotel reviews. More in details, it investigates differences in the way Italians, Americans, and Chinese travelers perceive and emphasize hotel attributes. Based on a random sample of 9,000 online reviews, the study used text link analysis to extrapolate the frequencies of predefined hotel attributes on which further multivariate analyses and tests were performed. Answers are provided to two research questions: Do travelers from different countries place different emphasis on hotel attributes? Do travelers from different countries perceive hotel attributes differently? Findings suggest that the differences in perceptions and emphasis are significant. The adopted text-mining method could be useful for hotel business managers to hear the voices of consumers and include them in performance evaluation and service design processes.

The paper is devoted to examining the possibility of developing digital technologies through academic entrepreneurship, which can in its turn boost digital economy implementation. Nowadays, universities are under the process of increasing their part in regional and national socio-economic growth. That objective can be reached with universities’ technologies commercialization and Triple Helix collaboration. In Russia, this process is far from the level established by the government. At the same time, Russian authorities put forward ambitious goals for digital economy development. In the government’s strategic plans, universities are considered as one of the pillars for that. Universities’ administrations have to identify ways to facilitate digital technologies transfer, which forces them to intensify academic entrepreneurship as well. That will require implementing of new forms of management, new official and unofficial organizational rules, and specific support system. Nevertheless, academic entrepreneurship based on digital technologies has a number of advantages. Part of them is attributed to lower consumption of the resources needed to commercialize such technologies. Another advantage comes from young people’s and commercial organizations’ craving for digitalization. Three forms of academic entrepreneurship (creating spin-offs, joint research and licencing) are reviewed as methods of digital technologies commercialization. In the last section of the paper, a few hypotheses for the future research are formulated. The goal of the research is to assess differences in perception of business creation and academic entrepreneurship among the respondents from two prominent universities: St. Petersburg State University and ITMO University.

The role of social capital in entrepreneurship has become an increasingly prominent topic in business literature, and the debate about pros and cons has become increasingly complex. This study aims to shed light on the pre-conditions (the so called ‘genius loci’) that, by leveraging social capital, favour forms of participatory territorial governance aimed at enhancing regional development and wellbeing, also through the spur of high-tech startups. We focused on a paradigmatic case study: the Marche Region, (Italy). Indeed, in the age of the so-called “Italian economy miracle”, the Marche region was an example of flexible specialisation and the development of industrial clusters and districts, investigated by renowned researchers. The case we have explored focuses on innovative Marche startups and aims to understand if and how the sharing of shared values linked to the history of the territory can still be the source of social capital that allows new businesses to benefit from positive externalities. From our analysis, focused on the behaviour of three key players of the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the Marche region (the PA, the new crowdfunding platforms and universities), evidence would appear to confirm what has already emerged from other research.. Indeed, social capital is the glue that decrees, at a meso-level, the success of local development thanks to the form of governance and territorial social responsibility promoted by networks of local actors, public and private, who are oriented to sustainable development.

As a growing field of analysis in management studies, several scholars have been looking at the role of human resource management (HRM) practices in boosting a firm’s entrepreneurial orientation (Tansky et al., 2009). On the other hand, entrepreneurial orientation has been repeatedly proven to positively impact firm performance both at the organizational level, but also at the level of enterprise clusters. This means that within high-entrepreneurial orientation firm clusters, both the overall cluster and the firms’ individual performances are positively affected (Yao et al., 2009). However, existing literature provides little guidance on how HRM practices could help firms improve their performance through fostering entrepreneurial orientation. This paper aims to shed more light on how human resource management could become a major driver of firm performance while leveraging on learning to translate individual and collective abilities into value adding entrepreneurial actions. For this purpose, this paper follows a systematic literature review as a recognized evidence-based tool for theory building (Tranfield et al., 2003). The objective is to develop an integrative theoretical framework that explains how HRM practices provide firms with superior performance, using entrepreneurial orientation as an intermediate construct. A ‘grounded theory’ approach was used to build higher-order theoretical constructs and the assumptions underpinning their relationships (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). We therefore followed an inductive process based on a comparative analysis to synthesize the gathered information from the systematic literature review, build on to emphasize the meaning of each concept, and then develop the propositions underpinning the relationships between the studied constructs, which in turn form the foundations of the integrative theoretical framework.

