Purpose – The paper discusses the value of integrating the web-based negotiation support system Inspire into university level English for business purposes courses. The system offers a content-rich environment and a platform for dynamic communication and meaningful interaction between the negotiating parties. Practicing negotiation skills with a system, like Inspire, that supports negotiation decisions at every stage of the process enhances traditional delivery of the language courses and prepares the students both linguistically and intellectually for future challenges in the workplace, including business and entrepreneurship. Methodology – The instructional model adopted for the course is the sustained content instruction. A sustained content language course is similar to other university courses in that it focuses on one theme or topic. Exploration of one theme over a longer period of time lends itself to analysis, evaluation and the development of critical thinking and creates a natural learning environment for language acquisition. Through input from texts, group discussions, problem solving activities and completion of assignments typical for university courses, students build knowledge of the topic as well as cognitive and linguistic skills. Originality – The theme of the course discussed in this paper is Decision-making and conflict resolution through negotiations. There are three main components of the course: the course-pack with readings from the theory of decision-making and negotiations, an individual research assignment where students further hone their knowledge of the topic and on-line business negotiations project for which the Inspire system was used. The adoption of the system was motivated by: (1) its relevance to the theme; (2) the relative novelty of the technology which lent itself to a new learning experience for the students; (3) its potential for immersing the students in the language of negotiations provided by the system; (4) the opportunity for the students to be involved in authentic communication; and (5) its capacity to motivate the students to engage cognitively and emotionally in the process. Practical implications – The adoption of the Inspire system created a unique opportunity for the students to engage in meaningful communication with counterparts from different cultures. The students’ feedback indicates that they gained knowledge and skills that prepare them for success in university courses and in professional careers.

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to elucidate how new technologies help museums in seeking legitimacy as valuable social and cultural institutions in front of the public. Museums as organizations information and knowledge oriented, embedded within society as repositories of community memory, have to embrace new technologies in order to preserve heritage and generate new knowledge to their audience. Design/methodology/approach – Museums coping with uncertainty and shortage of public funding as fundamental problem tend to achieve greater legitimacy by managing new technologies to sustain public trust and survive in their current forms. This study is based on archival and qualitative data drawn by literature review about the use of the internet technologies of information and communication within museums. Originality/value – Culture will have an increasingly important role as learning becomes more accessible and flexible. Museums as agents of cultural change should legitimize processes of capture, management and dissemination of information and knowledge instead of merely preserving the artefacts by embracing new technologies that ensure a fast and convenient communication with the public involved to participate in the definition of cultural contents toward a participatory museum. Practical implications – Museums by embracing new technologies moving from a virtual museum perspective based on information to a knowledge management and participatory approach may select different choices in order to use new technologies in the definition of content and knowledge creation as result of interactive and collaborative process based on participation and involvement of the audience and users of museum.

Purpose: If “entrepreneurship has become the engine of world economic and social development” (Audretsch, 2003, p.5), culture is becoming more and more a specific context in which is possible to invest and create new opportunities of labor and value. The principal aim of the paper is to understand how it’s possible for a cultural organization to influence the environment and local development. So, the work wants to highlight – through the analysis of an empirical case of success in Catanzaro’s district – what might be the indicators that demonstrate the virtuous relationships among cultural organization and social and economic context. Design/methodology/approach: We propose an exploratory research approach divided in two main step: the first – on the desk – is finalyzed to understand the Cultural System in Italy, through specific laws and regulations; the second – on the job – is aimed to study and grasp the key factors of a cultural organization, as well as to define and highlight the entrepreneurial characteristics of managers. In order to collect these informations a semi-structured interview was conducted with the managing director of a specific cultural organization belonging Art, Culture and Entertainment Sector, located in Catanzaro’s district (Italy). Originality/value: This methodology aims to highlight the factors able to determin the business success that became from a simple passion an innovative organization focused on local development. The preliminary results, obtained by a single-case study, provide useful information to understand the key characteristics, behavior, performance of companies in the field of art culture and entertainment. But this wealth of information suggests and encourages further reflection on certain aspects or phenomena that may be more attractive in place in the Italian and European panorama. Practical implications: The paper aims to contribute both theoretically and practically on the topic of cultural entrepreneurship. The results of this research can be utilized for further reflections which can later develop a refined frame work with high practical relevance.

