In modern industrial economies, start-up companies are taking an increasingly central role in several government initiatives as a basic engine for socioeconomic development. The scientific literature shows that the success of these business initiatives depends on several factors. In addition to the intrinsic quality of each initiative, several researchers agree in the importance of factors related to the context in which start-ups live and operate. This study aims to analyze motivations, obstacles and success factors of start-up companies in Italy. First, we carried out a systematic literature review on start-up companies domain. In order to answer to the above-mentioned research questions, we collected data through an empirical study based on semi-structured interviews. Survey was conducted in June 2015. The questionnaire was completed by 348 start-up companies, with a response rate of 21,19%. Data were analysed through quantitative statistical techniques, such as factor analysis and ANOVA, to identify goals and critical success factors for Italian Start-uppers. Empirical studies revealed the presence of several regions on a global scale, characterized by the presence of successful start-ups. The presence of geographical areas globally acknowledged as real technological hubs (e.g. Silicon Valley) is due to the presence of a set of conditions that, in the system, are extremely favorable to their development. Although many researches provide frameworks to analyze start-ups ecosystems at a glance, we highlight that literature lacks of an analysis of Start-uppers profiles and goals, as well an identification of the critical success factors, according the Start-uppers’ perspective. Moreover, although there is already some significant body of knowledge on Italian Start-ups Panorama, many of these works are in the form of journalistic and non-academic books and reports. In Europe, too many promising high tech start-ups do not manage to grow and scale up at international level. Italy is characterized by a constellation of small businesses that, despite their peculiarities, have great difficulty in competing in the global market. Although the start-up phenomenon is growing, the Italian situation is still in its infancy, with many start-up with a small number of employees and still in early stage. The identification of the characteristics of the Italian start-up companies will allow a better understanding of this entrepreneurial phenomenon, supporting the design of appropriate innovation policies and regional industry development.

This paper aims to propose alternatives of knowledge management (KM) implementation in SME’s in the state of Santa Catarina. In Brazil and many other countries, most businesses are small and medium-sized, and have a key role in economic growth, employment generation and wealth creation (Lin, 2014, Durst, Edvardsson, 2012). The implementation of KM initiatives in SME’s is particularly relevant (Dotsika, Patrick, 2013), because with intense global competition, and the more large companies deploy KM strategies, the greater the demand for integration of knowledge on the part SMEs. (Supyuenyong, Islam, Kulkarni, 2009). Unfortunately Brazilian companies grow slowly compared to the global market, especially when it comes to offering differentiated and competitive products (Portal CNI, 2014). They need solutions that can help them improve this situation. The question that guides this research is: how best KM deployment alternative for SMEs in Santa Catarina? After the investigation of existing KM models or frameworks aimed at SMEs, it was selected a framework considered compatible with the characteristics of Brazilian SMEs, more specifically, tree manufacture enterprises in the State of Santa Catarina. We propose in this study a multiple case study, descriptive and exploratory. The European Guide to Good Practice in Knowledge Management, who presented the implementation of a framework in SME was chosen. We identified with the instrument suggested by the framework, that the storage as a critical activity of knowledge in the three SME’s studied. A new data collection was carried out to obtain more information about KM storage activity in each of the companies studied. Then, KM instruments were researched on storage activity. Finally two instruments were selected for preparation of implementation plans. This methodology puts in evidence the need for research that help Brazilian SMEs, specifically those located in Santa Catarina, to improve their knowledge management processes, which will keep them operative and stronger in the market, impacting society in social and economic terms. The main implications of the research arising from the study to show the application of parts of a knowledge management framework chosen, in order to identify KM alternatives for SME’s Santa Catarina that little or no work the issue to improve its internal performance and marketplace.