To find tools and methods to research how we can create an entrepreneurial ecosystem in our turbulent and digital time which can be used for further economical growth of the regions and countries. We propose an approach to analyse the current situation with creation of entrepreneurial ecosystem. This methodology puts in evidence several examples of successful profiting from using of entrepreneurship ecosystem in the frame of current digital economics. The entrepreneurship ecosystem approach has emerged as a response. It recognises that HGFs flourish in distinctive types of supportive environment. Distinguishing features of entrepreneurial ecosystems include the following: a core of large established businesses, including some that have been entrepreneur-led (entrepreneurial blockbusters); entrepreneurial recycling – whereby successful cashed out entrepreneurs reinvest their time, money and expertise in supporting new entrepreneurial activity; and an information-rich environment in which this information is both accessible and shared. A key player in this context is the deal-maker who is involved in a fiduciary capacity in several entrepreneurial ventures. Entrepreneurial ecosystems emerge and evolve in response to specific circumstances, usually operating in combination. In some cases it is triggered by the contraction or closure of an established company The outcomes of the application can be used in business environment for the new innovative companies working in digital business (IT-technologies, Big Data applications etc)

The tendency of supporting organizational decision-making has moved from traditional industries also to the private healthcare sector, becoming more and more essential, as requirements towards up-to-date and reliable information have increased. Business analytics tools can be considered as one of the solutions to satisfy the growing needs of supporting organizational data-driven decision-making. Also, one of the goals of business analytics is to understand and improve business processes, leading to enhanced performance of the organization. The aim of this paper is to study, how business analytics (BA) can support the future requirements of enhanced decision-making in the private healthcare in Finland. In addition, this paper provides valuable insight into the future of business analytics tools utilization in the private healthcare sector, furthermore discovering the potential for new business practices. The research includes private healthcare organizations, BI-vendors and management consultants in Finland. In addition, one of leading Business Analytics tools vendors in Finland and in the world was chosen for the study. The empirical data was collected during 2017-2019. In total thirty nine thematic interviews of key-personnel responsible for BA were conducted, to gain understanding on the future potential of BA in the Finnish private healthcare industry. Data-driven decision-making, operational excellence and seeking for new business opportunities are currently one of the most discussed topics when considering benefits of business analytics. This study is putting together the future potential of BA utilization in the private healthcare sector, both in decision-making and discovering new business opportunities. The suggested approach has significant novelty value in the context of a Finnish private healthcare. However, it is focusing primarily on the organizational aspect of BA utilization in the private healthcare in Finland, not including clinical data aspects. There are two practical outcomes of this study. The first outcome will provide understanding on the role of the future BA utilization in the private healthcare sector in Finland. The second outcome of this research provides valuable insight into the data-driven decision-making and potential of new business practices, enabled by utilizing new analytics capabilities.

In recent years, the widespread adoption of Hospital Information Systems is enabling hospitals to measure and record an ever-growing volume and variety of patient and process-related data. In such context, analytics are emerging as suitable tools and methods for extracting and analyzing such data and for providing useful insights to assist decision-making. The Emergency Department (ED) is one of the functional areas that could profit from the implementation of such tools and methods. However, the complex and dynamic nature of EDs makes the application of analytics a very challenging task which is attracting increasing attention from both academic researchers and practitioners. This work represents a first attempt to demonstrate the suitability of predictive analytics in ED environment. Specifically, we aim at developing a multi-level classification model to predict patients’ length of stay (LOS), by exploiting historical information about ED patients and the advanced machine learning techniques. Given the high variability affecting patient LOS, we determined a set of candidate predictors from the data, including patients’ characteristics, temporal factors and, system-based factors (e.g., the system workload, the abandon rate and the probability of treatments’ execution like radiology, laboratory and consultancy). Preliminary results show that the multi-level model achieves promising values of accuracy, outperforming the single-level classification model. It allows the early identification of patients likely to experience a long LOS in ED. Such patients may require a dedicated monitoring by ED service providers who should take appropriate actions to shorten their stays. Accordingly, predicting LOS can help ED management to dynamically monitor the crowding level of the system and make informed decisions about resource allocation.

This manuscript investigates how Business Analytics (BA) may be practically exploited within the Knowledge Management process or activities to improve decision making. In particular, we developed a case study within a European private hospital in which we applied Process Mining – an emerging type of BA – to a six-month event dataset of the emergency department hip fracture diagnosis process for identifying delays linked to knowledge sharing issues. The evidences showed that, in over one case out of three, knowledge-sharing-related issues hindered the hospital in complying with the emergency department time targets and led to inefficient decision making. Hence, we proposed two preliminary solutions that may cope with such issues and that might decrease the patient’s Length of Stay and reduce the corresponding costs.

This paper addresses the topic of knowledge discovery from data in the context of Arts. In particular, the paper aims to examine the “distant listening” approach to uncover and interpret patterns and rules behind archaeology-inspired music. This approach employs quantitative data mining and graphical visualisation tools to identify and present discovered patterns in music data. For the purpose of the current study, a set of classical music pieces motivated by UNESCO-listed world heritage ‘stecci’ was collected and used as a source of arts data. The collected data were stored in a spreadsheet file and then analysed using Palladio software for network analysis and visualisation. The resulting relational graph enabled easy visual exploration of associations between stecci and musical forms and styles inspired by these archaeological artefacts. However, these findings need to be interpreted with caution due to present limitations. Further research is necessary that would replicate and extend current study to other contexts and questions.

