Today investors are particularly interested in having a direct impact on the achievement of a sustainable global development model, and therefore they consider as very relevant the disclosure of sustainability issues of the companies in which they invest. In fact, in recent years there has been an increase in Sustainable Responsible Investing (SRI), that is an investment strategy that accounts for environmental, social and governance factors (ESG factors) into investment decisions. The integration of sustainability within corporate strategies can have an impact on various aspects of a company, including also extraordinary operations like Initial Public Offerings (IPO). The integration of these factors within the business, in fact, can affect the performance of an IPO. This study analyses the effect of disclosing ESG information on IPO performance (in terms of underpricing) using a large sample of IPO in Europe. When companies go public, the equity they sell in an IPO tends to be underpriced, resulting in a substantial price jump on the first day of trading. Given the growing importance of ESG factors and of their disclosure to all the stakeholders, the objective of this work is to examine the possible impact of the disclosure of the ESG report on the IPO performance, in terms of underpricing and, therefore, to understand how to manage it. The analysis is conducted using the European IPOs which took place between 2017 and 2021, considering a sample of 100 companies, of which 50 disclose the ESG report prior to the IPO, and 50 that did not. The study represents a contribution regarding the incentive of companies to disclose knowledge related to ESG information, with the aim to increase the level of transparency towards all the stakeholders, in order to reduce the information asymmetry which is able to increase IPO underpricing.

The tourism sector has been strongly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and, as it is necessary to respond to crisis situations as quickly as possible, there is great interest in the study of organisational resilience. Resilience should be developed as an iterative process for long term organisational development rather than a crisis management tool (McManus et al., 2007). From strategic management field, the theory of dynamic capabilities could provide an analysis perspective for tourism organisations, investigating how they can increase their resilience in turbulent environments. Based on these ideas, the objective of this study is to develop a model that allows us to: (1) identify organisational strategies that, in the context of dynamic capabilities, can influence the degree of resilience of hotels; (2) analyse whether the resilience capability of hotels affects their performance; (3) determine whether resilience capability mediates the relationship between the organisational strategies of hotels and their performance. To reach our objective we have designed a survey which has been sent to the CEOs of 555 hotels with 3 or more stars in the Valencian Community of Spain. The research is still in progress as the data collection phase and the analysis of the results have yet to be concluded. However, the paper offers various theoretical and practical contributions.

Even though digital transformation efforts range from the use of digital technologies to improve a single process, product, or service to the major redesign of an organization’s work logic and the way it generates value for its customers, they are an unavoidable path for thriving in contemporary market. Technologies associated with digital transformation include data analytics and big data, as well as their application to the contemporary organizations. This paper presents a data-driven strategy to consumer segmentation that is based on data mining techniques. It demonstrates an example of a data-based decision- making process in dividing the market and assessing different market segments individually, taking into account the specificities of each, allowing the company to create a differentiated and customized marketing strategy for all defined segments. However, data mining techniques often neglect the smallest segment of the best and most important customers, due to the bias of classifiers towards larger classes. Hence, this paper proposes an approach that solves this problem. By using accurate customer targeting, companies can allocate their marketing budgets efficiently, which reduces costs and increases their sales and profits. By using data mining and analytics techniques, countries from the less- developed regions can boost their business performances and affect the changes in the market transformation and development.

Making sense of data is increasingly necessary to separate what is factual and evidence- based from what is not in today’s digital society. Making sense of data to make decisions or what is also called data literacy involves the general use of data, critical thinking and, importantly, the active detection of cognitive biases to make meaningful search choices when thinking about topics in social medical, economic and political settings (Leighton, Cui & Cutumisu, 2021; Ridsdale et al., 2015). A large pilot study was conducted to evaluate the design of a digital performance assessment (DPA) to measure data literacy in post- secondary students. The study included randomly assigning participants to one of three distinct DPA conditions: eye-tracking, think aloud and control. The objective of the present paper is to share the results obtained from the think-aloud condition as validity evidence of response processes. Three research questions guided the think-aloud portion of the study: (1) Can meaningful response processes be captured as participants think aloud in completion of a DPA on data literacy? (2) Do the response processes that characterize participants’ performance support inferences about their data literacy? (3) What is the relationship between students’ PA performance and their cognitive biases? Thirty of 170 participants were presented with a DPA on data literacy and asked to think aloud. Participants were interviewed remotely using Zoom videoconferencing software. Based on two coding schemes developed to assess verbal reports, the results revealed that participants spent an excessive amount of time reading in relation to thinking aloud. This result did not permit the use of participants’ response processes as a meaningful predictor of data literacy. Moreover, participants’ cognitive biases did not predict performance on the DPA. On the surface these results suggest that measuring response processes may not be worthwhile for DPAs. However, a more meaningful interpretation of the results leads us to conclude that the extent of constraints built into the DPA may be precluding the measurement of response processing.