In the succession process of a family business, a valuable knowledge often lies in the founding figure or a limited number of family members. Therefore, the willingness of the predecessor to share knowledge becomes a key factor in the succession process. The research aims to analyze how predecessors and successors of family businesses share knowledge to ensure the long-term survival of the company considering exploration and exploitation as knowledge sharing strategies. A survey was carried out with 303 predecessors and successors of family companies of a Brazilian entity for development of the retail, industry and service sectors from the Southern Brazil. The sample of the study was predecessor who participates of a Brazilian entity for development For to achieve our research aim, we adopted constructs from the intra-organizational family firm context addressing knowledge sharing between predecessors with their successors. In a theoretical perspective, the main contribution of this paper provides evidence that exploration and exploitation might be address as knowledge sharing strategies within the family business context. Our study may contribute to the discussion about the manner in which knowledge sharing takes place in family firms in the succession process. Bearing in mind that the predecessor holds a valuable knowledge of the family business, studies that address specific issues as knowledge sharing between generations may offer practical contributions to the preservation and even enhancement of knowledge in family businesses.

So-called display rules can be defined as informal social norms about when, where and how emotions should be expressed in a given social setting. While most research has focused on emotional labor and emotion display rules in face-to-face work-settings between employees and customers, empirical insights into the emotional functioning of online work groups remain scarce so far, especially from a cross-cultural perspective. In the present paper we examined aspects of emotional labor and emotion display norms among 71 students from Germany and Spain that coordinated their academic activities in online text-based chat groups. In our cross-sectional online survey we wanted to know how these informal norms shape the individuals’ expression of their feelings, the interpretation of the emotions of other team members and how these processes affect the team members’ work, their work satisfaction and well-being. Results suggest that German and Spanish students differ regarding their online emotional regulation behavior and with regard to the appropriateness of different display norms. Additionally, the usage of some emotion regulation strategies and their impact on well-being could be confirmed for both national groups. Despite the explanatory character of our study, the presented results are of high value to further understand the interplay between human factors in virtual teamwork.

It’s very interesting to think about the possibility that CSR can become a new way of thinking and acting in the global community. But, in order to do this, it’s important to influence the same CSR’s perception and obtain an impact on social and economic culture of a territory. Under this conditions, a key role could have the educational institutions, like Universities, in fact they have the responsibility to train and lead the new generation of students and future citizens. If the Universities insert in their own didactic plans courses related to CSR, these will be useful to help younger generations in understanding the issue of CSR and their awareness regarding its positive impact on the served community and the context (AACSB International, 2011). So, the object of the paper is to know how Italian Universities have been operating, on the assumption that if the Universities pay more attention to the practices of corporate social responsibility it will generate for learners greater interest and awareness respect the culture of ethics and social responsibility, by improving the quality of life in the context. The attention is focused on the identification of the learning programs present in the Italian Medium Universities (n°31 – Anvur 2015) and all teachings activity linked to the theme of CSR with a web analysis. The used methodology is organized in three steps: 1. Check the educational offer, 2. Analyse the training courses and specific programs related to CRS, 3. Analyse the students’ populations, in order to check their sensibility to the topic. This paper – based on empirical results – wants to identify the Universities’ sensibility regarding the theme of CSR. In this way it will be possible to analyse the impact of training respect to social and economic context. The outcome of this study can assist researchers, managers and institutions to better understand the effects of the culture on the context and therefore its quality of life.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the dynamics of national and organizational culture influence an organization operating in a cross-cultural business environment and how the company benefits from cultural differences in terms of competitive advantage, high performance, innovation, and leadership. Some scholars (for example Jing et al., 2014, Chen et al., 2010, Qin et al., 2008, Bhagat et al., 2002) argued that national culture acts as a significant barrier to knowledge transfer. However, the integration and learning from other cultures over time lead MNCs to manage the dynamic balancing and integration of the knowledge portfolio. We adopted an instrumental case study methodology based on multiple sources of evidence: interviews, field observations, and internal document analysis. In particular, we focused on a holistic single case study, the Generali Group. We performed content analysis of the evidence collected by using qualitative coding techniques (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). The data collected were transcribed into the Nvivo software to provide a basis for data analysis. The key themes that emerged from the content analysis were the following: (i) sticky knowledge, (ii) knowledge facilitation, (iii) improving organizational performance. This paper represents a first step to move away from rather simplistic and static interpretations of national culture, and to investigate the complexity of value orientations from a more critical and dialogic standpoint. In this sense, the paper tried to emphasize the all-dimensional learning of cultures and its impact on the dynamic portfolio of available values of a specific organization. The paper provides managers with guidelines on how to better understand the role played by national culture on their organizational and knowledge management strategies and practices.

