Digital technologies enable firms to streamline, accelerate, and automate the process of procurement, manufacturing, and distribution. Digital technologies allow seamless integration of upstream suppliers and downstream customers into the firm’s activities. As a result, a significant shift in supply chain practices and performance is experienced. Substantial research has been undertaken to measure digitalized supply chain performance and its effects on firms. This paper presents a systematic literature review on performance measurement for the digital supply chain to apprehend current practices, recognize gaps and advocate future research itineraries. We used the Balance Score Card (BSC) model to categorize 243 identified metrics into four BSC perspectives. Internal and financial perspectives received the most attention while “growth and learning” perspective received the least attention. External partners, such as distributors and suppliers, were virtually ignored in the identified literature.

This paper attempts to unravel the research works on challenges corporate universities are experiencing to date. Bibliometric method was used to analyses 21 journal articles on the challenges faced by new-age corporate university for the timeframe 2000-2018. These articles were selected from the Scopus database. For the timeframe 2000-2018 authors critically discuss the results on the lines of most influential authors, countries, institutions, overlay of research works. This study also provides co-word analysis to unearth the major challenges faced by new-age corporate university like Strategic integration of Technology in corporate university, Bottleneck in sustaining Innovation as a catalyst to the competitive advantage of corporate university, and Dysfunctional knowledge management of Corporate University. The findings of this study can help HRD managers to devise measures to address the challenges and provides new lines of inquiry for future research. This study makes a unique attempt to move ahead of the descriptive and procedural aspect of corporate university to critically discuss the challenges aspect.

In the last decades, the concept of cluster has gone through the vast conceptual development, resulting in its various definitions and categories – ‘cognitive clusters’, ‘learning clusters’, ‘creative clusters’, ‘working cluster’, ‘effective cluster’ (Capello & Nijkamp, 2019; Martin & Sunley, 2003; Lagnevic et al., 2004). Despite of their different approaches all above definitions share one common ‘relational’ context. Starting from the Porterian concept of ‘industry cluster’ as spatial networks of industries, which enjoy positive externalities from co-location and frequent interactions, to the more recent concept of a ‘working cluster’, where firms and other organizations maximize benefits from the synergetic effects coming from integration, cooperation, and competition (Porter 2008). Furthermore, Bochniarz-Faoro refer to ‘effective cluster’, which is characterized by the rich social networks that enables all participants to efficiently cooperate with one another (2016). Social networks have been also recognized as underlying factor for cluster development in other studies, including Phillips (2006), Ostergaard (2009). Nevertheless, the inherent complex configuration of every cluster, and its divergent patterns of evolution make it difficult to determine the mechanism of Social Capital formation and its impact on cluster growth. To identify this dependency a more case by case analysis maybe useful. The study aims to explore and evaluate the role of social capital in the evolution of a cluster, using the example of the life sciences industry. Social Capital is defined here as a capital that results from investments in building relations, institutions and networks that produce collaborative attitudes, shared values, mutual understanding and trust. The notion evolution refers here to gradual transition from an emerging cluster to a functioning and growing cluster during the growth phase of markets. More specifically, the study takes an example of five life sciences clusters – San Francisco Bay Area (US), Cambridge (UK), Copenhagen-Lund (Denmark/Sweden), Seattle (US) and Poland, to answer: How does notion of Social Capital and its different dimensions operate within clusters’ evolution? What is the contribution of Social Capital within different stages of clusters’ evolution? Does Social Capital and social networks can exert a distinct influence on the performance of different clusters? What types of social networks induce cluster related positive externalities?

In the recent decades, the digital revolution has transformed contemporary societies. New ways of carrying out work activities have spread across in organizations to respond to changes in the peoples’ behaviours and aspirations, who ask for a new way of organizing work, more flexible and results oriented and the effective use of new technologies. Starting from these premises, Smart Working has spread in organizations. This work model represents an opportunity to redesign work in public and private organizations given greater hourly and spatial flexibility, sustainability, effectiveness, and improvement of the organizational well-being of employees in the workplace and the sphere of private life. This paper aims to understand the perception that public managers have of smart working as a model of cultural and organizational change in public organizations in order to the following aspects: the redesign of the workplace, the redefinition of organizational processes, the consolidation of the trust-relationship between public management and public employees. In detail, a series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with Italian public managers of local administrations to understand how they manage ICT technologies as a tool to implement the Smart Working model. Furthermore, this paper aims to contribute to the recent debate on Smart Working in the public sector.

