The family firm is a type of firm in which family owners “exercise substantial influence on the firm’s affairs”. Family businesses dominate the economic landscape. According to the latest statistics from the Family Firm Institute, family firms account for two thirds of all businesses around the world, generate around 70-90 percent of annual global GDP, and create 50-80 percent of jobs in the majority of countries worldwide. Sustainability practices are critical for family firms, as they relate directly to the continuity of the business and relationships with important stakeholders, such as members of the local community. evertheless, not all family firms wish to adopt sustainability practices. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse the main areas of research related to sustainability practices in family firms. The study proposed here is part of an ongoing research project in the field of family business 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, 87 international contributions on the selected SCOPUS database were analysed. This paper stems from the need to provide an overview of varied literature on the topic in order to understand the different approaches to sustainability that family businesses have. The literature review shows that the gaps in knowledge about family businesses’ (FF) approach to socially responsible initiatives persist. FFs present unique perspectives on socially responsible behaviour, as they recognise an undoubted priority to actions related to emotions and goals such as reputation, identity, image and environmental performance.

The development and diffusion of digital technologies (especially those supporting communication, collaboration and social networking), along with the pervasive dissemination of powerful and easy-to-use mobile devices, may encourage organisations to implement Smart Working (SW). The previous research suggests that an effective SW implementation is enabled by the availability of a certain set of resources, namely advanced ICT infrastructure and digital technologies, employees’ digital skills and acceptance, and a trust-based organizational culture and managerial style. Despite this, the existing studies neither empirically determine the role of enabling resources for an effective SW implementation nor explain the interplay of different SW enablers in the improvement of organization performance. This study investigates through an empirical study the relationship between the SW enabling resources and the organization performance. Furthermore, this study aims at analysing the mediating role of digital leadership on the relationship between the SW enabling resources and organization performance.

The management of academic performance in higher education has become the management of gaming. All actors in academic publication – individual academics, editors, universities, publishers – game to create the metrics that will bring them most personal reward. Much gaming is – like the white lie – considered mild and is scarcely noticed: an author self-citing more than previously; an editor pleased when authors cite more of the journal’s own papers; a university congratulating employees for publishing in top journals; authors making the most of their research by spinning one paper into three or four; social and other media coverage emphasising the impact of a group’s research, new research collaborations bringing a proliferation of co-authors, each likely to self-cite their paper, and so on. But this amateur gaming is being overtaken by more sophisticated gaming. It has become normal for authors to cite themselves dozens of times; for editors to coerce authors into citing their journal’s papers on pain of rejection; for universities to pay publication bounties well in excess of salaries; and for authorship to be extended to any name that will contribute to a paper’s metrics. Journal papers have become formulaic, designed to fit citation requirements rather than to say anything new, or perhaps anything at all in that many are never intended to be read and some are quite unreadable. Vacuous ‘water is wet’ papers that can be cited just about anywhere in support of just about anything are highly valued. The editors of the BMJ and the Lancet are as one in declaring that most papers published in medical journals are disgraceful, and that the main task now facing medicine is erasing the rubbish from the record. The metrics used to measure academic performance do no such thing, in small part because achieving the measures has become an end in itself, and in large part because the metrics, being key to competition, are universally gamed. When no one knows who has written a paper except that it is unlikely to have been any of the paper’s listed authors – the situation encountered in many medical journals – this is extreme gaming, as it is when authorship slots are openly sold and bought, or when publishers sell tailoring services to fit papers to the requirements of their own journals. The public good is no longer served by castigating essay mills and predatory publishers when very similar services are provided by the ‘legitimate’ academic publishing industry. Nor is it served by relying on peer review to maintain standards; referees are reluctant to serve this system and are being replaced by editorial assistants who simply reject what is unlikely to be cited.