Understanding and monitoring the learners’ satisfaction become key activities for designing effective and successful learning experiences. Sentiment analysis of informal discussions and streams of messages exchanged within forums and blogs, together with the clustering of formal feedback provided by the learners on their learning experiences are two fundamental knowledge sources for designing an integrated evaluation strategy of online courses. Indeed, merging the “sentiment” of learners measured along the entire course with the main evidences extracted from clustering the feedback that learners provide at the end of the course, can suggest new ways to improve the overall learning experience. A design science approach has been adopted to conceptualize and define the components of the model and the prototype. Design science supports a pragmatic research paradigm that calls for the creation of innovative prototypes and the experimentation of innovative solutions. The phases of problem identification, objectives definition, artifact development, solution demonstration, evaluation, and research communication have been realized accordingly. This paper explores the application of Big Data to the e-learning domain. Specifically, the study presents the design and the implementation of a prototypal application, which leverages on big data techniques for real-time and in-process monitoring of learners’ satisfaction within an online course. The paper highlights an approach that generates value from unstructured data stored in the LMS, processing learners interactions in the social space (e.g. forum) during the course, together with the key topics raising from the answers they provide to questionnaire filled in at the end of the course. The outcomes of this work can provide practical insights to design more successful learning experiences, which rely on the usage of a learning management system. Indeed, by using real time analytics tools and clustering techniques, the prototype has been developed can provide mentors and learning managers with the knowledge to monitor in progress and at the end the individual learning experience, thus offering the opportunity to intervene efficiently and effectively.

This paper builds upon the paradoxical/ambidexterity literature to develop a new, integrated view of the dynamism of the intangibles in organizational settings. The proposed model integrates an extended version of the well-established construct “dynamic capabilities” with the dynamism of three key intangibles: knowledge, relationships and rules. The results show that all these dimensions of the dynamism of the intangibles are key to successful business model innovation in turbulent business environments. A carefully selected sample of 35 cases is analysed through fsQCA to confirm that highly dynamic configurations of the intangibles lead to high performance in turbulent business environments. Consistently with an evolutionary, ambidextrous view of the intangibles, the proposed model focuses on the intertwined dynamics of the intangibles, rather than the cross-sectional measurement of intangible assets. These results have important managerial implications, and could suggest a more dynamic and adaptive approach to the traditional practices of intellectual capital and knowledge management.

This paper proposes a new theoretical approach, borrowed from resilience studies, in order to better understand the role and success factors of science & technology parks in today’s complex scenario. This paper presents the in-depth qualitative analysis of an important Italian science & technology park. In this exemplary case, the park managers and decision-makers adopt or advocate some cultural principles and organizational practices that are highly compatible with the Adaptive Management approach. The case allows the authors to highlight how this approach influences the success of the science & technology park under analysis. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that the adaptive management approach is proposed to investigate the organizational and management issues of science & technology parks. The levels of success of science & technology parks are far from being uniform, and their success factors have been only partially understood so far. Therefore, the theoretical integration proposed by this paper may help support the resilience and sustainability of some of the most important innovation clusters in the EU.

