This study aim is to examine how businesses can overcome the current challenges (e.g. lack of resources) of sustainable innovation by engaging customers in their value co-creation strategies. Such strategies are based on consumers’ open-mindedness with regard to environmental sustainability, in particular in the face of the negative environmental impact of the fash fashion industry. Green knowledge encompasses the skills and attitudes that enable individuals to improve their relationship with the natural environment and its conservation. On the road to sustainability, customers are seen as sources of green knowledge and translators of such knowledge into innovation outputs. Engaging consumers in value co-creation therefore becomes a driver for improved relationships between the business and the natural environment, whereby green solutions are shared and improved by both the business and its consumers. The process of opening up to customers and co-creating value is especially valid in the textile sector where there has been a significant increase in the production of low-cost clothing that mimics current luxury items, which leads to significant volumes of waste every year. This study proposes that customers’ open-minded helps to overcome co-creation challenges. This study contributes to current efforts to design and implement sustainable innovation strategies in businesses in the textile industry. The research has found that an open-minded attitude in consumers results in the creation of green knowledge that contributes to both incremental and radical eco-innovation in the textile sector.

Equity crowdfunding (ECF) has rapidly spread around the world, however its use by university spin-offs (USOs) is still extremely limited. This study adopts an inductive qualitative research design to explore the views of CEOs and founders of the few USOs that used ECF. The research findings reveal that several reasons lead USOs to resort to ECF and bypass traditional tools. These ventures have little public (and university) support and funding, as well as they seem less attractive to traditional investors who tend to support initiatives with a high technology readiness level (TRL). ECF supports USOs through a crowd of investors who commit not only funds but also other (often missing) resources of strategic importance. Notably, this system allows USOs to have an initial test on the market, get broad consensus, and bring people on board. The results show that there are both benefits and challenges for businesses using ECF. First, the crowd provides key resources such as knowledge, networks, relationships, and skills useful for the growth and development of USOs or the related technologies. USOs received support for product/technology validation, patent development, and increasing the level of TRL. Crowd engagement was particularly high due to the contribution of USOs to the development of technologies useful for the entire community and for ethical or sustainable reasons. Investors supports the research and disclose a strong commitment to the ethical/sustainable impacts of USOs; many of them became business ambassador of the initiative. ECF campaigns and investors had a role of “facilitator” of knowledge transfer on the market and valorization of research results. Also, an increased public engagement emerged. The presence of new investors helped USOs to mitigate the uncertainty perceived surrounding the initiative. However, these new people are sometimes difficult to manage, and this requires efforts, time, and ongoing relationships. Some risks arise from investors who may use some data and some companies may compete. Crowd’s lack of scientific culture – or misinformation – is sometimes a real problem, as well as the limited presence of platform’s scientific consultants. In general, the differences between applied and theoretical research need to be considered, as well as technological obstacles and the risk of not arriving at the desired output. The research is the first to analyze the connections between USOs and ECF. It contributes to the literature on crowdfunding and technology transfer and has implications for strategic decisions of CEOs/founders of USOs, universities, policymakers, governments.

The Covid 19 pandemic has imposed different ways of working to traditional methods, a restructuring of corporate organizations and thus a profound change in the routines of individuals. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse the main areas of research related to the new flexible working arrangements, with particular attention to the impact they have on the status of women. The study proposed here is part of an ongoing research project in the field of gender studies and is also part of a broader interdisciplinary investigation. In order to identify the topics dealt with and the investigation methods used, a structured literature review (SLR) was carried out. Specifically, 205 international contributions (articles, books and book chapters) on the selected SCOPUS database were analysed. This work stems from the need to provide an overview of the vast and varied literature on the subject, in order to understand the gender implications inherent in the development of flexible working models. The Covid-19 health emergency makes the topic of current interest. The literature review highlights that standardized models should be avoided and calls for tailor-made solutions to exploit the potential of smart working.