The purpose of the paper is to study human-centered knowledge management in start-ups, reveal challenges, its peculiarities, and framework. The technology start-up teams used experiential design thinking, agile and lean approaches to design and validate the hypotheses of minimal viable products and repeatable and scalable business models. The exploratory qualitative research was conducted with 27 cross-functional start-up teams in a period 2019-2023. The research reveals: (1) the necessary knowledge set for start-ups which facilitates entrepreneurial teams to launch new ventures, design products and business models by using human-centered knowledge management framework that includes social-based and technology-based parts for acquisition, creation, sharing/transferring, and application of tacit and explicit knowledge in start-ups; (2) specific set of peculiarities and challenges of KM in start-ups; (3) dominance of the mode “Socialization” in the discovered 3-mode SEI (socialization, externalization, and internalization) knowledge conversion model for early (fuzzy front end) stage of product/business development in start-ups; (4) evidence that conversion “explicit to tacit” knowledge in “Internalization” occurs effectively in combination of explicit knowledge obtained in exploratory prototyping inside of start-up and the knowledge generated by generative AI at the requests of a startup. Practical implication of the research is understanding of framework and challenges of KM in start-ups, and opportunity to use the research results in start-ups management at the fuzzy front-end stage.

As fast fashion brands expand, society and customers pay more attention to environmental and social sustainability. This study will examine the impact of environmental and social sustainability on customer purchase intentions and the moderating effect of knowledge management strategies on this relationship, based on the general understanding that knowledge management (KM) can be a strategic tool to achieve sustainability and communicate with outside sources. Three hundred and twelve students from mainland China were surveyed. The moderating effect of knowledge management strategies on environmental and social sustainability has been examined through regression analysis. Results confirm that environmental and social sustainability positively impacts customer purchase intentions. The study shows some interesting moderating effects associated with human-focused knowledge management strategies. In this study, the contribution of context-dependent environmental and social sustainability to customer purchase intention is examined, as well as the potential influence. This study also analyzes the contribution of context-dependent environmental and social sustainability to customer purchase intention as a knowledge management strategy.

This paper aims to investigate the role of digital platforms in improving knowledge sharing and the effectiveness of waste recycling by co-creating value. In order to do so, this research undertakes a single qualitative case study focusing on Alpha, a small-sized digital platform provider that operates in the highly fragmented Italian market of waste management. The case analysis relies on the Resource Interaction Approach as main analytical framework since it provides a practical tool – the 4R model – to classify resources involved and value outcomes emerging from their integration. Findings show how the digital platform fosters recycling practices engaging citizens, municipalities, and waste management companies in a shared co-production program. They support the literature on digital platforms serving value co-creation processes. The platform acts as a circularity broker between various stakeholders with complementary goals having a different impact on the process and outcomes of value co-creation.

The article focuses on collective knowledge formation processes in which an understanding of sustainable public administration (PA) is constituted. We turn the perspective from the production of sustainability data to the epistemic aspects of sustainability: to justifications, rationalities, and knowing in the specific context of sustainability management in public organizations. We approach sustainable policymaking as an ambiguous and complex process that requires collective sense-making of what public organization is and desires to be. This process may lead to a reconsideration of organizational identity, especially concerning core values, purpose and expectations of PA. Through a scoping review of the organizational identity literature, we explore what is known about identity construction and identity work in the PA context. The results of this review will provide insights to further analyze what sustainable PA means through the lens of organizational identity. We suggest that, as an ambiguous policy aim, sustainability will describe the new mission of PA and set strategic ambitions for transformation. In public organizations, identity construction can be used as a tool for collective sense-making and knowledge formation that responds to the critical strategic questions of why PA exists, what it should achieve in the future, and how its tasks are prioritized. The article contributes to sustainability management discussions by linking public and knowledge management studies and extending the understanding of sustainability as a strategic aim in both fields of research.