Purpose – Corporate entrepreneurship is an articulated process that originates from creative ideas of managers and employees and ends up in generating innovative results such as new business units and ventures. It is thus a key driver of strategic renewal and business performance for organizations, which need to valorize the creativity of individuals and teams (the internal “crowd”). This article introduces the concept of crowd-venturing as an application of collective intelligence principles in the corporate context. A set of individual and organizational factors supporting the entrepreneurial potential of human resources is defined and used to build a tool for assessing the maturity of crowd-venturing within companies. A classification of organizational archetypes is also proposed. Design/methodology/approach – The study starts from a review of corporate entrepreneurship and organizational creativity literature, with a cross-domain investigation of related areas such as human resource management and collective intelligence. The work of theory review is a basis to define an integrated assessment tool that has been applied in preliminary studies conducted in three big ICT companies. Originality/value – The research proposes a systemic model for the exploration of drivers of corporate creativity and entrepreneurial dynamics. The concept of crowd-venturing is defined, along with an assessment tool useful to evaluate the maturity level of both individual and organizational factors respect to the internal entrepreneurial process. The study can be conceived as a new application of collective intelligence principles in organization-related issues. Practical implications – The article provides managers with a method and an operating tool for assessing the internal entrepreneurship environment and the corporate venturing process. The in-company application of the tool can open new avenues for developing methodologies addressed to activate entrepreneurial dynamics within organizations.

Purpose – The paper presents some methodological notes for universities to support the writing of their own sustainability report. Sustainability reports are documents organizations use to report the company’s identity, governance, and values, as well as the impact of everyday activities and topics considered as relevant to sustainable development (Global Reporting Initiative, 2013). In the last two decades the commitment of universities to sustainable development has strongly grown (Adomssent et al. 2007, Velazquez et al. 2006, Waas et al. 2010) and today an increasing number of universities, although still limited, periodically publish a sustainability report (Ceulemans et al. 2014, del Mar Alonso-Almeida et al. 2014, Townsend and Barrett 2013). Extant reporting standards and guidelines (e.g. GRI-G4 of the Global Reporting Initiative) seem to be mainly developed for companies (Lozano, 2006) and often neglect the description of methodological aspects to be adopted for the reporting process, especially in the case of universities. The lack of clear guidelines can affect the quality of the reports and make the comparison of different reports hard. Design/methodology/approach – To develop the methodological notes, we reviewed the literature and analysed the most adopted reporting standards and guidelines. We also analysed the sustainability reports of a sample of ten universities. The sample includes reports from the GRI disclosure database. The report analysis was carried out to assess (i) the standard adopted, if any, (ii) the reporting process carried out, i.e. the set of activities and the procedures performed to develop and publish the sustainability report, and (iii) the information reported. As to the reporting process, the activities related to the identification and interaction with stakeholders as well as the activities performed to identify which indicators to be used are analysed and discussed. Originality/value –The proposed methodological notes integrate those provided by the GRI. We also identified some issues that remain as open problems and should be further analyzed. Practical implications – The paper outcomes can be used by universities that already publish a sustainability report to improve the reporting process. The outcomes can also be used by universities, and any kind of organizations, which intend to start the process of sustainability reporting.