With this work we want to analyse the evidence in the literature of the capacity of immigrant female entrepreneurs to interpret the change and try to understand the possible ways in which the literature will address the different topics individuated. This survey aims to highlight in which subject area more attention has been paid to female immigrant entrepreneurship and help to understand possible future research areas in which to develop the topic. Through the analysis of the literature, we aim to know which features can enable female enterprises to seize the crisis as an opportunity. The analysis was conducted through the structured literature review (SLR) on 295 documents about female immigrant entrepreneurship; the contributions (articles, book chapters, and books) have been divided in five article focus. An analysis of the content was carried out to identify the research methodologies used and the thematic areas of reference. This paper outlines how the topic of immigrant women’s entrepreneurship has been addressed in the literature, in different subject areas, particularly in Business, Management and Accounting, and Economics, Econometric and Finance. The use of an only one database, even though SCOPUS represents one of the most used scientific search engines, can be a limitation of this survey, as well as the manual analysis of the results of the SLR. On the other hand, the use of only one database can allow to identify the subject in which the research is mostly carried out and consider only referenced documents. This survey can have many practical implications. First, can point out the main research areas in which the topic has been developed, and the ones in which it can be developed in the future because of the shortage of surveys in these thematic areas. It can also contribute, in practice, to identify the common models of female entrepreneurship and the issues related to the different research areas.

Innovation ecosystems’ main purpose is to foster innovation. While referring to these ecosystems, the local dimension presents several advantages: indeed, the closeness could improve the interactions between the actors. However, the openness related to the global innovation ecosystems enable efficiently the collaborations across the organizations. The aim of this research, indeed, is to deepen the trade-off between the local approach versus the internationalization strategy implemented with the multinational. In line with our purpose, we developed firstly a case study approach to directly observe the phenomenon and secondly, we developed a system dynamics simulation, which allows us to compare the innovation value generated by both the ecosystems.

Cities of tomorrow as smart communities use information and communication technologies to drive innovation and promote sustainable and inclusive urban growth, improving the quality of life, and developing cities as inclusive and smart communities. A smart city helps shape the city of the future as sustainable community. An inclusive city helps support sustainable urban development, strengthening a collaborative and participatory space of action. Smart cities help the city to identify a pathway for sustainable future, building sustainable and inclusive cities as smart communities. Cities select a pathway for building an inclusive city, promoting a smart city vision and developing a smart community.

The goal of this study is to advance understanding on project resilience by shedding light on resilience practices in a project that is understood as a temporary organization. While doing so, we investigated one specific collaborative and knowledge intensive innovation project, in which knowledge integration is at central core for project outcomes. Temporary innovation projects among diverse actors are grounded by adversities in employment of knowledge base, organizing project activities and interaction with environment. In this qualitative study we investigate resilience practices through which project actors address adversities of innovation project. We identified iterative process, rich interaction and knowledge flows as resilience practices. By shedding light on resilience practices in projects we contribute to research on organizational resilience and suggest that projects are important sources of organizational resilience.

This study deals with the emerging phenomenon of the sharing economy and sustainability. This phenomenon is observed within the context of the sharing wardrobe, namely the opportunity for consumers to get the availability of fashion clothes for rent and swap them with other users through the use of online platforms managed by firms that are steering these new ways of fashion consumption. Various scholars observed in recent years how the sharing economy has changed the way to address sustainability – in all its perspectives – in societies as well as in business-to- consumer relationships and how firms are challenging these changes also through their value propositions. Anyway, the novelties brought by both the sharing economy and technology platforms supporting its development are still ongoing, thus further research efforts have been called for in recent academic literature. This is one more reason to observe the new phenomenon of sharing wardrobe, to investigate how firms address their value proposition combining a new offering with sustainable goals. The findings from various initiatives in different countries (Spain, United States, United Kingdom, and New Zealand among others) show new customers’ needs, the promotion of sustainability-oriented values, and the emerging of new market practices as the main constituencies of value propositions in this domain. These results encourage further research that might highlight the effects on consumers – in their relationships with businesses and through the effect of technologies – as well as in the societal realm.

To stay abreast of the dynamic market and technological environment, firms should improve their innovation and economic performance continuously. To cope with such requirements, companies often adopt an Open Innovation (OI) strategy. Among several possible OI strategies, co-patenting is a tool to develop innovation with more actors. Thus, companies leverage time by time their innovation network in which each actor represents a node and the knowledge between the companies the link existing between the nodes. The work aims to investigate if and how different innovation networks, foster the innovation and economic performance of firms. An agent-based model and simulator have been developed to investigate the emergence of hubs and the impact on firm performance. The economic and innovation performances are evaluated respectively using turnover and the Innovation Patent Index (IPI). Results show that the presence of hubs in the network helps firms to increase their performance.