In the Italian context, inner rural and mountain areas suffer from depopulation, an ageing population, a lack of services, and extreme seasonal tourism. In order to counteract this phenomenon, the Italian National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI) identifies sustainable tourism as a promising accelerator of local development, along with agricultural and food production, renewable energy supply chain, and handicraft. In particular, in this paper the new 24 Italian mountain inner areas, selected by SNAI in the second programming cycle (2021-2027), were considered case studies representing challenging contexts for the development and implementation of innovative and sustainable cultural tourism ecosystems through digital services. More specifically, this work analyses a set of web platforms to identify the best practices in cultural and experiential tourism, their lacks and their main features and thus support both public and private bodies in New Product Development (NPD) processes of digital tourist services aimed to enhance and promote specific territorial contexts. A 5-phase knowledge management approach is proposed to evaluate different tourism digital ecosystems that foster the enjoyment of specific sites and territories by disseminating the knowledge on them, providing different tourist experiences and improving their tourist vocation. The evaluation procedure is an iterative circular process based on three steps aimed at analysing the digital ecosystems’ objectives and the quality of a series of features characterising them. Applying the proposed knowledge management approach to the preidentified case studies highlighted that most new Italian mountain inner areas still need an innovative and sustainable cultural tourism ecosystem. Still, two best practices among the selected platforms were identified, reaching very high scores both for their objectives and the quality levels of their features. Results showed that most of the considered web platforms present high-quality showcases of places, offered experiences, and relatively good communicative and informative aspects. On the contrary, the features with the lowest quality levels are the active profiling tools and the presence of written interviews, testimonies and videos with people who tell their stories.

Involved actors in healthcare processes have been reformulated: with systems servitization and patient engagement with awareness of their care pathway can be clarified through the Actor-for-Actor (A4A) approach. Referring precisely to this cyclically phased model, we focused on the structural prerequisites of engagement and relationships among actors and examined the determinants of the system and their commitment to the value of equitable care delivery: a system in which there are no unfair and avoidable or remediable differences between socially, economically, demographically, or geographically defined population groups. Looking through the A4A lens and using a dynamic systems approach, we find that motivational drivers for our digital technology actors’ commitment to value-based care are rooted in meaningful data resource integration for meaningful interactions and timely, accurate decision-making. By analysing use cases of digital technology in support of the healthcare ecosystem such as artificial intelligence and robotics for telemedicine and remote patient monitoring, we witness the potential of equitable care to the population in compliance with the quintuple aim for health system performance.

Quality improvement is, for most countries, a central objective of health care system reform and service delivery, which is why health care managers must devote a great deal of attention and resources to ensuring a high quality of care for patients and must continuously strive to improve it. Within healthcare organisations, managers have an important and obvious role to play in the quality of care and patient safety and this is certainly one of their main priorities everywhere. However, it is not always easy to understand how to improve quality: there are numerous issues that healthcare managers have to deal with. To assist and evaluate health managers in quality development, effective methods have been implemented and promoted at national and local levels, including external quality assessment mechanisms. Many countries have a set of voluntary or statutory mechanisms for periodic external assessment of organisations against defined standards; these include ISO standards, which provide standards against which organisations or functions can be certified by accredited assessors. However, the ISO standards define the minimum level required and their evaluation is only done on documents. For this reason, other bodies, such as The Joint Commission International (JCI), have developed new standards and evaluation methods. The JCI method consists of stimulating the demonstration of continuous and sustained improvement in healthcare organisations through the application of shared international standards, international patient safety targets and the measurement of indicators. This research aims to outline how the JCI method can improve the work of managers in improving organisational performance. A qualitative approach is used to answer the research question and semi-structured interviews will be administered to a selected sample of CEOs of JCI accredited healthcare organisations in Italy (out of a universe of 24 total accredited healthcare organisations). The questions to be asked will investigate three main areas: (1) the role of quality accreditation in better defining responsibilities among managers; (2) how quality accreditation can be used as a tool to improve organisational leadership; and (3) how quality accreditation can help health care organisations better achieve their performance goals. Interviews will be transcribed and analysed using qualitative data management software (Dedoose), which involves the use of a pattern recognition process in which emerging themes become categories for analysis. The coding framework will be developed by all researchers involved in this work using a joint blind coding approach. The expected results of this research will help to shed light on the differences brought about by quality accreditation in organisational performance: already accredited institutions will then have the task of sharing their experience to highlight the positive and negative aspects of accreditation.