Purpose: Purpose of this paper is, to show the experiences from the German and European pilot projects where the developments in Germany let into a national Intellectual Capital (IC) System with different stakeholder groups. The paper shows how the German IC Center has been built up and how the different stakeholder groups spread the idea of using Intellectual Capital Statements (ICS) as a continuous management instrument to improve innovation and the future development of organizations. The paper includes how the crucial functions “qualification & training”, “implementation”, “quality assurance” and “dissemination” regarding IC are organized in Germany and what results have been achieved since the movement started in 2008. Approach: The definition of IC and the methodology of proceeding ICS in small and medium-sized enterprises as well as in larger companies and organizational networks have been adequately researched in the last years. Originally started as a pilot project “Intellectual Capital Statement – Made in Germany” in the »Fit für den Wissenswettbewerb« (Fit for the Knowledge Competition) initiative, and funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the concept of ICS is now established across Germany as a national movement of IC training, implementation and quality assurance. Furthermore the German researchers collected experiences on the European level in the European pilot-project “Intellectual Capital Statement – Made in Europe (InCaS)”. The concept of Intellectual Capital has thus far been researched and tested specifically with regard to enterprises and as a concept of establishing national IC Center. The experiences from Germany are the basis for the adaptation of establishing national IC Center worldwide. Value and practical implications: The paper will practically show how a national IC Center in Germany is working and how this concept is transferable to other countries which could benefit from developments and results on the practical and theoretical side “made in Germany”. The paper will also outline actual research activities on defining a regional concept of IC to close the gap between the well investigated concept of IC on the company level (micro) and the concept of national IC (macro).

Purpose – The objective of this paper is twofold. On one hand it explores the relationship between a firm ownership structure and R&D, on the other it tests the relationship between the board structure and the investments in innovation. Design/methodology/approach – This investigation is based on a sample of Italian listed companies observed over the period 2005-2013. In particular, through a regression analysis, it will explore the relationship between ownership concentration and R&D, as well as the relationship between the characteristics of the board of directors and R&D. Originality/value – This methodology highlights both the relationship between the ownership structure and the expenditure on R&D and the relationship between board composition and R&D. If the research, on one hand, extends the extant literature on aspects of corporate governance and innovation, on the other it is rooted in the resource dependence and agency theory frameworks. Our findings appear of interest since a relationship has emerged between ownership concentration and R&D on one hand, and some dimensions of the Board of Directors and R&D on the other. Practical implications – The outcomes of the application, besides improving the current understanding of the relationship between firms’ ownership structure, board characteristics, innovation and corporate performance, intend to reveal if the governance of Italian listed companies is efficient in determining company results and in pursuing growth through innovation. Moreover, our results could be of interest to both policy makers for the regulation of corporate governance and of BoDs, and to companies that regularly appoint the members of the board of directors.

Purpose – This paper investigates the strategies and policies that a sample of selected small and medium companies in a given geographic area (i.e., Apulia region, in Southern Italy) adopt with respect to sustainability issues. The companies have been selected as they are considered (by the local industrial associations) as sustainability champions in the targeted geographic area. In particular, four research questions are addressed: Which meaning do the analyzed companies attribute to “sustainability”? How do they put sustainability into practice? In which way do their specific actions reflect the meaning they give to “act sustainably”? Which are the main barriers companies found in embracing sustainability? Which benefits do arise from practicing sustainability and which disadvantages do they deal with? Design/methodology/approach – We use descriptive multiple case studies to investigate the dynamics related to corporate sustainability. We conducted open-ended in-depth interviews with managers and executives for each of the selected cases. Every interview was conducted through direct visits to companies and lasted at least two hours, so allowing the issues under investigation to be comprehensively analysed and the management’s views and opinions to be more correctly perceived and interpreted. Originality/value – Based on the in-depth analysis of the selected cases, some initial theoretical findings can be pointed out: when a company embraces sustainability, so simultaneously focusing on the economic, environmental, and social dimensions (e.g. Dyllick and Hockerts, 2002), it also focuses on quality – in its broad meaning, which ranges from product quality to quality of human relationships – and adopts a long-term orientation in decision making. Both quality and long-term orientation are aptitudes that reflect on mental models of any organization; therefore, the company’s commitment to embrace sustainability principles shapes its strategy and affects its programs and initiatives. Practical implications – This paper highlights some benefits that the interviewed managers or entrepreneurs put into relation with the adoption of sustainability. They concern profitability, image improvement, attraction of talented workers, better organizational climate, better relationships with partners, development of specific know-how and abilities, access to new markets, and long-term (i.e. sustainable) growth. Nonetheless, adopting a sustainability strategy requires to overcome some barriers – such as the need of strong financial efforts and a high dependency upon public subsidies for conducting investments – and presents some disadvantages (most benefits need time to be fully appreciated and there are higher risks of significant revenue losses).