The article provides an analysis of the terminology associated with novel coronavirus based on the study of the terms of scientific publications and social media messages by ITO and ITO-Sent models. These two models are outcomes of digitalisation of the SECI model. There are three main differences between these two models and the SECI model. First, first two models distinguish between two knowledge representation forms: words and computer codes. Second, they include four transition processes: visualisation (computer codes → words), digitalisation (words → computer codes), conceptualisation, and annotating, apart from four processes already present in the SECI model (socialisation, externalisation, combination, internalisation). Third, they serve as a theoretical basis for developing information technology for the goal-oriented discovery of new knowledge in texts. An information technology has been developed to discover traditional and new medical terms in the texts of scientific publications and Twitter messages associated with novel coronavirus.

The objective of this paper, which is grounded in Total Quality Management (TQM) theory, is to ascertain whether management hubris can be a constructive feature that allows tourist industry organizations to thrive, even for brief periods, in turbulent situations and contexts such as those presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study employs a qualitative approach to develop in- depth insights on the potential benefits of hubris as a behavioral technique. Specifically, 24 interviews were conducted with personnel of Italian hospitality facilities. The participants were asked whether they identified the trait of hubris in their supervisors’ behaviors and, if so, what tactics were implemented to achieve total quality. The findings reveal that in a crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, managers might use hubris to attain total quality while grappling with the dangers and ambiguities of the setting in which the tourism business operates. This study is the first to leverage qualitative approaches to emphasize the beneficial aspects of managerial hubris for TQM in times of extreme ambiguity, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the specific context of tourism accommodations.

This research analyses the relationship between knowledge and entrepreneurial ecosystems (EE). We conducted a systematic literature review. VOSviewer software supported the cluster analysis. NVivo 11 was used to analyse the words’ co-occurrence. We drew a knowledge-sharing trajectory through entrepreneurial ecosystems and relations mediated by leading actors. We deeply revised entrepreneurial literature and proposed a conceptual model which maps relations through all main actors and knowledge flow in ecosystems. The model explains how some tenant anchor conducts startup interactions to accelerate multilevel knowledge replication inside and outside entrepreneurial ecosystems. We propose a theoretical report classified by significant figures, aspects, and relations. The thematic clusters indicate complementary theoretical perspectives: attributes, actors and stakeholders, subsystems, and other entrepreneurial ecosystems. We revealed fundamental discoveries that challenge the existing models’ universal replication. Our findings suggest the knowledge path in the near field sharing mechanisms resulting in a new conception of traditional structures and relations used to make assessments, judgments, and decisions to assess opportunities for the new ventures’ creation, survival, and development. This study contributes to entrepreneurial literature demonstrating knowledge sharing flow through entrepreneurial ecosystems, considering a holistic, dynamic, and multilevel approach. Additionally, highlight political and social contributions to include new emergent perspectives: resources’ scarcity, structural and institutional gaps. This representation is the first knowledge management model applied to different contexts respecting their singularities. Finally, we recommend relevant trends for further research on new venture creation to maximise regional development.