The youth segment represents a consumer group of the future. The understanding of its preferences presents a platform for the creation of innovative accommodation products that merge remote work and tourism stays in foreign destinations. The youth consumers profile under the new situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic changes and technological innovations enable a higher level of productivity and support creative processes that produce new products and new competitiveness. The “new normal” adopts remote work for a large number of scientific and professional occupations, as well as educational processes as a widely acceptable model of work and study. The methodology includes scientific analysis of the potential for affirmation of the youth consumer segment and its preferences. The research was conducted using questionnaires with combined questions put into three groups, using demographics, preferences, Likert based questions and open-ended questions that directly explored the values of the respondents. The Chi-squared test explored the predicted importance of the institutional support for the formation of innovative offer competitiveness as well as pricing strategies, namely the readiness of consumers to pay more for the accommodation facilities that provide workspitality offer. The methodology, supported by creative thinking techniques, impacts the formation of conclusions, which point to new scientific knowledge. The research results in a scientific and practical understanding of the organisation and innovation of receptive offer, namely in accommodation offer in tourist destinations. The adjustment to the new demand preferences targets competitive advantage and business results for providers as well as satisfaction and further development of consumer preferences. The research results of tourism demand preferences impact the formation of scientific knowledge in the area of organisation of accommodation offer by recognising the key elements that present competitive advantage. The findings point to the conclusion that the youth segment of tourism demand should learn about new travel & work possibilities, “workspitality” offer, so education related to both demand and offer organisation is important for the success of innovative solutions and organisational contexts.

The work aims to model the behavior of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as representatives of civil society to investigate how they contribute to the development of Innovation Value Chains (IVCs) under consideration of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) keys and practices. Specifically, we examined how the presence of NGOs within a network influences the diffusion of RRI practices among ecosystem actors and whether a strong orientation of NGOs to RRI practices implies a stronger push of partners towards RRI. In addition, the impact of NGOs on the diffusion of knowledge and heterogeneity of innovative networks is analyzed. To this aim, we adopt the Agent-Based Modelling and Simulation (ABM&S) as the main methodology. ABM can model a heterogeneous population of actors who interact both with each other and the environment in a complex system with unpredictable results, without previous knowledge or assumptions about higher-level phenomena resulting from the agents’ activities; moreover, it enables us to understand the dynamics of the system and not just the final state. An experimental setting is proposed, and different simulation experiments are performed. The experiments show that NGOs contribute to the diffusion of RRI practices within the ecosystem when adopting intermediate values of RRI to evaluate the possibility of joining innovative consortia. In fact, using an excessively stringent selective strategy on RRI keys results in a worse performance regarding the diffusion of RRI throughout the ecosystem. Moreover, very RRI-oriented NGOs imply a greater diffusion of knowledge and heterogeneity but subordinately to their limited involvement. The work provides useful insights to Research Funding Organizations in developing guidelines for promoting RRI practices and facilitates Research Performing Organizations in adopting RRI best practices and managing innovative dynamic networks.

In the Industry 4.0 context, an effective knowledge management becomes fundamental for companies in order to exploit potentials of automation technologies (AI, IOT, Cloud computing, new robotics, etc.). While in the operational and management processes the role of ICTs has been long explored in literature, the specific contest of Human Resource Management has not been fully explored yet. In other words, since Machine Learning-based AI can create new knowledge, that can learn through socialization, an interesting question is to what extend new technologies can support the acquisition and dissemination of “living knowledge” throughout the organizational structure. Our study contributes to the debate about this important topic by means of an original research methodology that has been able to reach three results First, to point out which organizational variables of HRM are most affected by the introduction of Industry4.0 technologies and practices. Second, to highlight the qualitative impact that companies could expect from the technological transition towards industry4.0 in the HRM practices. Third, to give practical evidence about which results the introduction of Industry 4.0 technologies can give in effectively supporting the knowledge acquisition and dissemination.