Purpose – In the current competitive scenario, innovative thinking is a fundamental addition to traditional business thinking. Increasingly organizations have to face unstable and unclear scenarios and to undertake challenges, that sometimes are so complex that organizations can’t just dive in. In such scenario, rather than identifying right answers or wrong answers, the goal should be exploring multiple possibilities, not relying on past experiences and known facts and consider ambiguity an opportunity. In other terms it is appropriate to ponder and approach the situations in an unconventional way using innovative thinking. The paper analyses the use of projective techniques as tool for stimulating innovative thinking in organization. These techniques are generally used in the field of psychotherapy, forensic and market research. However they can be advantageously used in business and can pave the way to bring more innovation into organization. Design/methodology/approach – This research is based on a case study carried out at a research marketing company which uses projective techniques as a tool to support, lead and develop innovative thinking. The research was conducted in two main phases. In the first phase we analyzed literature on projective techniques, putting particular attention on their use in practice. Then, attending a series of focus groups and interviews we examined the employ of the techniques in the investigated company. Finally, combining the gained theoretical and practical insights we designed a matrix tool for helping users of projective techniques in various phases of the business life cycle. Originality/value – This paper represents one of the first attempts to investigate at practical level, the application of projective techniques in a business landscape. Specifically, it shows how the projective techniques can be applied at various stages of the company’s life cycle: from initial idea generation up to the change management stage. Practical implications – In today’s business landscape, organizations need to identify new approaches for developing creativity and innovation. Projective techniques can be deployed as effective tools to develop the innovative thinking of management and employees and as an approach to capture insights from customers. The paper suggests insights on the practice use of projective techniques and provides a matrix to guide the application of the techniques in company’s life cycle.

Purpose – In the last years the awareness that absorbing the arts in organisational working mechanisms and business models can drive performance improvements has gradually risen (Darsø 2004, Meisiek and Barry, 2014; Styhre and Eriksson 2008) and experiments with arts based initiatives (ABIs) in organizations have increased. Anecdotes, observations, empirical evidences demonstrate that artistic interventions can provide several benefits. From a research perspective, to date there are few, if any, existing theories, models, approaches that can provide conceptual and methodological frameworks as a basis for evaluating the effects produced ABIs. This is not surprising for a relatively new field of practice. Particularly, the definition of structured approaches to assess the potential value-added of ABIs in organisations represents a key research challenge. Building on the framework of the Arts Value Map (Schiuma, 2011), this paper aims to shed light on how to integrate ABIs in the operation and strategy of an organization, and offers some insights to understand how these initiatives can turn into the desired business performance results. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a literature review about artistic interventions as a tool to enhance organizational performance and mapping and narrative approaches for evaluation, the paper suggests a mapping based model for disclosing -according to a narrative approach – how arts contribute to organizational value creation. Originality/value –Seeking to understand how artistic initiatives affect organizational dynamics and outcomes and the kinds of value generated still represents a critical issue. The paper proposes a model – based on mapping and narrative approaches- to face this challenge. Practical implications – Nowadays practitioners are more and more intrigued by what happen when the “diversified ad original world” of arts meets the “more conventional world” of public and private organisations. The proposed model can be deployed as a complementary framework to other approaches and tools to understand the benefits of bringing the arts in organisations as innovative managerial instruments to face business challenges.

