The COVID-19 global pandemic has broken healthcare systems globally and locally in this on-going uncertain time. In that instance, the European Union (EU) was not an exception. The main aim of this study is to highlight the contemporary challenges faced by the pharmaceutical industry in the European Union region (EU). Importantly, this topic is emerging but under-researched in the existing literature. For this reason, this study attempts to bridge the research gap by examining the issues. Methodologically, this study employed a systematic literature review method to generate new knowledge. Our study conducted data analysis with Microsoft Excel software. This study analysed 27 published studies from Web of Science, Scopus, and indexed journals from the top reputed Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS). Our study highlighted the complexity of EU pharmaceutical industry through the systematic literature review method. The systematic review revealed that the vulnerability of EU pharmaceutical industry, such as default patent system, ineffective research and development (R&D), debate on the role of alliances, low level of expertise in EU health care system and pharmaceutical supply chain management.

Hospital providers are facing unprecedented challenges such as ambitious sustainability targets while remaining resilient to adverse events, e.g. COVID-19. However, instead of leveraging the collective knowledge of all UK National Health Service (NHS) hospital providers, Hospital Estates and Facilities Management (HEFM) departments have to resort to using their own resources to find guidance and innovative solutions to their safety-critical infrastructure issues. This exploratory study draws upon academic studies from four domains: the institutional complexity of public healthcare systems, facilities management (FM), the ability to effectively manage change and inter-organisational knowledge sharing (KS). Various studies have stressed the lack of effective KS among NHS HEFM departments. However, so far, research studies exploring KS barriers and channels have either focused on KS among clinical disciplines or on FM organisations unaffected by the complexity of healthcare systems. Therefore, this paper develops a theoretical framework illustrating the underlying concepts and addresses the following question: What KS barriers and channels exist among NHS HEFM departments? Due to the complexity of the UK healthcare system, a complete understanding of the environment is needed before being able to understand the system itself. A systems approach is adopted, utilising mixed methods to study the dysfunctions of the existing system by understanding the interactions on multiple levels and identifying barriers to KS. The research incorporates a thorough review and analysis of the literature and 12 exploratory qualitative interviews with healthcare stakeholders and academic experts. The findings uncover a multitude of barriers throughout the KS process. Continuous structural reorganisations of the NHS, silo-thinking, inter-hospital competition, a lack of investment in professional development and additional complexities due to different ownership and service outsourcing models create a challenging environment for effective inter-organisational KS. Regarding KS channels, the NHS is still lacking a holistic strategy through which different types of documented and undocumented knowledge can be shared.

Should managers be more trained in the topic of diversity? Must they develop specific skills and competences? Which strengths and weaknesses regarding diversity management do managers have? A qualitative investigation tried to answer these questions. Around 70 interviews with managers and employees of large DAX companies were conducted. It could be shown that there are tensions between self-perception and perception of others and the assessment of the significance of diversity attitudes and measures, competences, and their actual implementation. These findings suggest that there is the need to train competences, in particular intercultural competence.

Insights into emergence and influence of cultural diversity are becoming more important, due to an ongoing upward trend towards diversified societies. Yet, there is little scientific evidence on the specific attitudes of managers regarding cultural diversity, especially for technical and scientific professions. The present qualitative study examined the experiences, social influences, and competencies of managers in the STEM sector, which are important for managing cultural diversity. The results show that only a few of the respondents were aware of the opportunities and risks of cultural diversity and the specific challenges for people with a migration background. Furthermore, the respondents´ own experiences and sensitivity, their own identification with the company and previous diversity measures in the context of the companies ‘position seemed to be relevant for the formation of attitudes. The respondents also stated a lack of interpersonal and intercultural competencies among junior managers, which should be addressed by both companies and educational institutions.

Advancing globalization processes, including the internationalization of labour markets, supply chains and consumer markets as well as migration movements, lead to a rise in cultural diversity within many societies. As a result, intercultural competence is becoming increasingly relevant. The central interest of this study was to identify facets of intercultural competence and to determine the breadth of situations in which intercultural competence is perceived as necessary. For the analysis on which this paper is based, 61 structured interviews were conducted. Results show that perceived facets of the content of intercultural competence could be categorized into (1.) relational level characteristics such as freedom from prejudice and empathy, (2.) attitudinal stances such as respect and acceptance, and (3.) skills such as flexibility and foreign language proficiency. With regards to specific situations in which intercultural competence is relevant, both stays abroad and everyday situations in one’s own society were found, while the focus of participants was on stays abroad. The study provides important heuristic indications for the development of intercultural competence construct and indicates that future research should further explore possibilities for promoting competence in everyday life.