In modern society, digitalization has become increasingly pervasive, both in the lives of individuals and in business activities. Research thoroughly analysed the advantages and challenges of digitalization, suggesting that this not only involves the adoption of new technologies but also requires significant changes in the processes and capabilities of the firm. As such, human resources are among the most affected by companies’ digitalization. Despite this, we observed a lack of studies investigating the interplay between companies’ digitalization and individual responses. Most studies focus on analysing how digitalization affects individuals but fail to explain how individuals can, in turn, influence companies’ digitalization. Aiming to help bridge this gap we first performed a thorough literature review to identify the main individual-level factors influencing companies’ digitalization. Among these, we included digital skills, skills and capabilities, culture, and top management support. Then, to support literature results and lay the foundation for new theory development, we used a rigorous case study methodology to provide empirical evidence of how individual responses affect SMEs’ digitalization. Specifically, we performed a series of semi-structured interviews with the managers of 4 Italian SMEs in the wine industry. We chose to focus on the wine industry since it is a sector characterized by both great opportunities, and significant obstacles to digitalization. Ultimately, our analyses show that SMEs’ digitalization is significantly affected by the management’s actions, which also affect digital skills and organizational culture. Indeed, companies realized the importance of digital transformation and tried to foster it by hiring new professionals and by rethinking management processes. At the same time, SMEs lack the resources to invest in the development of advanced digital knowledge and skills. As a result, individuals still lack advanced digital knowledge and show strong resistance to the introduction of innovative solutions that would radically change traditional production processes. One of the tools that SMEs can leverage to overcome these obstacles is collaboration with external partners, who can provide the technology and digital skills needed without requiring direct investment by the companies.

The paper “The Tragedy of the Commons” by Hardin in 1968 highlighted the potential depletion of shared resources due to the self-interested behavior of individuals. This study sparked interest in scholars to understand how individuals make sense of shared resources and how to prevent over-exploitation. Elinor Ostrom challenged the assumption of the rational actor and showed that communities could self-organize and develop effective institutional arrangements to protect shared resources. She introduced systems thinking to understand the interactions between common resources and the broader system of socio-material practices. This conceptual study aims to integrate the failure to refrain and act perspectives by developing a qualitative system dynamics model that expands the tragedy of the commons archetype. Systems archetypes are generalized patterns of behavior that abstract the underlying structure of complex systems. The study aims to discover and summarize archetypical patterns and factors that contribute to their emergence. This approach contributes to the common goods theory and systems thinking literature streams while offering a practical tool for policymakers to see trends and choose effective actions to enhance and regulate the system. Indeed, studying underlying patterns in the behavior of systems helps to distinguish between successful and ineffective actions.

Research has deeply investigated factors that may hinder or favour the possibility of daughters being chosen as successors in family businesses. Little is known, however, about daughters who voluntarily decide to leave the family business, despite the possibility of serving in the leadership role, to engage their entrepreneurial aptitude and potential in creating new enterprises. This paper investigates the experiences of a successor daughter who decided to give up that role to start her own entrepreneurial venture. Placing in the research field of family entrepreneurship and drawing on the case study method, we identified the motivations behind her decision and how her entrepreneurial identity was formed in this context. Special attention was given to the role of the entrepreneurial family to understand how it may have influenced the daughter’s choices and her identity construction process. We show that the entrepreneurial family can play a decisive role in three different stages of a daughter’s identity formation process, i.e. when: 1) the idea of starting one’s own business emerges and takes shape; 2) the decision to pursue an independent entrepreneurial career is made; and 3) the new entrepreneurial activity is launched.