The running of a 2-week international summer school opened up the opportunity to carry out a systematic experiment on spatial conditioning and priming. The very setup was closely surveyed by researchers of knowledge architecture TU Dresden regarding two central parameters of collaborative group work: 1) creative production, as the goal of the summer school was the creation of new concepts on future urbanism; 2) spatial arrangement, as the space in case was a large open office, allowing for multiple re-arrangements of spatial elements (e.g. furniture, work groups, technical equipment) and types of use (presentation mode, concentration modes). Creative Production: The 2-week workshop design comprised various individual and group activities in different spatial settings (single cabinets, work group arrangement, or presentation and panel settings), and has led to the production of 50 co–created ideas by the 20 summer school participants. These ideas were eventually developed into three different formats: project sketches (3), paper sketches (4), and proposal sketches (4). The summer school setting stated to be a starting point for long-lasting collaboration ships. Socio-spatial arrangement (Workshop Design) The 2-week event was video-recorded, thus allowing for time-lapse analysis of layout changes and utilization. Different, bevor developed, methods were now used to enhance co-creation under certain conditions. 1) constant conditions: time (2-weeks) and group constellation (20 members), and 2) adjustable condition: spatial work environment. From the analysis, parameters of spatial arrangement and group activity could be directly inferred, which in turn indicated “soft” social parameters like group spirit, trust and engagement. With the combination of data on the creative output on the one hand, and the data about socio-spatial arrangement on the other, the impact of purposefully designed work program and work environment on co-creation can be systematically tested and validated. A co-creation methodology is derived from this data-set.

Challenge Whereas many tools for e-participation have been developed to involve citizens and large stakeholder groups, there are no digital instruments which enable the creative participation of the citizenship on a massive scale. The paper presents the blueprint for a new co-design environment to enable communication and collaboration between large numbers of citizen and professional experts, developed in the course of a joint project of TU Dresden, TU Delft, and ISEN Toulon in cooperation with German and French software companies. Approach Key novelty is a Public Project Space for non-professional civic users – a highly accessible, low-threshold public interface, a Project Play Ground which features highly experiential design tools for citizens who want to engage actively in the design process. Second novelty is a collaboration platform which connects the Project Play Ground to professional urban designers. This Co-design Workspace is to function as a unidirectional exchange hub between public users and professionals to support the collection of project relevant information, the generation of initial impulses, and the discussion of propositions in the early phase of the design. Findings As key catalysers for co-design and communication, the blueprint suggests Moderated Models (MoM) that are exchanged and iterated between professionals and the public until mutual understanding is found. The Moderated Models are conceived as derivatives from a cloud-based Project Information Model (PIM) which integrates all project relevant information, including technical data as well as public input. Moderated models are published in the public Project Play Ground as to stimulate feedback e.g. via Social Media. Impact An essential functionality of the co-design environment will be the assessment of proposals on semantic and emotional level, in order to devise early detection of resistance against projects, and to prevent the build-up of negative public sentiment. The co-design environment will enable professional creatives to utilise the public´s creativity, to follow public opinions and sentiments, and to derive design intelligence from them. The design and decision making process will be informed and transformed by impulses of “citizen experts” as a driving force.