Global dynamics is a pervasive phenomenon, influencing continuously national socio economic systems and, in emergent cases, affecting directly even individuals. There are numerous scientific theories and frameworks, mostly identifying the unequal distribution and limited renewability of resources as the primary drivers of global dynamics. To minimize their undesirable consequences, considerable effort is spent on joint harmonization of international strategic and policies of single countries. This can hardly happen without innovative decision-support tools, breaking the originally intractable complexity into a set of well-structured, explainable, and straightforwardly applicable subproblems. The main goal of this research was to simplify, systemize and structure the influences of global dynamics on single countries and help them to formulate viable strategies with respect to global changes. Rather than a detailed methodology, this paper proposes and with real-world examples justifies a reusable conceptual framework, based on qualitatively represented expert knowledge, specified with quantitative outputs from data mining, applied on selected national indexes. In the design phase, a two-stage qualitative model of global dynamics was developed, validated, and functionally demonstrated. It merges traditional knowledge-based modelling of sustainable world with data-driven identification of the national-specific development drivers, complemented with global indicators, concerning the planet and humanity. The data-related level is built from the coherently selected global indexes, processed with different machine-learning tasks. Subsequent high-level qualitative model is expressed in the form of Causal loop diagram, extending the expert and domain knowledge with significant national-specific variables and relations, found in data. The proposed way of individualized modelling of national strategies with respect to evolving global dynamics can facilitate policy-making processes on the governmental level. Its flexible and multilevel structure allows identification of a minimal set of key parameters, guaranteeing efficient and robust planning of country future. Application possibilities of such layered framework are presented for case of Germany.

Despite the growing interest in the field of IC, there is still a lack of evidence and literature on the importance of IC in companies’ turnarounds, an issue that is even more pressing due to Covid-19. The pandemic is impacting corporates’ performances all over the world and most of them will face turnaround processes after the end of the emergency. In this scenario, our paper aims to study the positive role of intellectual capital on overcoming economic-financial distress. More particularly, assuming that IC – represented by corporate governance’ professional background, skills, knowledge, internal and external relationships – is one of the firm’s key factor and that, through the turnover of corporate governance, new knowledge and organizational capital is introduced, we presume that IC helps the competitiveness and thus the positive conclusion of the recovery plan. In order to demonstrate that some changes in the corporate governance could reconfigure the IC, increasing the chances to carry out a successful turnaround, we considered four case studies of Italian companies that have positively overcome a crisis. The analysis showed that the intellectual capital of corporate governance influences the success of the turnaround processes. Even though further investigations are essential to fully understand the role of IC in the treatment of a crisis, our results suggest that it is possible to view IC as a lever for overcoming economic-financial distress and, particularly, that the renewal of corporate governance positively influences the turnaround outcome.

The aim of the paper is to investigate about the way the economic environment crisis, and particularly the Covid-19 emergency, affects the business valuation drivers, as well as to identify the adjustments requested to esteem a reliable value of a business, that reflects the market conditions. Covid-19 has not only caused a health emergency, but also a real economic crisis, whose effects are destined to last for many years and whose recovery, following the most recent events, seems to take the shape of a “W”. Specifically, the measures adopted to contain its propagation have seriously damaged companies all over the world, interrupting, even for a limited period, production and sales, with strong consequences in terms of lack of liquidity, worsening of financial structure and, definitely, greater risk of insolvency. However, not all companies have been affected in the same way. As with any financial crisis, the impact proves to be different depending on the industry the company operates in, as well as its characteristics. The main research questions, therefore, are: “Are business valuation methods able to capture the impact of the crisis on companies? How is this impact reflected on corporate value? Are there sectors that have not been affected by the crisis or that have even benefited from it?”. To answer the research questions, we set a data sample of the top five companies, on a global scale, by market capitalization, with reference to two industries, air transport and telecommunications, and we observed the trend of their share prices. We found that although there is a decline for both sectors during the worst period of the pandemic (March-April 2020), over a longer time horizon (January 2019 to November 2020) these industries show opposite trends. In particular, while the telecommunications sector shows an overall positive trend, the air transport one presents a negative trend, with the latest observations being at a significantly lower level than the average level recorded over the reference period.