The present paper summarizes recently-started research inside the UNESCO Chair on Mediterranean Cultural Landscape and Communities of Knowledge whose objective, from a theoretical and operational point of view, is to elaborate a design-oriented knowledge model for a climate-resilient management of the UNESCO site of the Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian Churches, in order to understand and maximize the potential of ‘Community of Knowledge’ concept around climate adaptation’s challenge. Heritage climate adaptation is a newly emerging research field which intends to reduce effects and enhance the benefits from present or potential climate change impacts through planned strategies and actions. Within Heritage studies, an interesting transdisciplinary debate is arising on the relationship between heritage and contemporary uncertainties, in particular with climate change. Heritage is positioned as a crucial asset and a source of creativity for climate adaptation, also informing UNESCO and its advisory bodies’ approaches. Considering heritage through the lens of climate change also challenge heritage understanding, knowledge production/management inside the design processes. The complex nexus heritage-climate change asks to re-define, from a design perspective, knowledge management approaches, methodologies and tools. Knowledge management is crucial inside the design process for heritage transition to climate heritage: the way and from whom we gather multiple data, analyze process, results and experiences and disseminate them are key aspects for increasing the effectiveness and impacts of adaptation process. With this regard, UNESCO cultural landscapes, as ‘living’ and ‘continuous’ landscapes, are envisioned as possible climate experimental laboratories, able to respond to the international organizations’ calls for capacity-building, multi-level creation, management and exchange of knowledge through climate adaptative design process. With this purpose the site of The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian Churches, Matera, Italy has been selected as a hologram of Mediterranean cultural landscapes and a possible prototype for a design-oriented knowledge model for climate resilience. From an experimental point of view, the research intends to elaborate the CROA (Climate Resilience Operational Atlas), conceived as a collective and inclusive platform which aims at sustaining a dynamic, multi-scalar, participatory and design-oriented knowledge process which will inform the update of the Site’s Management Plan. The Atlas could be interpreted as knowledge process, understood as a mapping tool and a focus on what is possible, in which local groups and communities, and their Endogenous Way of Knowing, would play a central role in guiding socio-ecological adaptation processes opening to sustainable development scenarios.

Sustainable innovation has become an increasingly important topic in recent years, as society faces emerging challenges related to sustainability. Rooting on a wide review of sustainable innovation and framing digital platform ecosystems as a way to create new markets, promote regional specialization, and provide long-term horizons for political action, the paper proposes a conceptual framework to highlight the pivotal role of the platform sponsor in guiding and controlling the development of sustainable innovation on the whole platform ecosystem. This involves setting clear goals, defining metrics, and establishing rules for participation. The platform sponsor also plays a critical role in fostering collaboration and co-creation among users, facilitating the sharing of knowledge and resources, and creating a culture of innovation and sustainability: in this, algorithms play a key role in enabling green and blue technology recombination, supporting sustainable decision-making. By integrating these technologies, digital platform ecosystems can support sustainable practices across a range of industries and reduce the environmental footprint of human activities.

In recent years, to solve the problems related to sustainability, there is an increasing need for a transition from linear production and consumption systems to new models oriented towards recycling, reuse, reuse and reuse. In the academic field, several scholars have turned their attention to the adoption by companies of the new circular economy models. Due to the interest of a large number of stakeholders in issues related to the circular economy, several scholars have begun to explore the circular economy disclosure practices of companies. Despite this, studies on the topic are still limited. The purpose of this study is firstly to examine the level of circular economy information disseminated through Twitter by companies and, secondly, to examine the impact of some characteristics of companies on the level of circular economy disclosure. Empirical results show that the most profitable and most indebted companies disclose a greater amount of circular economy information through their official Twitter accounts. This study contributes to enriching the academic literature and provides important practical contributions.

Many fashion companies are increasing their sustainable offer by introducing into the market new sustainable clothing (e.g., bio-based garments). However, the level of acceptance of these products is still low among consumers due to barriers, such as high prices, lack of product knowledge or availability. To foster sustainable fashion consumption, a clear understanding of consumers’ motivations to purchase this kind of clothing is needed. This paper aims to investigate the determinants of consumers purchasing intentions and behaviors toward bio-based garments. To this aim, a conceptual framework was developed, based on the integration between the “Theory of Planned Behavior” (TPB) and the “Fashion Adoption Theory” (FAT). Sustainable fashion is considered a new trend, according to previous studies; therefore, the sustainable fashion adoption process was studied by reconducting the FAT variables in the TPB model. This study adopts a quantitative methodology. A questionnaire was spread among Italian consumers. The linear regression technique will be used for data analysis. The contributions of this study are manifold. From a theoretical point of view, the adoption of different behavioral theories and their modification using innovative and traditional variables in different combinations. From a managerial point of view, (1) insights for developing marketing strategies for sustainable garments and specific consumer segments; and (2) information to evaluate how to best use digital channels to promote its sustainable offer. Concerning policy-related implications, this research will help define categories of target consumers on which to focus awareness campaigns.