Purpose – In the last decade increasing amounts of innovative technologies and business plans have been formed at the interfaces of highly divergent disciplines that had no, or only a few connections before. In contrast, over the years established incubator structures in industry clusters have supported entrepreneurs mainly in one specific field. Thus, there is a gap of support structures offering custom-tailored services for start-ups in new emerging sectors. Based on this problem, the paper introduces a novel approach for Open Cross Cluster Incubators (OCCI). Design/methodology/approach – The OCCI concept implies the linkage of actors of different clusters to support early stage projects with incubation services. In detail, these incubation services are not bound to one institution, but distributed across research institutions, regional business development and transfer agencies, and industry associations. The main goals of an OCCI are mapping and networking existing services (e.g. market research, fund scouting, international marketing, business modelling, partner search, consortia building, and IP issues) as well as building up new functional components based on identified, emerging demands of entrepreneurs. Consequently, this virtual incubator model comes up with new challenges in coordination and synchronization as well as allocation of responsibilities. These issues must be solved to explore and capitalize on the synergetic potential of technology regions and its ecosystems. The OCCI approach is discussed with examples of a two-year cross cluster project funded by the European Union demonstrating first measurements of this concept and demand analysis. Originality/value – The approach focuses on a gap of incubation services for start-ups that do not fit into a specific scope of current cluster structures and support activities. For these potentially emerging industries a new way of customized incubation is designed. Practical implications – The paper names the benefits of OCCI services, outlines a roadmap for a sustainable implementation, and shows the results of a study that provides information on how to collect data of uprising entrepreneurial demands.

Fablabs and makerspaces equipped with new generative technologies e.g. 3D scanning, 3D printing, or laser cutting do not only change the way how innovative products come into being. Increasingly, they are are discovered as means for the production of scientific knowledge. Over the past years, fablabs have successfully found their way into universities and research institutes, while makerspaces have become a popular and social variation of it. Based on exploratory experiments and field research on fablabs in academic settings, the article discusses the role they can take in the context of scientific work, and the epistemological status of their output. Can fablabs turn into genuine ‘science fabs’? And what kind of ‘fab science’ emerges from them? The article suggests three specific roles for fablabs: 1) For strongly differentiated and sophisticated high-end science, they function as translators for otherwise difficult to communicate research items; 2) for newly developing ‘proto-sciences’ at the intersection of disciplines, they provide a facilitation platform, bringing together highly diverse research cultures, attitudes, and viewpoints; 3) they provide testbeds and living labs for the research of inter- and transdisciplinarity itself. Developing these streams, the paper gives an outlook onto potential assets that fablabs may contribute for future science, especially in regards to R&D collaboration.

Purpose – In the field of virtual reconstruction of architectural heritage cooperation and management highly influence a project progress and success. This paper presents and discusses practical problems and challenges related to cross-disciplinary cooperation within professional and educational contexts. The usage of SCRUM as a procedure model from agile software development will be presented and discussed as a promising approach to deal with these challenges. Moreover, the paper sketches a lay-out to implement and evaluate this method in context of a project based learning setting. Design/methodology/approach – To discover challenges and problems in cooperation practice, authors performed five case studies about reconstruction projects in academic context. By using Grounded Theory as a qualitative empirical approach, several typical challenges of objective setting, cross-disciplinary communication and project management were identified. Against this background, an application and prospected additional values of SCRUM are discussed on a conceptual level. Originality/value – The article inherits a discussion of general potentials of SCRUM in context of virtual reconstruction projects. Moreover, a layout for a usage of SCRUM within an educational project setting is sketched. Practical implications – A practical course which bases on the developed layout is proposed to take place in early 2016.

Purpose – This paper investigates the interrelationships between knowledge integration (KI), product innovation and capability development to enhance our understanding of how firms can develop capability at the firm level, which in turn enhances their performance. One of the critical underlying mechanisms for capability building identified in the literature is the role of knowledge integration, which operates within product innovation projects and contributes to dynamic capability development. Therefore, the main research question is “how does the integration of knowledge across product innovation projects lead to the development of capability?” Design/methodology/approach – We adopted a case-based approach and investigated the case of a successful firm that was able to sustain its performance through a series of product innovation projects. In particular this research focused on the role of KI and firm-level capability development over the course of four projects, during which the firm successfully managed the transformation of its product base and renewal of its competitive advantage. For this purpose an in-depth case study of capability development was undertaken at the Iran Khodro Company (IKCO), the key player in the Iranian auto industry transformation. Originality/value – This research revealed that along with changes at each level of product architecture “design knowledge” and “design capability” have been developed at the same level of product architecture, leading to capability development at that level. It can be argued that along the step by step maturation of radical innovation across the four case projects, architectural knowledge and capability have been developed at the case company, resulting in the gradual emergence of a modular product and capability architecture across different levels of product architecture. Such findings basically add to extensive emphasis in the literature on the interrelationship of the concept of modularity with knowledge management and capability development. Practical implications – Findings of this study indicate that firms manage their knowledge in accordance with the level of specialization in knowledge and capability. Furthermore, firms design appropriate knowledge integration mechanisms within and among functions in order dynamically align knowledge processes at different levels of the product architecture. Accordingly, the outcomes of this study may guide practitioners in managing their knowledge processes, through dynamically employing knowledge integration modes step-by-step and from the part level to the architectural level of product architecture across a sequence of product innovation projects to encourage learning and radical innovation.