This paper aims to identify and analyze the main areas on which scholars have focused in relation to crowdfunding (CF) and their contribution to the uncertain period. In particular, this review analyzes the role of this financial instrument during the Covid-19 emergency. The analysis was conducted through a systematic literature review (SLR) of 235 research contributions (articles, book chapters and books). An analysis of the content was performed to identify the main discussed topics, the main applied methodologies and the origins of contributions. The findings show how the crowdfunding topic has been discussed in the literature, focusing specifically on crisis periods. The Covid-19’s section, underlines the crowdfunding as a key instrument to overcome the crisis and to reach the organization’s sustainability. The present study contributes to the literature on alternative finance stream, confirming the positive effect of crowdfunding to overcome unforeseen periods. Limitations of the work concern the novelty of the theme and the few contributions produced. The effective contribution of crowdfunding during the coronavirus emergency could be definitively verified when the pandemic ends Future line of the work concerns the empirical studies aimed at analyzing the topics of intangible resources and organizations’ sustainability in the crowdfunding and crisis context.

Knowledge generation in healthcare has accelerated in the past years due to the abundance of data captured and information produced. The main reason being the evolvement of the health system into a connected care model which is supported by the advances in medical and other technologies. This accelerated innovation brought more risks related to managing knowledge assets and flows. Extant research suggests that the fields of knowledge risks (KR) and knowledge risk management (KRM) in health has not received adequate attention yet. This paper aims at developing a KRM framework for healthcare organizations. This framework profiles relevant KR found in healthcare and proposes control measures to mitigate them. It also maps responsible units and personnel for implementing the proposed control measures. The development of the framework builds on recent work by the authors, who developed a knowledge risks (KR) taxonomy for healthcare organizations. This paper provides a basic KRM framework within the healthcare context, which is the first of its kind. This paper hopes to further promote discourse in KRM literature and raise the awareness and understanding of KRM practices among healthcare researchers and practitioners. Additionally, the proposed framework can have practical implications when applied in healthcare organizations for improving the overall quality of care, efficiency savings and promoting sustainability of health organizations.

How do people’s beliefs on the likely system-level consequences of circulating a certain piece of knowledge influence those people’s knowledge behaviors? To address this question, we leverage the most recent developments of the theory of the commons as learning systems. According to this theory, people are strongly responsive to perceived threats to the commons they (may) benefit from, and strive to learn and respond accordingly. Through this theoretical lens, we analyze thick qualitative data (January-April 2020) from the Covid-19 crisis, which resulted in unprecedented visibility of commons-related knowledge behaviors. The contribution of this inductive study is fourfold. First, we identify a new emerging taxonomy of knowledge behaviors, including knowledge unleashing and knowledge curbing behaviors. Second, we identify a new emerging taxonomy of commons-related postures, that is, specific cognitive and behavioral attitudes that an individual may display about a certain commons. Third, we identify interesting emerging regularities in the relationships between specific commons-related postures and specific knowledge behaviors. Fourth, we show that the empirical data, analyzed in the light of the theory of the commons, strongly suggest disentangling knowledge behaviors from their consequences: for example, knowledge withholding proved far from being “intrinsically” counter-productive. We argue that these results open up promising research paths and opportunities for new knowledge management approaches in a wide range of organized and self-organizing contexts, such as innovation ecosystems, sustainability transitions, open innovation, or crisis management.

This paper is aimed at analyzing the consumers’ perception toward products from Industrial Symbiosis (IS) processes (hereafter mentioned as “IS products”), as well as their purchase intention and willingness to pay a premium price for them. IS is one of the key strategies supporting the transition towards the circular economy: accordingly, wastes produced by a company can be used as production inputs by other companies or be exploited to produce new products. Specifically, this paper investigates the consumers’ perception of two IS products: (1) electronic products, whose shell is made by industrial plastic wastes, and (2) electronic products, whose battery contains substances extracted by wood wastes. A survey was conducted on 1.224 Italian consumers, aimed at assessing risks and benefits perceived by them, related to the above-mentioned IS products. Results show that consumers do not perceive IS products as risky; alternatively, they perceive several benefits in terms of the quality and functionality of these products. Furthermore, consumers are aware that IS products can contribute to preserving the natural environment. Finally, most consumers declare a purchase intention of the investigated IS products and are willing to pay a premium price for them. The results of this paper highlight that potential markets for IS products currently exist and suggest companies to include IS products into their product portfolio.

COVID-19 has shown how fragile our societies and economies are. Supply chains have particularly been affected. We all had to learn again that the basic supply of some goods is not as crisis-proof as we thought. Moreover, the strong division of labour and the concentration on a few companies in certain areas present considerable weaknesses in case of a new external crisis such as COVID-19; a crisis that is dynamic and whose end is not yet in sight. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been affected by the current pandemic, particularly as they are highly sensitive to external threats. Using data that was collected between December 2020 and January 2021 through semi-structured interviews conducted with owners and/or managers of SMEs located in six different European countries, the paper aims to provide fresh perspectives about how SMEs address supply chain risk management in times of an external and dynamic crisis.