This paper investigates how Business Intelligence (BI) systems influence Management Accounting Systems (MAS). In particular we study if and how Business Intelligence systems’ implementation and use affect Management Accounting techniques and Management Accountants’ role and competences. To investigate the issue at hand, an explorative field study, which involved BI consultants belonging to 12 Italian consulting firms, was carried out. Considering the scarcity of academic knowledge on the relationship between Management Accounting and Business Intelligence systems, we used the qualitative field study method since it permits to deal with complex “how” questions and, at the same time, to take into consideration multiple sites thus offering a comprehensive picture of the phenomenon. The paper findings contribute to the understanding of a phenomenon (impact of BI on MAS) which, to date, is rather unexplored thus, narrowing the gap between theory and practice. We also found that BI implementation can bring about not only incremental changes in the existing MAS but also more relevant ones by supporting the introduction of new and advanced MA techniques. By identifying changes in information production and management as well as levers and obstacles, which can prevent or favor a virtuous relationship between Business Intelligence systems and Management Accounting systems this research can be useful both for consultants and for client-companies in order to effectively manage BI projects and their impact on the MAS.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the structure of New Services Development (NSD) process in Knowledge Intensive Business Service (KIBS) companies. In particular, it aims at investigating to what extent the NSD process is formalized and what factors influence the level of formalization in different KIBS sectors. Considering the exploratory nature of the research, the complexity and novelty of the topic as well as the intention to analyse it at a practical level the case study method was adopted. Four companies of different KIBS sectors were investigated which helped to analyse the NSD process in totally different environments characterized by different knowledge bases. The research was international and included companies from Italy and Russia. The main contribution of the paper is that it addresses a topic (i.e. the NSD process in KIBS companies) that has been scarcely investigated in the literature, even if it is especially crucial. In particular, due to the selection of a sample of cases, the study allowed to investigate companies performing different activities and possessing different kind of knowledge. This analysis puts in evidence that the level of formalization of the NSD process is influenced by the activity of the company, its strategic position on the market, and the nature of its knowledge base. The paper can be the initial step to identify and classify the variety of schemes used by KIBS companies for the NSD process. Furthermore, the study reveals the key factors that can affect the level of formalisation of the NSD process, and provides suggestions on which approach can be more adapt to introduce new services in a more effective way in different situations.

The increasing ageing population is an urgent development, resulting in an increase in elder care facilities (1). Providing ageing people with suitable housing is also a global issue. Numerous researches and projects have been carried out in which the ‘ageing in place’ concept is used in an attempt to relieve pressure on the healthcare sector and to increase the quality of life of senior citizens (9, 10, 11). Yet the knowledge of the available flexible adaptations for daily living remains limited and fragmented within the building industry and healthcare organizations. The purpose of this research is to provide insight into the architectural possibilities and smart enablers of transforming existing apartment typologies into lifelong homes. In order to meet these goals, the main structure needs to be suitable for lifelong living. On the other hand, requirements should not be pre-equipped for a specific situation. The research elaborates on the inner non-loadbearing structure, due to how it requires a minimum amount of rebuilding yet fits the requirements for lifelong homes. The positions of the outer façade and bearing walls are left unaltered to reduce cost and provide a wider range of applicability. The majority of the building revitalization in the Netherlands is executed by housing associations and entrepreneurs. The result of this research provides a matrix suitable for this group but also for architectural firms and planning firms. By using the matrix as a guideline, it will become clear and easy to improve properties, and it can be a guide on how to design, plan and build lifelong homes. The findings can help to develop lifelong homes, which are suitable for all mobility-classes. People can live their entire lives in these houses, enabling them to live independently for a longer period of time, and relieving some of the pressure on the healthcare system. For instance, to upgrade to a higher mobility class, e.g. from walker to wheelchair, requires on average 6m2 more space. The size of the disability class of the disability scooter is increasing and it is wise to adapt to this trend. Housing and care associations and property development should mainly focus on the wheelchair mobility class, which is also suitable for this group using disability scooters.