This paper argues that knowledge management activities can significantly contribute to an increase of the resilience in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It shows how the knowledge management standards ISO 30401 and DIN SPEC 91443 relate to the international, resilience-related standards ISO 22316 and BS 65000. Focusing on SME’s characteristics in contrast to global and stock noted companies’, reveals a long list of SME-specific limitations, which negatively impact their resilience in turbulent contexts. These limitations refer to their volume of financial resources, their ability to attract top talent, their ability to leverage state of the art technology, and their limitations to develop extra-firm networks needed to lower transaction costs and to establish trust. Most of these limitations can be overcome by larger companies, by utilizing scale effects, a shared brand and, by analogy, a shared boundary to the environment. However, all these factors require more knowledge and tangible resources than available for a typical SME. The paper shows how knowledge management can support SMEs in achieving or increasing the competences associated to resilient organizations. This is accomplished by: analysing the level of compatibility and alignment between internationally-recognized standards, related to organizational resilience and knowledge management; and, providing guidance for further convergence of these management frameworks. The results of a semantic analysis show a high degree of compatibility between the requirements for knowledge management and resilience. For SMEs aiming to become more resilient, it seems to be more effective for them to fulfill the requirements for a knowledge management system (ISO 30401), as most of the requirements of the standards for resilience (BS 65000 and ISO 22316) are covered as well. The Fraunhofer framework for resilience helps to operationalize the idea of resilience with a circular approach, covering phases to prepare for, prevent, protect from, respond to, and recover from disruptive events.

Phygital realm is an ecosystem that consist of both physical and digital elements (devices, technologies, platforms) proposes holistic user/customer experience as a continuum of functional, economic and emotional values. Nowadays the novelty in the phygital domain, associated with continuous technology innovation, is the cause of lack of consensus around the phygital construct, its theoretical foundations. The paper research is focused on development of lean framework for capturing and validation business model hypotheses by entrepreneurial team of startup in phygital domain. Consider emerging research area, to gain theoretical insights, authors used a grounded theory approach, which was useful for analysing social phenomena. The authors developed “10 cubes” BM framework that allows phygital startups to test their hypotheses more efficiently with a simple user-friendly visual language. The study revealed the issue with effective management phygital user/customer experience. The authors proposed new building block “Phygital user/customer experience” in the “10 cubes” BM framework and “7 I” phygital startup guidance to improve their user/customer experience.

Despite considering ourselves to be in the Knowledge Society, in practice there are gaps in the use of evidence. Specifically, it appears that there is a waste of use of this valuable resource for making wise policy decisions, which lead to actions that respect sustainability and human rights. This article presents an exploratory literature review that aim to identify relevant publications around main concepts around Evidence Use. We identify four main thematic areas: 1) Link Science and Policy; 2) Evidence architecture; 3) Clear communication, Trust and Collaboration and 4) Evidence Use and Knowledge Governance. Those knowledge areas will be the building blocks of an evidence chain model. This review is a project starting point that aims to build a conceptual model. This model will be validated and refined, to support knowledge-based decision and wise action process at health context.

The agri-food system is facing numerous challenges in recent years, which impact significantly on the companies’ production and profitability. Meanwhile, the consumer evolved, becoming increasingly aware of sustainable food and nutrition choices to safeguard the health. This transformation resulted in the creation of a new target market, which demands to intercept the needs of providing intelligible information associated to the food product. This paper aims of supplying empirical and procedural guidance on this strategy, which is feasible as a result of the digitisation of the agri-food supply chain and technological solutions of the Industry 4.0. It investigated how the use of analytics techniques can improve efficiency in agri-food supply chain data sharing by enabling companies with the quality description of the food product. To this aim, a reasoned procedure was proposed: starting from raw data collected by IoT sensors, several analytics were processed, through mathematical operations that considered the complexity of the data itself and the frequency of measurement. The analytics were converted into a quality scale that classifies the intervals of the variable into quality categories of increasing order. Finally, the analytics and qualitative scales were combined to obtain an overall indicator of product quality. The studied procedure was therefore applied to a case study, by including an Apulian (Italy) company involved in organic olives production. Results of this study represent a way for agri-food companies to increase their awareness on digitalization strategies, focusing on how technologies, big data and analytics could provide insights to increase operational efficiency and consumer communication and how a completely transparent data-driven approach towards the customer could foster new management approaches.

Crisis management for the Covid-19 epidemic is unquestionably an emergent issue. It also taught us several lessons about how to prepare for future crises. When it comes to the healthcare industry, the need for urgent discussion as well as innovation to address the issue takes precedence. Over the last two years, there has been a high crisis in emergency drugs, scarcity of drug ingredients, and patients have become helpless in the fight against the coronavirus disease all over the world. The European Union (EU) was the central hub of this tragedy, and the EU is mobilizing all available resources to assist member states in coordinating their national responses, which includes providing objective information about the virus’s spread, effective containment efforts, and measures taken to repair the pandemic’s economic and social damage. The research explains pharmaceutical business models and tools that can help businesses respond to emergency situations. A systematic literature review was conducted, and a list of bibliographic notes is mentioned in the reference section of the paper, where future research ideas can be found.