This conceptual paper aims to identify, present, and analyse potential knowledge risks organizations face in external and dynamic crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Until only recently, many researchers and practitioners have perceived knowledge primarily as something positive. This view has changed recently with a growing number of studies highlighting risks related to knowledge. The on-going COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as an additional triggering point which has brought several new knowledge risks. Research on knowledge risks, their consequences and potential ways of handling them is still only in its beginning and consequently rather fragmented. To address this situation, this paper is aimed to provide some theoretical insights into knowledge risks and their possible implications organizations are exposed to in an external and dynamic crisis such as the COVID-19 crisis. To reach this aim, this paper presents a continuation of the research by Durst and Zieba from 2018 related to knowledge risks and their potential outcomes. This present study reviewed the up-dated literature on knowledge risks and uses the taxonomy proposed in the paper by Durst and Zieba to identify and analyse knowledge risks organizations are exposed to in the COVID-19 pandemics. Hence, the paper does not only offer fresh food for thought for researchers dealing with the topic of knowledge risks in the COVID-19 crisis and ways of handling them, it also expands the knowledge risks taxonomy proposed by Durst and Zieba; thereby showing both the taxonomy’s dynamic character and usefulness.

During COVID-19, it has been common practice for governments to suspend non-essential business activity as a precautionary measure temporarily. As a result, economic activity has slowed in some parts of the world, and businesses in the economic sector are not operating at their maximum capacity. Regularly maintaining the current knowledge management database and methodologies is essential to improving one’s ability to handle information and knowledge. In this sense, the bibliometric analysis as a suitable quantitative method in knowledge management can be combined with big data and symbolic data analysis relevant insights. Bibliometric analysis may also analyze semantic cores, revealing other intriguing correlations between the most frequently cited terms in the considered literature and their network location. These strategic responses take various approaches, for example, for family businesses, such as perseverance during the crisis and a short-run strategy based on an adjustment of the business model. The study shows the importance of collaboration and coordination between the various national and international authorities to share pertinent information relevant to disaster mitigation.

Since the beginning of 2020, the world has been hit by the SARS CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19. To hamper its spread, policy makers of many countries have put in place strong countermeasures, including lockdowns, that have led to significant changes in people’s lifestyles and daily routines. The literature highlights that the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted several behavioural aspects. Despite the research on the changes in consumer behaviour due to the Covid-19 pandemic has been rapidly increasing, the study of this phenomenon remains an urgent issue to deepen. Further, the literature on the topic suggests the need to investigate from multiple perspectives the impact of Covid-19 on sustainability. In this context, this paper aims at assessing the changes in green consumer behaviour in Italy caused by Covid-19. A survey was conducted on 1.535 Italian consumers between December 2020 and January 2021. Respondents have been asked to assess the extent to which their consumption behaviour related to several categories of products (eco-sustainable, organic, fair-trade, locally produced, made in Italy, sold by neighbourhood stores) has changed due to the pandemic, as well as the extent to which the pandemic has impacted on many other aspects, including their environmental awareness and purchase behaviors. The results show higher levels of consumption of eco-sustainable, organic, and fair-trade products, as well as of goods sold by neighbourhood stores, produced locally and made in Italy. For these product categories, it is also reported an increase in the consumers’ sense of moral duty to purchase and in the willingness to pay a premium price. Further, results show that consumers are more aware of the extent to which their consumption behaviour can have economic, social, and environmental impacts. Consumers have also changed their purchasing habits. Further, this study’s findings reveal that the extent of change is strongly affected by socio-demographic variables, such as gender, age, income, and education. Changes reported in green consumer behaviour suggest implications on multiple levels. These are of great importance to guide marketers to respond promptly and effectively to the new challenges and to guide scholars to extend knowledge on this topic.