This paper illustrates that frail older people, demand other requirements to the Indoor Environment where they reside when compared to those general being used in guidelines for older people residents We propose an approach using the International Classification of Functioning and Disabilities (ICF) from the World Health Organization (WHO) as a framework for the relations of environmental factors on one hand and daily activities and participation of frail old people on the other hand. To examine these relations in the environments where older people reside, Evidence Based Design (EBD) is used for the theoretical concept for healing environments. This concept is formed from practices based or experimental based research in building design with a positive health outcome. In case of frail older people we cannot speak of a healing environment. Frail people at age will not heal from the restrictions they experience due to the biological ageing. We can create though enriched environments for them, healthy environments which support their well-being and where their health doesn’t further decline. Healthy environments consist of environments with an indoor environmental quality (IEQ) which fits with the baic functions of the users. This approach illustrates that older frail people and their carers put other demands to their environments which are beyond shelter, safety and security. The outcomes of the approach show that: Creating enriched environments demands a) knowing the needs and values of frail people and their caregivers and b) understanding the effect of the physical environment on people functioning and well-being. Capturing these needs can be done through use of several sources from literature till participatory workshops with (representative of) the frail older adults and their caregivers. It is also necessary to involve staff and management. In addition, values and needs are translated via interdisciplinary knowledge of gerontechnology building design and healthcare to functions of the users in the environment while taking into account the restrictions due to their health condition

The purpose of this study was to define the key issues and design guidelines that will address the unique needs of the older patients. To examine the functional quality the spatial conditions of Polish geriatric wards were analysed taking into account the specifics of older patients care. The purpose was also to indicate the barrier in implementation of foregoing design guidelines on the base of developed design conceptions for Polish geriatric wards. We propose an approach making use of multiple-case study for five Polish geriatric wards. The defined assumptions were as follow: the space of the hospital ward is the essential component of the healing process: the particular elements should enhance the elderly patients in their previous functional competences (i.e. activity and mobility, independence and ability to continue with their daily activities), user’s needs are the main subject in decision-making process, according to the Evidence-Based Design research and the evaluation of opinions about hospital space in use, the design recommendations for geriatric ward are identified, the recognition of the patient’s functional needs requires the interdisciplinary approach. In the research work the functional, behavioural and technical quality was defined through a structured expert review with medical and nursing staff, the observation of the way in which the space is used, as well as following the patient’s way and non-structured reviews with the patients. This methodology highlights the wide range of functional conditions that worsen the elderly patient’s comfort: i.e. inadequate dimension of patient’s room and lack of adequate manoeuvring spaces for rehabilitation equipment, lack of some important rooms essential for the quality of healing and care process, adverse functional links between the patients and medical staff area, for example regarding the location of a nursing station. Moreover, the social spaces in the ward are firmly limited or liquidated. At the same time the results of this study present also some typical patient behaviour in an institutional environment. On the basis of the research two conceptual design works were elaborated, for the geriatric wards to improve the working conditions for nursing staff and the comfort of elderly patients. These conceptual works were based also on the prior analysis of contemporary tendency in designing the healthcare objects where the solutions enhancing the functional ability of older adults were used.

Adult day-care facilities, as one type of the care facilities for older adults and people with dementia (PWD), have attracted attention from researchers and practitioners since the 1990s. These care facilities provide community-based programs to meet the needs of older adults during the work day and relieve informal caregivers from the stress of full time care. However, studies that emphasize on architectural environment, and its impacts on the behavior of the care recipients, i.e. the people who use the day-care services, are still lacking. The aim of this study is to offer an insight into the behavior of PWD in adult day-care facilities from an architecturally disciplined perspective, as well as to interpret the relationships between behaviors and architectural properties in order to improve the future facility design. To reach this goal, the study was developed through a strategy that includes two focuses: 1. Focus on the spatial distribution of unstructured behavior of PWD, 2. Focus on the architectural properties including the function complexity, the typology, and the interior furniture. Six day-care centers in Dresden, Germany, were chosen for the case studies. In each center, care recipients over 65 years and diagnosed with dementia by their general practitioners, were observed with Behavior Mapping method. As exploratory research, the findings of this study provide empirical evidence as a basis for further discussion. It is among the few current studies examining the relationships between architectural environment and the unstructured behaviors of people with dementia. It provides evidence for the activity-friendly facility design, the development of architectural intervention, and the policy to promote indoor environment in day-care facilities of PWD and the older adults. Although the floor plans of the day-care facilities in this study are different, and their space usages vary from one to another, the analyses proved that they share generic properties of architectural environments governing the behaviors of the care recipients. Based on the findings of the study, several design recommendations are offered for various design stages from floor-plan design phase to interior design phase, which is highly beneficial for architects as well as care administrators.