The objective of this study is to advance understanding on the future knowledge management research directions through collective academic creativity. Specifically, drawing from collective creativity research and futures research, we developed an online workshop method and implemented it among Knowledge Management Team members at Lappeenranta Lahti University of Technology (LUT University). While the online workshop was a tentative and experimental one, scholars involved experienced it as a welcome initiative for common dialogue concerning a mutually important topic. The workshop revealed a clear need for collaboration and integration of knowledge and debate about the role of knowledge management in the fast changing and ambiguous global environment even within a single research institute. This paper contributes to knowledge management research by paving the way for the future knowledge management research agenda by providing both methods to foster collective creativity among scholars and reporting ideas for future knowledge management research directions developed by the LUT University’s Knowledge Management Team.

Information privacy has been called one of the most important ethical issues of the information age. In this context, companies need to be able to address the concerns of their stakeholders about how they collect, handle, and process this data. The literature leads to hypothesize that when organisations take explicit actions to address the privacy concerns of their customers, they are successful in improving the perception of the company’s integrity and thus, in contributing to a company’s good reputation. Furthermore, the availability of consumers’ personal data provide companies with a better understanding of consumers’ needs and preferences for environmental products/services, allowing for eco-innovation. The literature also shows that eco-innovation can facilitate the development of green skills of employees that contribute to meeting customer and market expectations. Thus, the purpose of this article is to examine the direct effect of data privacy management on organisational reputation but also its indirect effect through eco-innovation and green skills. A conceptual model was proposed and tested by utilising data collected through a survey instrument. The data were provided by 208 SMEs based in the textile sector of Valencia that has been considered one of the most relevant in the Spanish economy. Partial Least Squares (PLS) using the SmartPLS software allowed for the analysis of the data collected from practitioners. The theoretical model explains 46.1 per cent of the variance in the organisational reputation variable. This study fills the gap in empirical evidence that ethical data privacy management by an SME has a positive impact on its overall reputation. In addition, data privacy management supports organisational reputation indirectly through eco-innovation and green skills. These results should encourage SMEs to invest in data privacy management to satisfy increasingly digitally literate and environmentally conscious customers and thereby improve their reputation.

In this paper, an attempt has been made to develop a better understanding of the challenges of knowledge integration (KI) within the innovation process in knowledge- based SMEs. Using four case studies, we investigated how knowledge integration may be managed within the context of innovation in technology firms. Four distinct tasks emerged in the knowledge integration process, namely team building capability, capturing tacit knowledge, role of KM systems and technological systemic integration. We suggest that managing KI in knowledge-based SMEs can be best managed by focusing on these four tasks, which in turn will lead to innovation. We have placed particular focus on identifying the challenges of knowledge integration in technology firms in relation to three aspects of knowledge management activities, namely knowledge identification, knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing. We provide evidence to show a rather complex interaction of factors which are both internal and external to the firm. The four tasks of knowledge integration offer practical insights of how knowledge can be integrated within innovation process.

Nowadays companies collect a lot of data about their customers, competitors, supply chains and everything. However, the most challenging task is to unlock the value of the data collected. The role of business analysts in completing this task is extremely important. The number of MSc programs on analytics at universities is growing, however, only at business schools data science curriculum incorporates the concepts, tools, and techniques to guide organizational transformation. Then graduate of a business school is capable to make decisions using the mathematical apparatus and tools to organize the data, develop, and apply the processing algorithms. By mastering a combination of advanced analytical skills with business and management skills, students will be able to become business analysts for a wide range of businesses. The paper describes an ontological approach to the re-orchestration and re-design of the master’s program in business analysis and big data at the Graduate School of Management, St. Petersburg State University (GSOM SPbU). Ontological framework is chosen as a conceptual structure of a domain. The paper examines a methodological ontology to describe the association of skill and knowledge within a competency statement.

DIKEDOC (DIspersed KnowledgE: Describe, Organise, Communicate) is the acronym of a knowledge-based methodology that is applied to a confused set of knowledge pieces, from different sources, that risk vanishing, in order to pass from this state of dispersed knowledge to a dynamic synthesis, which is then translated into analytical models. The stimulus of this methodological proposal was generated from a question posed by one of the stakeholders involved in the long and complex decision process that resulted in the inclusion of the “Ivrea, industrial city of the 20th century” site in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2018. The enhancement of the site is a complex process because buildings, urban areas and infrastructures in the site need important interventions, as well as the site inclusion in the WHL represents a great opportunity to reactivate the fragile socio- economic context of Ivrea and its surrounding municipalities. This process is latent and its activation requires a new decision aid perspective to guide an incremental development of knowledge, to identify and control uncertainties and to foster relationships that can produce decisions. A synthetic description of DIKEDOC is proposed in the paper. The dispersed knowledge to be used in the site enhancement process is presented, together with the conducted pilot study, which proposed a logical and analytical “description” of the space of action and its uncertainties, in relation to different policies and enhancement projects. Some comments on the pilot study and its results are synthesised in the conclusions.