Food waste is a global problem, affecting all areas of sustainability, that has already triggered various calls for actions via research, public, societal and private initiatives. The goal of this research was to analyse the impact of on-package food waste treatment claims on the consumer attitude and behavioural intentions toward the presented food company. A positive correlation between the communication of food waste measures and consumer attitude and behavioural intentions can motivate further activities against food waste. A digital survey was structured and conducted with an online survey tool in order to measure the major constructs, regarding the attitude towards the company, the purchase intention, and the willingness to pay premiums. All participants were first randomly presented a fictitious food product with a description about a food waste treatment claim and afterwards they completed the questionnaire. The answers of 256 participants have been analysed. Food waste treatment claims were found to have a significant influence on the attitude towards the fictitious company in three out of four cases. The influence on the purchase intention was only measured to be significant in one case. On the contrary, we found a significant influence on the willingness to pay premiums for the products in all experimental conditions. The results of this research demonstrated that descriptions, including the topic of food waste, can have a positive impact on consumers attitude and behavioural intentions. This offers empirical evidence that consumers see an additional benefit in buying products from companies that proactively engage in actions against food waste. Additionally, the coherence of sustainability strategies of companies was pointed out as a key element in creating competitive advantages.

The concept of circular economy has recently gained prominence in the management research and the adoption of circular economy principles in companies has highlighted peculiar managerial practices that can be implemented in their business models. Existing research still falls short to describe in sufficient detail the enablers of these practices for a circular business model design. This issue is particularly interesting in the agri-food sector, and especially in rural areas, characterized by enormous sustainability challenges, including food production and waste, food packaging, transportation, consumer habits and behavior. The paper takes stock of this gap through the analysis of the enablers of managerial practices in a company that has designed its own circular business model and operating in the agri-food sector of a rural area. The case reveals interesting evidence in terms of relationships between enablers, managerial practices, and circular economy outcomes.

This paper addresses the topic of alternative financing for the cultural heritage sector, investigating equity crowdfunding as a potential means to increase financial resilience. Indeed, the allocation of funds to the cultural heritage sector has progressively decreased over the last fifteen years, making traditional financial models for cultural heritage no longer maintainable especially in times of crisis and economic downturn (Jelinčić and Šveb, 2021). As a result, both academics and practitioners have called for a higher degree of differentiation of sources of funding, that include also the exploration of crowdfunding as a promising funding means (Dalla Chiesa and Handke 2020; Rykkja et al., 2020; Zhao and Shneor, 2020). However, this funding tool is just partially used in the cultural and creative sector, especially in its most innovative models such as equity crowdfunding (Massolution, 2015; Rykkja et al., 2020). This paper aims to fill this research gap: it questions equity crowdfunding as a viable tool to finance cultural heritage interventions and explores the success factors and peculiarities of equity crowdfunding campaigns for cultural heritage. By means of a QCA -Qualitative Comparative Analysis, the research indicates that equity crowdfunding could raise considerable amounts of funds as those needed in heritage interventions. Moreover, it points out that equity crowdfunding campaigns for cultural heritage differ from traditional equity crowdfunding campaigns of other sectors, since it privileges signals related to emotional aspects and social and community values rather than those related to financial aspects.

Knowledge Activities like acquiring, codifying, storing, maintaining, transferring and creating knowledge, can be seen as what constitutes Knowledge Management in an organisation. Executing knowledge activities should ideally come at no additional cost and blend well with the respective organisation’s business. Being a highly knowledge-intensive discipline, software engineering becomes an interesting testbed for this approach. This study aims to identify existing connections between knowledge activities and some frequently used software team practices or measures, establish their relations and investigate their suitability as tools for implementing knowledge management. In accordance with the research questions, this study used a qualitative research approach. Using a questionnaire, practitioners such as software developers and team leaders were asked to provide feedback on a set of previously selected team practices and measures typically used in software engineering projects and to assess their relation to the activities of acquiring, codifying, storing, maintaining, transferring and creating knowledge. The obtained results were analysed using frequency analysis and the comparison of summarised agreement vs. disagreement related to typical software development team practices and measures. The results show that meetings and team processes like code reviews or pair programming come with intensive knowledge transfer while knowledge is acquired through activities involving client contact. New knowledge is created in a large number of team processes, often along with other knowledge activities. In addition, the inquiry revealed that the selection of team practices and measures are be both relevant and considered important for managing knowledge in software teams. This indicated that activities that are already part of the software engineering process in many organisations can be facilitated to trigger particular knowledge activities. The study clearly shows the relevance of practices and measures well-accepted in software engineering for implementing knowledge management in software development teams. Based on a systematic analysis it establishes their correspondence with particular knowledge activities thus allowing practitioners to assess or create the prerequisites for knowledge creation in their teams along with existing workflows. Project and team leaders, and ultimately the whole organisation benefit from a tool enabling them to improve both flow and creation of knowledge within and between teams strengthening expertise and sustainability in the particularly knowledge-intensive software market.