Purpose – In the last years, many researchers have recognized the importance of adopting innovative business model to stay competitive in dynamic business environment (Amit and Zott, 2010; Chesbrough and Rosenbloom, 2002; Teece, 2010). Although the importance of business model innovation affects all the economic activities, this is particularly true for some industries more involved to face the acceleration of the pace of change, the relevance of value networking, the greater availability of knowledge, the increasing growth and role of new competitive players: it is the case of the technology-intensive industries. In fact, in the last decade, in business scenario changing and under an high competitive pressure, technology-intensive organizations are revisiting and expanding their traditional borders and modalities to do business, trying to re-think their value propositions and to integrate more effectively new products and services, customers segmentation, places and channels, partnerships, competences and cost-reduction needs. According to this great relevance, this paper aims to analyze more-in-depth the notion of Business Model (BM) and Business Model Innovation (BMI) and then to set the scene for understanding the state-of-the-art about the orientation, perceptions and adoption of innovative business models as lever that supports new entrepreneurship, performance improvement and sustainability by a sample of companies operating in specific technology-intensive industries. Design/methodology/approach – A review of the relevant literature – both at academic and practitioner level – has been carried on the notion of BM and BMI. Then, a case-study methodology has been adopted. Specifically, the analysis of three Italian spin-offs operating in the ICT industries let to draw some first information and insights about their orientation, elaboration and implementation about BM and BMI. Originality/value – This paper provides a new interpretive framework to identify the orientation and the managerial issues about BM and BMI of a specific sample of technology-intensive companies such as spin-offs operating in the ICT industries.

Purpose –The dilemma posed by March (1991) about the contradictions involved in exploration and exploitation learning gave rise to the emergence of the “Organizational Ambidexterity (OA)” concept as a metaphor to define those organizations which are able to develop exploitation and exploration learning at the same time. On the other hand, special attention has been paid from the human resource management (HRM) field to the link between high performance work systems (HPWSs) and performance. The main objectives of this research are: firstly, to determine whether the utilization of an HPWS exerts a positive influence on OA; secondly, to know the extent to which HPWSs and OA contribute to organizational performance; thirdly, to verify the potential mediating role played by OA on the HPWS-performance relationship. Design/methodology/approach –The theoretical model and the hypotheses proposed were tested using a sample of 100 Spanish hotels. A questionnaire pre-tested by academics and professional experts and sent online to the Human Resource Manager was used to collect information. The data analysis method used was that of Partial Least Squares (PLS). Originality/value – This paper represents a valuable contribution to the literature in several ways. Firstly, this research advances in the understanding the factors that stimulate the OA. It determines the extent to which HRM influences organizations to develop exploration and exploitation learning. This “micro” approach about the OA complements the current literature about this topic. Secondly, this paper provides empirical evidence on the relationship between OA and performance. And thirdly, our findings demonstrate that the relationship between HPWSs and performance is not direct. This relationship is mediated by OA. This conclusion can be a reference for further research in this area. Practical implications – The practical implications are the following. OA is a decisive element in generating competitive advantages. The ability of the firm to follow, at the same time, exploration and exploitation learning, has a positive effect on organizational performance. However, the managers must be aware that the use of an HPWS is a key antecedent factor in this process. Therefore, those organizations which articulate a complementary group of human resource management practices will improve the firm’s capacity to simultaneously carry out exploitation and exploration activities, essentially because they develop a suitable context which encourages workers to the learning exploitation, on the one hand and, furthermore, boosts the support of learning exploration. The managers should include the basic practices that configure an HPWS (i.e. comprehensive staffing; extensive training; development performance appraisal; and equitable reward systems).