A prerequisite for the development of architecture’s potential to support a safe and independent living of all people is the planning of demographically sustainable buildings. This includes age-appropriate, mainly barrier-free architecture, and the use of ambient assisted living systems. In practice, however, there are currently great obstacles realising buildings for the older generation. Essential starting points for overcoming these difficulties are the improvement of the education and further training of architects, as well as the hitherto often insufficient interdisciplinary exchange in the planning process between architects, technical planners and the housing industry. As a first step the education, further training and existing knowledge of architects were analysed. This included a research of the education content of architecture students at the nine leading Institutes of Technology in Germany (TU9), an online survey for architects to assess their knowledge of building for older adults and disabled people, as well as an analysis of further training courses for barrier-free planning offered by the Architectural Associations of the federal states in Germany in the past three years. As a second step the cooperation between architects and technical planners was investigated. In addition, their interaction has been studied in four best practice examples. The design of barrier-free architecture is often underrepresented in the education at the TU9 and accessibility seems to be an unattractive topic there. In summary, it can be stated that accessibility and design of demographically sustainable buildings should be an obvious part of architectural education. In addition, it is useful to offer additional training courses for architects that fill in the gaps in their education, improve their knowledge, discuss the accessibility of buildings and ambient assisted living systems and also deal with current, aesthetic and practical design solutions. The interviews, which were part of the second step of the research, form the basis of an in-depth and comparative analysis to cooperation and existing challenges in the planning process. The analysis showed differences in type of client, project organisation, user requirements and applied ambient assisted living systems, while the projects had parallels in the cooperation of the planning partners. Finally, success factors were identified for cooperation and planning in future demographic sustainable projects. Keywords – ambient assisted living, accessibility, education, process management, planning

The European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the main players in the world of patents. Patent examiners are highly skilled knowledge workers who deal with explicit and tacit knowledge. The identification of tacit knowledge sources and the creation of knowledge through tacit to tacit knowledge sharing and tacit to explicit knowledge sharing are fundamental to the success of an organization [1]. This is in particular valid for an organization like the EPO. The development of a practical approach to share tacit knowledge in the EPO, is presented aiming at sharing experience with similar players and enhancing discussions on the practical implementation and implications of such processes in a highly efficient environment. Starting from locally driven initiatives, the European Patent Office during the last 15 years has established an internal peer to peer knowledge sharing process. This process is driven by a team of knowledge sharing experts, collated in a team called CKT – Continuous Knowledge Transfer. The process works in a complementary manner to classical and well-elaborated learning and development activities of the international organization. The success of the process is demonstrated by user statistics. Patent Examiners have to deal with a complex set of information-based procedures and associated supporting tools, all of which are continuously and rapidly evolving. Thus, patent examiners can be seen as knowledge workers par excellence, who on “non-routine” have to solve problems that require a combination of convergent, divergent and creative thinking. As a consequence as service professionals and knowledge workers patent examiners have a strong interest in effectively and efficiently managing a wide variety of knowledge sources and inputs. The knowledge sharing process established at the EPO has developed over the last 15 years to a mature state. The process is accepted by staff and management at the same time and contribution to success of the organization is significant. The EPO has a core competence in the management of technical knowledge per se contained in patent databases as well as scientific or technical prior art databases. In total these databases are closing in on one billion records. Via its CKT initiative, the EPO has developed knowledge transfer processes and corresponding IT infrastructure, going beyond this core competence. The contribution aims at presenting and critically discussing the services developed by CKT.