While numerous management theories and technologies have been established to help managers address the challenges they routinely encounter, there are always sudden problems for which organizations are often unprepared. These low frequency and high consequence challenges are commonly defined as crises. The main characteristics of crises are uncertainness and ambiguation which threaten the productivity of an organization. for organizations to prosper and survive, they must act strategically in allocating their key resources and perform effectively and efficiently. This is especially true when dealing with crises. Unfortunately, one of the most valuable resources that organizations possess, knowledge, has been largely ignored in the CM literature. To address this deficiency, this study discusses about a knowledge management system (KMS) which helps organizations better managing of a crisis. This KMS possesses several requirements which aim to develop a strategic alignment framework that seeks to align CMS with knowledge strategy. The use of collaborative networks regarding to the process of acquiring, sharing, and storing their knowledge is necessarily complex and also complicated for the managers. In regard to published related research works, despite the contributions of these CM studies, very limited research has been explicitly investigated the requirements of implementing KM strategies and system in a CM perspective. In order to fill this gap, our model of identifying KMS requirements will be designed and presented. Therefore, this study aims to present the requirements of implementing knowledge management system in crisis management; a new trend which is not widely studied in research works. Knowledge management system will be helpful for managers to confront with internal and external crises effectively while it will support organizations not only to manage their knowledge but also in applying knowledge strategies properly. This study has conceptualized the required process and elements of knowledge management system implementation through semi-structured in-depth interviews with a focus expert group selected from Chabahar municipality. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews are utilized extensively as interviewing format possibly with a group in designing new models or processes. Recognizing focus group respondents was done through snowball sampling method. Snowball sampling is where research participants recruit other participants for a test or study. Content analysis method is used to analyze the interviews as a research technique used to make replicable and valid inferences by interpreting and coding textual material. Chabahar municipality (at the south of Balouchestan, Iran) has been selected as a case study. Chabahar is a strategic port not only for Iran but also for India and China. Because hug amount of foreign investment in Chabahar, it is now the only sanction-except city of Iran. The strategic nature of this port confronts this port with several crises which should be managed and solved by its municipality. This organization, the same as other municipalities, is encountered with various crises during the year including natural crises like flood and human crises like social protest and even shooting in urban area. In order to achieve practical solution to implement knowledge management system, this organization is selected as a case study. The result is a seven-dimension-model that presents the requirements of implementing a KM system in organizations, extracted by using a case study. These dimensions are as following: determine a crisis phase – determine sensitive factors – identify stakeholders – data gathering – data verification – data analysis – Knowledge management

In the context of business, the concept of ‘peripheral vision’ is usually used to refer to instances involving detecting information that may be important for the “safe and an effective navigation of the world”. In contrast, the concept of ‘tunnel vision’ is used to refer to the situation where peripheral vision is lost and only central vision is retained with potential deleterious effects on business performance and decision-making. This study investigates how unlearning activities can counteract the presence of tunnel vision, along with how these activities can, in turn, result in the improvement of peripheral vision. In this study the influence of what has been termed ‘Intentional Unlearning’ on peripheral vision as a mediating variable between focal vision and peripheral vision is investigated through an empirical study. This study used ADANCO 2.0.1 and it involved the collection and analysis of data provided by 203 bank managers. The findings complement organizational theories of management by providing a clearer definition of tunnel-vision and provide guidance for managers as to how they may improve peripheral vison. This study shows the need for knowledge workers to adopt procedures that will have the effect of causing them to question the familiar frameworks they use to interpret their perceptions of the external environment.