Purpose – Open innovation (OI) literature suggests that firms can improve their innovation performance by learning from a large set of actors in the innovation process. However, although this premise, the extant literature has rather completely overlooked the ‘who’ question: which partners should be included in the different phases of the innovation funnel? How should they be selected? This paper, while focusing in the early phases of the innovation process, offers a list of possible criteria for partner evaluation and suggests a structured methodology for their selection. An empirical test of both the criteria and the methodology is presented with reference to a company operating in the Advanced Underwater Systems sector. Design/methodology/approach – In order to support a group of decision makers (DM) in the complex process of selecting partners at the beginning of OI process, we propose a peer-based modification of intuitionistic fuzzy (IF) multi-criteria group decision making with TOPSIS method (peer IF-TOPSIS). The combination of IF set theory with TOPSIS, IF-TOPSIS allows coping with subjectivity, imprecision, and vagueness in group decision-making problem under multiple criteria. Originality/value – This work contributes to the extant literature in different ways. Firstly, it is one of the first papers in the OI literature to focus on the ‘who’ issue, giving firms indications on how selecting the external partners. Secondly, this paper advances the criteria that could be used in the selection process, avoiding focusing on single specific aspects of the collaboration phase or on specific types of partners (suppliers). Lastly, while providing an example of empirical application in a real context, it extends the application of IF-TOPSIS to a challenging decision problem – never considered before in the decision making literature. Practical implications – This work provides firms which are in the early stages of OI processes with a set of criteria for selecting partners and a structured methodology supporting the decision process.

Purpose –Water scarcity is one of the main problems facing humankind, due to the population increase and the obsolescence of water distribution pipelines. Water services providers offer the defense that they are operating as efficiently as they can, given their specific circumstances, and that further increases in efficiency to reduce levels of leakage would require increased tariffs that are always politically unpopular. As a result, one of the main challenges for water supply managers is the definition of a sustainable plan to reduce water losses caused by leakage. The objective of this research is to support the decision makers in selecting a set of engineering solutions (e.g., leak detection and repairs and rehabilitation projects) to reduce leakage, namely a leakage plan or program, that takes into account the conflicting objectives of the actors involved, as well as the uncertainties characterizing these contexts. Design/methodology/approach – To accomplish with the research objective, an original approach is developed to determine a “sustainable plan of leakage reduction”. Starting from the concept of sustainability and its dimensions, it is able to combine different types of engineering solutions to reduce leakage (rehabilitation plan, pressure control, etc.), the conflicting objectives of the actors involved (water company and community), as well as the uncertainty-related factors that characterize these contexts (meteorological events, demand variability, etc.). Originality/value – This paper focuses on water supply system leakage, a high-profile topic worldwide due to the increasing international trend towards sustainability, economic efficiency and environmental protection. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it fills the existing gap in the literature on leakage management through the development of an innovative approach. It overcomes the limitation of the existing studies, by i) combining different types of engineering solutions to reduce leakage and not analysing just one type of intervention (e.g., rehabilitation versus pressure control activity), ii) considering the conflicting objectives of the actors involved (water company and community) and iii) including the uncertainty-related factors that characterize these contexts. Second, this paper develops an approach that will support the decision makers (practitioners) in selecting a “sustainable plan of leakage reduction”. Practical implications – The outcomes of the analysis is intended to provide some managerial implications that can be useful for water company managers that face with water resource management planning.