The purpose of this study is to explore how to facilitate for the sharing of high quality knowledge in a virtual global project team context. Consequently, this study presents an overview over selected theories, and enlightened by these theories investigates how the strength of social interaction ties between members in a virtual team affects the quality of work related knowledge shared in these ties. Social interaction ties are represented by strength of the relationships, the amount of time spent on interaction, interpersonal trust and communication frequency between the members in a virtual team. Whereas knowledge quality is defined as the extent to which the comprehension and awareness of relationships, logics and innovative ideas in a project are valuable and relevant. Based on case studies of 4 virtual global project teams with a total of 41 team members We found that competence-based trust ties was the component that had the greatest impact on this high quality knowledge sharing. Frequency of communication ties and time spent on interaction ties were found to have a positive effect and benevolence-based trust ties have some effect on the knowledge shared. Close relationship ties on the other hand are shown to only have a very small noticeable impact on the quality of knowledge shared between team members in a virtual team and the closeness of social interaction ties between members in a virtual global team does not affect the quality of knowledge shared. Virtual interaction in virtual global project teams does not require physical interaction to work, which is a significant finding not only for academia but also for any project manager. The empirical evidence shows support for the notion that the strength of the competence based interaction ties between members in a virtual team positively affects the quality of knowledge shared in these ties. The evidence also support that the quality of the virtual networking is affected by sharing the work process from concept development through all mile stone gates to the delivery. On line competence based relationships do not require off line competence based relationships to work. This means that a technology-based platform might give the social relationships needed for knowledge sharing.

This study aims at furthering this discussion by empirically examining on how the firm’s knowledge-base (i.e. intellectual capital) and the abilities to utilize and develop it (i.e. knowledge management) are associated with firm performance outcomes. In particular, the purpose is to examine firms with different profiles concerning their overall levels of IC and the KM practices, and whether there are differences between firms with those profiles in terms of innovation and market performance. Data for this study was collected via a survey from 259 Finnish firms with over 100 employees. Based on median split regarding the utilization of KM practices and the possession of overall IC, the firms were distributed into four profiles characterized with (1.) high IC and low KM practices, (2.) high IC and high KM practices, (3.) low IC and low KM practices, and (4.) low IC and high KM practices. Then, analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to evaluate the statistical differences between the four different IC/KM profiles of firm to the innovation and market performance of the firm. Regarding innovation performance of the firm, this study finds that firms characterized with high amount of IC and high utilization of KM practices (profile 2.) are typically more innovative than the firms that possess low overall amount of IC (blocks 3. and 4.). Also, this study points out that the firms with high overall IC and low utilization of KM practices statistically beat the firms with low overall IC and low KM practices in terms of innovation performance. These finding indicate that both possession of sufficient levels of IC and the active utilization and development of it are required to increase the competitiveness of the firm. The extant literature on KM and IC have provided us with the basic understanding on how the knowledge resources and the practices or processes to manage them are associated with firm performance outcomes. However, our paper is among the first attempts to merge the IC and KM disciplines to find out which configurations could yield organizational benefits in terms of innovation and market performance outcomes. In sum, this study points out that while the level of IC alone could predict the innovation potential of the firm, the organizational and managerial practices to leverage the IC are needed to transform the knowledge potential into market performance. This results is interesting for knowledge and innovation management research and practice, since it shows the merits of letting innovation flourish also without a high level of managerial control, while pinpointing the increasing relevance of knowledge management when actual market performance is in question.

Strategic paradigms include an assumption: growth ambition feeds a firm’s strategy. Without doubting the general validity of paradigms developed through the traditional economics and strategy approaches, this paper shows that those cognitions are the de facto developers of strategies and their analysis provides a complementary firm view, according to which some firms are not predisposed to increase their size. This paper inductively investigates the management’s cognitions of the Italian electronics firm Majestic. Majestic’s management aims to occupy declining segments that larger companies are no longer interested in. These segments do not require to grow and they allow Majestic to not face the competition of bigger and stronger players surviving with a small size. In addition, Majestic just need few resources and a limited innovation capacity to benefit from the declining markets which are not attractive for the bigger players but they are still profitable for small firms. The Majestic’s business vision can be a successful model for many small firms meeting difficulties to survive among bigger players.