This paper investigates how board members perceive the reliability of Big Data (BD) as a new source of information for their decision making. To understand the dilemma “real time and effective vs reliable and compliant information”, we analyse a real case, addressing this problem to reflect on the decision making of a board of directors. In detail, within the context of a digital bank, we explore how the board assessed the quality of BD, gathered from social media and processed in the form of indicators, to define worthwhile measures for monitoring the bank reputational risk. Our data reveal interesting findings in two areas. First, there is evidence of a shortfall in cognitive capabilities concerning BD. Second, we show how BD impacts responsibility/control within the board context. This study points to areas for development at three levels of our analysis: individual directors’ cognitive capabilities in relation to BD, the board as a collective intelligent decision maker and at the organisational level, supporting a broader view of the big data flows in and out the firm’s boundaries.

Currently, a range of industries is undergoing a major competitive shift away from unsustainable, energy and resource intensive high-tech to more resource efficient greentech products as a source of competitive advantage. This sustainability turn (although still sluggish in the automobile sector) will force the whole value chain, including small and medium sized suppliers, to diversify as the manufacturing of electric cars will need much less capacity and labour than the production of the combustion engine did and parts can increasingly be printed on demand using 3D printers. At the same time, this shift is characterized by inconsistencies that render this endeavour a particularly difficult one. Wind turbine and electric car manufacturers (considered the core sustainability transition industries), for instance, rely heavily on rare earth elements (Chen and Zheng, 2019) although these elements are at the same time highly risky ecologically due to the extraction of radioactive byproducts, emissions and high energy usage (Pell et al 2019). Therefore, the global sourcing of these sustainability transition industries (Markard, et al. 2012) is highly unsustainable. Although materials are central to the transition to more sustainable economies, the circularity implications of materials are currently often omitted from the discussion especially as regards design (Peck 2012). Complex materials (Fraunhofer Materials 2016) like plastics compounds used in a wide range of products from automobile parts to multi-layer packages pose particularly severe problems at the end of the use phase of products though. A higher sustainability level at the beginning of the value chain is therefore offset by a lower sustainability level at the end (due to highly complex waste streams) – hampering prolonged product usage and Recycling. Here is where an important role accrues to digitization and standardization in the transformation to sustainable value chains. The paper analyzes the sketched role of digitization and standardization on the materials/technology level and makes reference to the approach of technological innovation systems (Malhotra et al., 2019, Markard et al. 2012). On a practical level, materials recovered from end-of-life vehicles and post-consumer plastics waste serve as illustrative examples. Based on this, preliminary management implications (derived from the conceptual analysis and to be complemented by an empirical analysis in the mentioned sectors) are formulated for knowledge-based sustainable value chains in traditional industries „going circular”.

Knowledge and innovation are the main strategic keys for creation of new sustainable value of organizations (Dankbaar, 2003; Hayter, 2016). In according to Pacheco et al. (2014), the introduction of new knowledge is a driver for smart and sustainable growth in economic sector. The main producers and disseminators of new knowledge are Universities and Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). Moreover, the university is opening up towards the entrepreneurial system. The main effect of this strategic orientation of University is the creation of collaborative ecosystems oriented to Knowledge Transfer (KT). This collaborative ecosystem opens reflections, for management and organization studies scholars, on the process of knowledge transfer between universities and firms. In effect, the introduction of new knowledge in traditional sectors, such as agri-business, shows more effects and are more problematic than other sectors. Agri-food organizations are based on consolidated managerial (and knowledge) practices and a low propensity for innovation. The Agri-food sector requires new practices that increase the competitiveness of firms. In particular, a growing area of research is focusing on the study of the academic knowledge transfer process and on the Key Organizational Factors (KOFs) that influence the KT process. For this reason, the present study intends to analyse the KT mechanisms (with particular focus on academic spin-offs) and KFOs with the aim of understanding the dynamics ecosystem for sustainable value in wine sector. This study is based on an exploratory and descriptive study. In particular, the first objective of this research is to understand the main theories on knowledge transfer phenomenon between university and agri-business firms. In this phase, we analysed some scientific databases (Scopus, Science Direct and Google Scholar). The second phase uses the interview method as a data collection tool on a sample of companies in the agri-food cluster. The study offers a mapping of main theoretical framework on Academic Knowledge Transfer in agri-business. Furthermore, it provides reflections on knowledge transfer mechanisms between universities in the agri-business sector. The results of this research offer an overview regarding main theories of knowledge transfer and effects of the third mission in agri-food sector. The study can help universities to manage KT’s mechanisms more effectively with the aim of generating new business organizations