Today the locus of innovation is not anymore in the single company but, it has moved to the relationship network as companies face the contemporary volatile, unstable, complex, and ambiguous scenario finding shelter in new relationship with other actors and leveraging them to become more effective at innovation processes creating a collective and open endeavour. These innovation networks are becoming more and more used even in the rural areas as the economic actors in these areas cooperates with the other actors, both economic and social ones to help reduce the so-called urban-rural digital divide. The convenors have become some of the main actors in these networks as they help these network to become more effective in creating a coherent, while diffused, innovation process in the whole area. At the same time these local convenors will get their social license to operate from the other local area actors according to their ability to read the local area needs and to create effective policies to answer to these needs according to the specific requests of the network. In this paper we present the first result of a research project on the perception of the convenor in an area composed by 9 villages in Southern Italy, and more precisely in the Salerno province. In this are the role of the convenor has been taken by a Local Action Group (LAG or GAL in Italian), GAL Terra à Vita (Land is life). In particular, we study how the other actors in the local area do perceive the LAG activities, and their effectiveness in several areas, will impact on its ability to be an effective convenor and help the local area entrepreneurs in their development processes.

As an environmentally friendly type of farm management and food production system, organic agriculture has experienced spectacular growth during the last 20 years, with Spain being the sixth largest producer in the world. However, organic farming faces important challenges that may jeopardize its future. First, yields per hectare may be significantly lower than in conventional farming, and second, in some contexts (as is the case for Spain), production growth is not matched by consumption growth. Therefore, significant innovation efforts should be made to solve these problems. Given the very small size of many organic farms, this paper analyses the specific types of relational capital that foster technological (both product/service and process-related) and non-technological innovativeness in Spanish organic farms. To address this research goal, survey data from a sample of 358 organically certified Spanish farmers with primary crop production has been analyzed by means of structural equation modelling (SEM) based on partial least squares (PLS). Three models have been run (one per type of innovativeness under study: product/service, process, and managerial) in which four types of external relational capital have been considered: knowledge generated through and embedded in vertical relationships, knowledge generated through and embedded in horizontal relationships, knowledge generated through and embedded in relationships with government institutions, and knowledge generated through and embedded in relationships with knowledge-intensive institutions. The results obtained show that even though external relational capital and innovativeness are clearly underdeveloped among Spanish organic farmers, knowledge generated through and embedded in relationships plays a substantial role in the promotion of innovativeness in organic agriculture. Moreover, depending on the type of innovation to be pursued, the type of external relational capital that plays a relevant role differs. In the case of product/service innovativeness, vertical relationships are the key, and more precisely, relationships with customers and consumers. In the case of process innovativeness, even though vertical relationships keep being extremely relevant (especially, relationships with suppliers), relationships with knowledge-intensive institutions also become very relevant (more precisely, relationships with advisory and consulting firms, as well as with research centers), followed by horizontal relationships (i.e., relationships with other producers, unions, and sectoral associations). Finally, in the case of managerial innovativeness (i.e., innovativeness regarding marketing and strategy), vertical relationships with customers and consumers play a leading role, followed by relationships with government institutions.

This research explores the role of IC management in Italian Red Cross Organization to face Covid19 crisis and support community well-being, according to the fourth stage of IC research (Dumay, 2013; Massaro et al., 2018). A case study has been adopted (Yin, 2003;2004) developing questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and reports’ content analysis, using Nvivo12 software. The results identify a proactive role of IC action (Mouritsen,2006; Dumay,2009; Guthrie et al., 2012), through an improvement of its components (Johanson et al., 2001) and its ability to influence the ecosystem, supporting social impact, providing activities and services to community. The study offers theoretical and practical contributions: It contributes to IC literature about NPOs, that is still unexplored and dominated by studies focused, mainly, on theoretical framework and that needs to discover possible challenges or insights in managing the IC (Dumay,2009); contributing to fourth stage of IC literature, this study explores the relationship between IC in action and the value creation for the ecosystem.