The 17 goals for sustainable development of the UN 2030 Agenda defines some of the main issues related to the environment, the climate change, the rational consumption of resources and the commitment to reduce inequalities between different countries and people themselves. Aspects whose solution today seems increasingly undeferrable: the succession of opposite climatic emergencies – for example from drought to floods – and the recent energy crisis impose a change of course with respect to the globalization trend that characterized the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of this new millennium, in the wake of mass production and consumption. However, the contemporary debate around these issues often suffers from the infodemic of our hyperconnected time and even more often from greenwashing practices. Even architecture, within its competence, must have the responsibility to really include these goals in its programs and conscientiously reconsider the use of resources, the choice of the best construction technique in relation to the theme and the context and the reduction of consumption of soil, towards a necessary rebalancing between nature and artifice, between construction and landscape. This contribution wants to introduce some recent experiments conducted by a multidisciplinary research group who have attempted alternative approaches to the more consolidated ways of making cities and landscapes. Learning from Villa Adriana, is the project that offered us the opportunity to experiment these themes on a double layer: specifically, by investigating new forms for the re-signification of the Unesco Buffer Zone of Villa Adriana, and more generally by investigating tools for landscape management and cultural heritage with a view to truly sustainable development. This project was an opportunity to experiment new forms for the re-signification of Unesco Buffer Zone of Villa Adriana, re-establishing the ontological relationship between the Villa and its landscape – the ager latialis – removing it from the ‘non-place’ of the modern township to return it to the complex system of relationships between man and the environment. The project imagines a contemporary locus amoenus, extending from the Villa to the Aniene, which investigates the relationship between ancient/new and between nature/artifice. The landscape is the appointed tool for recomposing these antinomies within an overall design that redefines the terms of the necessary and sustainable transformation of a place.

Waste collection and recycling processes represents a strategic activity in supporting the circular transition. The present research deals with disposable diapers collection; indeed, in order to increase the recycling rates of such typologies of waste, during the very recent years, waste management companies initiated to collect those separately from other household waste streams with different typology of collections. Making use of a case study grounded on raw data from six municipalities within Lucca province (Italy), our research aims at assessing, using an Analytic Hierarchic Process (AHP), six possible scenarios for used disposable diapers collection. Results shows that the best scenario is represented by the one where disposable diapers are collected from users by a curbside door-to-door collection system on a weekly base. Results are discussed under a managerial perspective in order to support future decision-making processes in waste management companies.

A sustainable healthcare system requires moving assistance from the hospitals to patients’ homes. This new model of care requires the home care organizations to review the role of home care professionals. This change of work practice is particularly relevant for nurses that are a key figures in the process of value co-creation. To support healthcare providers and policy-makers in guiding this change, this research aims at studying the mechanism of task shifting in home care nurses using an ecosystem perspective. Given the exploratory aim of the study, a multiple-case study methodology was chosen by selecting four home care providers in Italy. Results revealed that the role of the nurses is evolving through all three typologies of task shifting: enhancement, innovation and delegation of activities from general practitioners to healthcare assistances. The types of activities that were shifted among professionals, patients and their caregivers were interactive and administrative activities mainly, but also care and educational tasks. The root causes that led to the shift of tasks during home care assistance were organized into four categories: organizational, patients’ needs, environmental and individual forces. Finally, this research made a first attempt to study the influence of task shifting on the other actors of the service ecosystem. Results revealed that the activities that nurses performed in addition to their routine activities influenced the micro, meso and macro levels.