Seems that many organizational needs are to be matched with a simple solution of digitalizing the operation or a part of it in order to support and to develop it. The information technology (IT) -related skills and capabilities are different in different organizations and the level of know how varies similarly. In practice this interprets to the operation needing support to realization of the intended digitalization measures, basically in every case. We present two cases of digitalization. One, in which a smart city initiative was introduced and implemented to a city in Finland, large in its context and another in which a web-based open source service was implemented for municipalities and companies that enables digital application of construction permits and other permits related to infrastructure. The cases show that the quite technical-sounding issues require simultaneous human aspect to be taken into account. The support needed covers the technological aspect, but it is advisable not to forget the human side either. The organizations offer various kinds of measures to match the needs of their employees, but the ability to take on the support needed and presumptions to assess the need for this are different resulting in various amount of support offered, needed, expected, and accepted.

A conceptual model focuses on the supply chain finance (SCF) built on Blockchain technology (BTC). The model, derived from the advantages of BTC, i.e., transparency, security, immucable, is assumed to construct information sharing among supply chain members to optimize the financial transactions across boarders, different currencies. Some use cases of BTC were illustrated by the definition of disruption innovation. The optimized decision of SCF can be drawn upon learned price discounts that are beneficial to supply and buyer sides.

The technological revolution and the intense use of digital devices have allowed people to generate huge amounts of much heterogeneous data, called Big Data. Especially in the tourism field, Big Data has continuously been exploited for the management of Tourism Destinations and marketing strategies. In particular, the generation of that subset of Big Data, called Big Social Data, through the voluntary sharing of personal information and content generation on various online social networks, has created several opportunities for useful analysis for many tourism stakeholders, such as Destination Management Organizations (DMO), which can exploit strategic tools based on Big Social Data and analytics, for data-driven decisions with a growing emphasis on how generated insights are increasingly valuable when they come to anticipate visitor behaviour and shaping communication strategies. This paper aims at describing the comprehensive valuable insights into tourists’ behaviour through the analysis of Big Social Data. Data considered in this work consists of large dataset from Flickr online social network and Twitter micro-blog. A Big Data Analytics framework, that implements multiple tasks such as topic extraction, geographical data clustering, time series modelling techniques, sentiment analysis and image analysis, is presented and it constitutes the innovative contribution of this work. Results show that the generated insights could allow DMO to use new knowledge about unknown clusters of Point Of Interests discovery, trend and seasonal patterns of tourist demand identification, e-WOM monitoring, attractive places identification that, in turn, will allow the DMO to address its needs in terms of decision support for the management and development of the destination, the enhancement of destination attractiveness, the shaping of new marketing and communication strategies, and the planning of tourist demand within the destination. The approach described in this paper is adopted in the NEST (NEtworking for Smart Tourism development, INTERREG-IPA CBC Italia-Albania-Montenegro) project which aims at enabling a cross-border cooperation between Albania, Italy and Montenegro, in order to create a common branding of the Adriatic-Ionian area as a smart tourism destination at a macro regional level and to develop common tourist routes and products.

Social media and its analogous applications allow millions of users to express and spread their opinions about a topic and show their attitudes by liking or disliking content. The amount of data accumulating on social media is known as Big Social Data which can be analysed to provide valuable insight in many application contexts. Measuring public opinion during events like elections is one of the most promising BSD applications either for predicting results or analysing online debate during electoral campaigns. In this paper, the analysis of political debate on social media during the 2020 regional election in Emilia Romagna (Italy) is presented. Candidates’ programs have been analysed in order to extract topics within the official action plans. Leveraging Big Social Data, the interactions of Italian citizens on Twitter candidates’ pages have been monitored and analysed, in order to understand how action plans within candidates’ programs has been perceived by citizens through the lens of social media; which are the most relevant topics emerged from online debate in the social networks; which is the sentiment emerged in the overall debate; how the online debate have polarized on emerged topics and how certain communities of users have contributed to the information diffusion. Results have shown a mismatch between the action plans in the candidates programs and the topics emerged online debate, along with a unidirectional communication approach followed by the three candidates that has resulted in the polarization of the debate on some of the topics emerged during the campaign.

This research paper explores the legal and ethical aspects of the digital technologies that offer opportunities for growth of the Intellectual Capital (IC). At the same time, the possible negative impacts are outlined, while it is argued that business ethics should be prioritized.