This paper addresses the topic of the regeneration of historic villages and small towns. It is part of an ongoing research project questioning if and how cultural heritage can be a trigger for civic wealth creation. Building on the previous literature on urban regeneration, we deem that in such contexts the mobilisation of cultural resources could be pivotal for the development of a ‘culture-based economy’. Meanwhile, putting the community at the centre is fundamental to maintaining the vibrancy of a local area and implementing regeneration projects based on CH. We deem a promising solution for historic towns’ resilience and development is to activate processes of CWC, i.e., the creation of social, economic and communal endowments that benefit local communities and allow these communities to be self-sufficient, therefore, generating positive societal change and sustainable impact. In an attempt to question if and how CH can be a trigger for Civic Wealth Creation in small historical towns, our paper contributes to contextualising the CWC framework proposed by Lumpkin and Bacq in 2019 by identifying other key stakeholder categories and providing evidence and rationale for their inclusions.

The study moves from the need to depict the role of universities in furthering sustainability and sustainable development goals in society (Purcell et al., 2019) starting from the set of entangled relationships linking Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) with local businesses, government agencies, students, the civil society, and international partners. The relevance of HEIs in such a domain is also mirrored in their communication and reporting efforts (Lozano, 2011). This paper focuses on the identification of the main drivers and barriers that HEIs encounter in their increasing attempts to implement sustainability-oriented strategies, policies and initiatives. The chosen approach relies on service innovation to the extent that such concept can provide HEIs with the necessary support to stimulate the development of sustainability-related strategies and activities. Indeed, universities play a relevant role as collector of knowledgeable actors and innovators in the social context in which they are embedded (Gallouj et al., 2018). The research questions guiding our study highlight the core aspects of the debate concerning universities as catalysers of sustainability in multiple domains. The analysis conducted for the study is based on mixed method methodology, combining qualitative and quantitative data gathered from semi-structured interviews and two surveys on a broader sample of deans and academics across European HEIs. The outcomes of our study are expected to contribute to the advancement of knowledge concerning the depiction of sustainability-oriented policies and strategies to be adopted by HEIs. Such results help to combine the need for innovative solutions in terms of the service provided in the field of education and research, with the increasing interest in service provision towards the private sector, the civil society, and the governmental institutions.

Companies spend lots of time and cost for developing new technologies and granting the results as patents, but unfortunately it is often the case that many of them are dormant being unused. The purpose of our study is to examine the effect of the Licensable Patent Information Database (LPID) in Japan, an open web system which can be used freely by companies, universities and public research institutions, on the performance of patent distribution and matching agreement between potential licensers and licensees based upon empirical analysis combining questionnaire survey and case study. From the analysis of the questionnaire survey, it was found that the number of matching agreements mediated via LPID was quite limited: as much as 90.8% of the companies registering their patents in LPID did not have any agreement at all. Examining the result more carefully, we found that the number of inquiries, a premise of the agreement, was also limited: 77.0% of the responding companies had no inquiry from outside. In order to explore the reason why inquiries and agreements were so limited, we conducted regression analysis. As a result, it revealed that past experience of in-house implementation and trial production based upon patented technology affected significantly the number of inquiries. The presentation and publication of the technology also gave positive impact on the number of inquiries. These findings suggest that the limited number of inquiries and agreements is not due to the open web system itself, but the content of information posted in the system. A complementary case study on patent transfer and licensing in a successful local government in Japan well illustrated the plausibility of such findings. The local government staffs called “patent distribution coordinators” often visit large companies, potential licensers, as well as SMEs, potential licensees, to understand the existence of licensable unused patents in the former and the needs of accepting technologies in the latter. They insist that it is almost impossible to find effective patents and transfer them to other companies without continuous face-to-face communication. Especially, it was difficult to grasp implicit needs of potential licensees in the web-based matching system, and therefore a direct human network should be prerequisite. With these findings, we induced some practical implications for R&D and innovation managers of the firm as well as theoretical implications for advancing the study in the field of innovation management.