Smart waste management and smart parking management are necessary improvements for civil society and significant effort how to achieve vision of smart city. Proposed innovative solutions create important knowledge to further understanding of the knowledge ecosystem in accordance to create the sustainable future. Smart trends are necessary for sustainable development and call for local and global challenges. The digital revolution and technological approaches represent unlimited source for growth. Using technological improvements and digital knowledge for innovative social solutions could significantly improve quality of life and support ecosystem. Smart devices are a key factor and ecosystem should benefit from them. Along with smart traffic, smart lighting, smart energy and smart waste management is an integral part of any smart city. There are two innovative functions of smart waste management. One is operational efficiency and second is waste reduction. Although public services and waste management companies have been around for a long time, they have implemented only limited innovations with operational efficiency, until the last few years. The other side of smart waste management deals with managing the quantity of waste created on a daily basis. Consumers and businesses create millions of tonnes of garbage every year. User friendly waste management and analytics platform could make more effective waste management. Smart waste management could simply save the costs a improve ecosystem. Another innovative approach, which is smart parking management mainly optimise parking space usage, improve the efficiency of parking operations and help traffic in city flow more freely. Smart parking designs, develops and produces outstanding leading-edge technology that enables people to manage on-street and off-street parking efficiently and cost-effectively. The first goal of the submitted article is to identify and define the key features and tools for smart waste management and smart parking management. The second goal is to examine usage of technological approaches in this area. The last aim is to draft theoretical solutions, which could be easily practically implemented into the praxis. Innovative solutions in this area will be just small step in vision of the smart city, but big improvement in quality of life. The most important contribution of the article is to highlight the necessity of smart waste management and smart parking management in contemporary world.

This paper explores the role of social integration mechanisms for knowledge absorptive capacity (ACAP) in southern Brazilian firms. We followed a positivist approach and we used quantitative methods. Our sample includes 125 firms from Southern Brazil. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling (SEM) supported by the software ADANCO 2.0.1. Our paper contributes to the knowledge-based view literature by contributing to understand ‘why’ and ‘how’ social integration mechanisms are influencing knowledge absorptive capacity in firms. Our results suggested that social integration mechanisms have a positive effect on ACAP dimensions, and that the use of teams that are cross-functional and composed by people with diverse background, is likely to improve ACAP capabilities in firms. We suggest that further studies may perform a deeper analysis about the moderation effect of social integration mechanisms on ACAP. By identifying the relevance of social integration mechanisms for improving ACAP, this study brought valuable information to managers of both Brazilian firms and foreign organisations willing to establish their operations in Brazil, for the efficient allocation of firm resources for improving the innovative performance.

What pushes an actor, be it an individual or an organization, to imitate the choices of others, is a theme that has fascinated scholars of several disciplines that observed this underlying dynamic in diverse phenomena. This paper provides a review on conformism across diverse research disciplines that are rarely considered altogether when conformism is addressed.

In relation to SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises), there is a lack of managerial mechanisms to overcome environmental knowledge barriers. Some of these barriers are related to resource shortages or outdated knowledge, which can impede the utilization of Knowledge. In the following paper, we consider that if environmental knowledge barriers are present then specific knowledge management practices are required to stimulate the utilization of knowledge and, hence, provide for the assimilation of knowledge. Thus, in this paper, we focus on socializations practices as a method to counteract the problem of environmental knowledge barriers. We have analysed the relationships between environmental knowledge barriers and the SECI model using an empirical study of 87 Spanish Knowledge Intensive Business Services (commonly known as KIBS) (are services and business operations heavily reliant on professional knowledge) in SMEs, in order to identify whether the impact of environmental knowledge barriers on knowledge utilization can be mitigated through socializations practices. Our results confirm that when environmental knowledge barriers take place, the relationship between socializations practices and the utilization of Knowledge is weaker than it otherwise would be.

The paper presents an approach helping to create a big picture view of the different information pieces involved into research. The approach is based on the use of modern visual knowledge mapping techniques. The focus of this paper is on applying systems thinking and visual metaphors for generalization of the selected research domain of management research. The visualization techniques serve not only to present the results of research analysis and to illustrate generative/analytical techniques representing the data. They are providing insight and communicative tools forming the context essential for the understanding and implementation of the research results and further discussions. Our aim is to give advice on how we can improve general understanding by using visual metaphors for different data, knowledge category and purposes. Examples for the use of this classification system for a big picture view of management research are presented. Specific examples are illustrated by concept maps, mind maps and Ishikawa diagrams. This paper is considering the design science research approach and systems thinking. It is focused on the differentiated question-based aspects depending on knowledge type and the visualization techniques. We split the research knowledge domain into seven main categories of knowledge: what, what for, how to, who, where, when, and why. Each of these categories could be better presented by a different visual knowledge codification technique, enabling to create a set of diagrams for the development a big picture view of management research. This research puts in evidence on the issue of big picture thinking with the use of visualization technique for the knowledge domain of management research. Different stages of research work are exploiting various complex cognitive processes. Research is a collective work and joint understanding and knowledge sharing are essential for the success. Decomposing research tasks ranging from writing a paper to creating a grant application often results in a comprehensive set of subtasks that have complex dependencies on each other. Visual approach simplifies all the above-mentioned difficulties by creating the illustrations and simplifications of the pieces. Described big picture visual approach may help young researchers and knowledge analysts to accomplish, to present and to share their results in the research community. This will also help other researchers to interpret the meanings of the concepts correctly, avoiding the cases of semantic ambiguity.