In the modern world, most of the trade between countries is carried out within Global Value Chains (GVCs), which have become a strong driver of global economic growth. Also, not all countries are sufficiently penetrated into these chains and can benefit from integration in there. Most developing economies and former communist countries not only suffer from the lack of strategy framework of including local intermediate products in GVC, but didn’t have developed country’s research on this topic. Our research will fill in the gap for the Republic of Moldova. We paid special attention to the exploitation of the potential of Foreign Trade Agreement (FTA) between the Republic of Moldova and EU and elaboration on the adequate economic mechanisms for this scope. We explore the measure of engagement of RM in external fragmentation of trade, using the wide range of WEB simulation tools of International institutes. The study showed that backward participation is the predominant type of engagement of the Republic of Moldova in the external fragmentation of production. It also revealed that the list of products engaged in external fragmentation of the country is highly concentrated as well as their markets. Articles of apparel, accessories are the main product of external fragmentation of production, provided in the customs regime of inward processing. Our research found that Moldova did not make enough use of the benefits of FTA between RM and EU to deepen the penetration of products into the value chains of European space, being represented in their low-medal and low-income nets. The results of the study can be used in the process of implementation of FTA with the EU by decision makers and the private sector.

Research, technological development and innovative activity are currently one of the most important factors influencing the competitiveness of both the economy and the individual regions. The accumulation of know-how, knowledge acquired from experience (learning by doing) and the results of diffusion of knowledge (spill over effects) related to the development of technology; allow the existence of self-sustaining self-sustained endogenous growth for the regions. The main objective of the work is to focus on examining the role of innovative activity and in particular the role of the results of research and technology policies in relation to the assistance of regional development. It will examine the role of the use of research and technological development policies in the less developed regions with a view to creating proposals for the development of procedures that will allow the gap with the most developed regions to be reduced. More specifically, work will analyse the supply of technology at regional level, examine current research, technology and innovation programs supporting technological infrastructure and research and technological activity in regional level, will analyse the region’s environment that supports and facilitates innovative activity, including the financial system, industry, research canters and other technological Infrastructure, will examine and analyse the needs of the productive sector, the role of the markets at regional level in the selection of appropriate technologies and will examine the needs in technology of small and medium-sized enterprises at regional level, will make analysis of the gap between the demand for technology from businesses and consumers and the supply of technology from the state infrastructure and from businesses, will analyse the needs for technological development and finally will examine the relationship between technology and employment at regional level. Businesses face significant problems in developing their technological and innovative activities. They speak of a lack of communications and communications infrastructure, problems of financing and cooperation between universities and production, and the absence of an effective and decentralized organisation of public administration and policy. The lack of a basic technological infrastructure leads to technological and economic underdevelopment of the region and thus to an increase in regional disparities. A general conclusion is that all successful innovative companies worldwide were forced to compete with other companies in the domestic and international market. In most cases, because the domestic market is not great, if companies do not compete in the international market, they cease to be competitive.

Higher Education Institutions nowadays are getting attention for their special role in attracting students to the market needs for education skills and knowledge, and serving to business for their needs. More than creating centers within them, or just trying to put students forward to the business models, their role must be evaluative and challenges. Research in entrepreneurial education is a young field that is still in need of legitimation in terms of theoretical, conceptual and methodological foundations In this paper some theoretical aspects regard to differences between traditional and entrepreneurial HEI, the concept of Entrepreneurial HEI and entrepreneurial education, and are given some insight that how universities can itself evaluate their proper dimensions towards entrepreneurial education, and some strategies that how they can sustain not only business but even the student, serving meanwhile to the whole educational market for more knowledge and skills. The aim of this study is to take better insight in entrepreneurial universities and challenges that face Universities of Albania to take this orientation considering the emergence of entrepreneurship education in higher education as a research field. Main conclusions and recommends, with objective of going toward entrepreneurial education, underline the fact that universities must apply not only administrative tools to adapt their strategies to business (and other stakeholders), but need to have a new challenges approach in entrepreneurial education which is quite different from those that attend traditional or administrative approach. This means that with the aim of being of an entrepreneurial university, an HEI need to include in its philosophy the following elements/dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing which will allow to path of EE: Innovation, consumer intention, risk taking, opportunity driven, proactivity, value proposition, resource leveraging. Also, universities should position themselves not only between among competitors but even to other stakeholders as: students, businesses, community, parents, investitors, etc.; so some entrepreneurial positioning strategies need to be followed and developed by HEI in order to get more entrepreneurial.

Promoting social innovation and fostering social entrepreneurship help drive value creation processes within communities opening up to new opportunities to develop sustainable social and economic growth. Rethinking the role social innovation and entrepreneurship act within social-driven economies and societies helps to understand the drivers of shared and social value production within communities. Cities are moving into the future in order to drive and design a sustainable, inclusive and healthy urban growth over time. Cities are drivers of social growth and can support social entrepreneurship that benefits urban planning and environments. Urban social innovation practices and strategies contribute to driving urban growth and development. Urban communities emerge as contexts where social innovation and entrepreneurship contribute to promoting shared social value creation within cities and urban communities.