Recently, there has been a progressive shift of focus from the traditional intra- firm view of knowledge management (KM) to an inter-firm perspective, which has become increasingly relevant especially in the context of supply chains (SCs). So, knowledge, which is a critical resource of companies, must be managed properly not only in single companies but also across SCs for the success of business for all the companies involved. The literature does not yet offer a clear picture of what KM practices are or how they can be specifically used especially in inter-firm contexts. In addition, their level of diffusion and use has not been well addressed so far. This study aims to contribute to fill this gap by investigating which KM practices are adopted in SCs, measure their intensity of use, and compare the adoption level of inter-firm vs. intra-firm KM practices. A survey of a sample of European manufacturing firms was conducted. Two measures were used: ‘‘degree of spread ( oS)’’ to know how many firms adopted a specific KM practice, and ‘‘intensity of use (IoU)’’ of each practice. The study confirms that many KM practices are used but with a very different spread and intensity. A lower use of KM practices generally regards the inter-firm than the intra-firm level. Also, firms use less intensely those practices which are popular in the KM literature. The study provides insights into an increasingly important but still underexamined issue, namely, the spread and intensity of use of inter-firm KM practices in comparison with the intra-firm use. The findings also support practical efforts to develop KM programs by improving the awareness of business managers and consultants and can be useful for designing KM courses targeted to current and future business managers.

A quite recent, emerging intellectual capital research stream has established theoretical foundations and provided empirical evidence on how different key drivers and enabling factors, such as the firm’s complementary resources and capabilities, can help to drive the relationship between intellectual capital and firm performance. The objective of this study is to establish a state-of-the-art understanding on the role of these key drivers and enabling factors that affect the relationship between IC and firm performance. This is done by systematically reviewing the empirical IC literature published in peer-reviewed academic journals between January 2000 and January 2022. The results of this study suggest that there are four main categories of the key drivers and enabling factors, which explain why some firms can transform their IC into firm performance and some firms cannot, including knowledge management, dynamic capabilities, IC-friendly organizational culture and climate, and the diversity of firm performance measures. Based on these findings, this study provides managerial implications on how firms can transform their IC into firm performance, and paves way for future research areas that have been left untouched.

The “knowledge distribution power” of the innovation system helps us to understand how and why innovation occurs. In this study we show how an SME implemented a strategy of insourcing & innovation to achieve sustainable competitive advantage and compete with the dominant market leaders. Specifically, our research shows how this family run automotive trailer manufacturing business in Busto Arsizio, Italy, accessed knowledge from universities to enable it to secure advanced manufacturing technology with a Doing-Using- Interacting mode of innovation (DUI) to gain competitive advantage. We identify an internal innovation process that captures the relevant specific Doing-Using-Interacting phases. This study contributes to the stream of literature on DUI innovation, specifically to Trott and Simms’ (2017) study.

The research on business model innovation in certain business energy sectors is limited. This paper, which reviews the business model literature in the biomass energy sector, identifies trends as well as challenges and complications in the use of biomass. We used seven data bases to search for relevant international, peer-reviewed research on business models and biomass. In our initial database search, we identified 287 relevant articles published in the years 1990 to 2020. After elimination of duplicate articles, we had a collection of 170 articles. We used Zotero software to refine our search. After application of our criteria, 146 articles remained. Further analysis reduced our review to 95 articles that had a theoretical focus on business models and biomass. Our review presents various data for the articles including author affiliation by country, article publication date, article title, journal of publication, journal impact factor, country of empirical data, unit of analysis. research methodology, and topics addressed. Additionally, our review reveals trends (e.g., research/practice challenges and implications) in the study of business models and the biomass energy sector as reflected in the reviewed articles. To our knowledge, this is the first literature review of peer-reviewed journal articles on business models and the biomass industry. By limiting our final review to the 95 theoretical articles we identified, we provide researchers and practitioners with sources of recent discussions and analyses on the trends, challenges, and implications related to the use of biomass in energy production.

Organisations continue to invest in business analytics to improve their ability to make decisions that help them generate competitive advantage. However, all organisations do not manage to realise the value potential of business analytics. One of the explanations suggested for this is that organisations developing their business analytics capabilities tend to focus on tangible resources, such as data or technology, and overlook the human skills and intangible resources, such as data-driven culture or organizational learning (Gupta & George 2016). Using systematic literature review and content analysis, this study investigates how tangible, human, and intangible resources are addressed in business analytics literature. It identifies three prevailing themes within recent literature and makes conclusions on the role of business analytics in terms of managerial decision making.