More and more innovative technologies and business plans are formed at interfaces of highly divergent disciplines as a result of an increasing demand for specialized solutions combining different sectors and competence fields. This market driven evolution requires new cross-connections between regional industry clusters that had no, or only a few connections before. But especially in Europe the cluster landscapes have grown very path-dependent and cluster managers still follow traditional concepts. The paper introduces strategies and tools that were designed and proofed within the two-year-project “Cross Cluster Cooperation C3-Saxony” (Germany) co-funded by EU (2014-2015) and also in follow-up sessions rethinking regional industry clusters and their management. The paper describes novel approaches for cross-cluster strategies using three different views on clusters: a) “Cluster Landscape” describing the different clusters in one region, b) “Cluster Network” standing for all organisations in one cluster, and c) “Cluster Management” being responsible for the performance of one cluster. Up to now, cross-clustering processes are only described from the organisational perspective of companies or research institutions initiating cross-sectoral projects, or from a systemic point of view focusing cluster landscapes. The paper brings the discussion to the core of cluster development – the cluster management – and introduces novel approaches as well as guiding principles to trigger and increase cross-cluster performances. The described strategies and tools help ministries and cluster managers to classify current cluster performances and deduce measurements to re-orientate in gridlocked economic situations.

Business and entrepreneurial education encompasses a number of methodologies used to provide students with basic and advanced skills concerning the processes of decision making, management, business start-up, operational procedures and others. According to the challenges and the characteristics of the new economic and social scenarios – also determined by the effects of the COVID-19 – business and entrepreneurial education is asked to be reinvented in a continuous innovation perspective. The centrality of the digital transformation and of the information and technology-driven innovation suggests to identify and analyze new conceivable learning patterns that stimulate mindsets and capabilities of the students. (Vanhuele, 2019). Digital technologies have already changed the learning experiences; communication and access to information are the fields where most of the transformations have occurred. Excellent educational contents are often freely available, information about any different topic are easily accessible and the communication is effortless. The lecturers can experiment innovative forms of pedagogy, deciding to implement and use, in an effective way, digital tools inside the classroom, to support students’ learning. (Meriaux, 2019) In order to verify the effects of the 4.0 technologies and exploit their potential for the learning patterns, there is the need to make some strategic decisions capable to align pedagogical objectives with the use of innovative tools. A good management of the educational experience starts with the understanding of solutions and tools that can give a real value added to a business course, and what are the best ways to implement them. Educators are always more willing to share teaching materials, create online activities or assignments, deliver small online courses, interact with live-polling, telepresence robots, video, podcast and so on. These tools, if used in an effective way, can create engagement and increase students’ attention. Concerning the entrepreneurial and business education, beyond the already mentioned technologies, many specific trends are arising that combine new technologies with new ways of teaching and learning. Among the most diffused ones there are: flipped classrooms, immersive and augmented reality, business games and blended labs. (Arvind Mallik, 2018; Finch, 2018). Despite this relevance, there are still limited contributions related to the analysis and the assessment of the effectiveness of the virtual learning spaces for the business and entrepreneurial education. In order to contribute to fill these gaps, this paper aims to analyse the background, the state of art and the level of implementation of the digital contents and technologies in business and entrepreneurial education, trying to identify strategic patterns, potential of the ICTs, enabling and hampering conditions and implications both for theory and management, with a particular focus on the possibilities of adoption by small and medium universities. The first phase of this research will be carried out by reviewing the existing literature – in terms of contents, experiences, cases, practices – in order to gain a complete picture and the state of art of the virtual learning spaces for the business and entrepreneurial education at a national and international level. On the base of the main insights of the first phase, the second phase will be aimed to identify and delineate a set of implications and suggestions for the successful implementation of the virtual learning spaces for the business and entrepreneurial education in medium and small universities. The main value of this study is the identification and the critical analysis of contents and practices related to the elaboration and the implementation of the virtual learning spaces as well as of the modalities that detemine a better understanding of the conditions grounding the success or the failure of the business and entrepreneurial education courses and experiences. The results consist in the identification of a set of characteristics and conditions for each of the innovative methodologies, in order to decide to frame and follow the patterns of the technological innovation to enhance the business and entrepreneurial learning experiences. The analysis and the set of implications deriving from the study could be useful to many actors as, for example, lectures, universities, educational institutions, consultants, companies and public administration offices to inspire and drive them in following projects and initiatives capable to stimulate and support virtuous cycles of learning and innovation.