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1 – 10 of 13Jose Alemany, Elena Del Val and Ana María García-Fornes
Online social networks (OSNs) provide users with mechanisms such as social circles and individual selection to define the audiences (i.e., privacy policy) of the shared…
Abstract
Purpose
Online social networks (OSNs) provide users with mechanisms such as social circles and individual selection to define the audiences (i.e., privacy policy) of the shared information. This privacy decision-making process is a hard and tedious task for users because they have to assess the cost-benefit in a complex environment. Moreover, little is known about how users assess the cost-benefit of matching the elements of online communication and their interests. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test a research model to understand the impact that the types of receivers and the sensitivity of messages have on privacy decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
A study was conducted to understand how users evaluate the cost-benefit of the disclosure action in online social networks for the different types of receivers identified and the sensitivity of the message. Data from 400 respondents was collected and analyzed using partial least squares modeling.
Findings
The findings of this study demonstrated a trade-off variance between the perceived cost-benefit and the disclosure of sensitive information with different receiver types. Disclosing personal information with trusted receivers, influencer receivers and receivers from the circle of coworkers had a positive significant effect on social capital building. Conversely, disclosing personal information with receivers from the circle of family or unknown receivers had a significant negative effect on social capital building and even a significant positive effect on privacy concerns.
Originality/value
Recent literature has documented the increasing interest of the research community in understanding users' concerns and interests in making the most suitable privacy decisions. However, most researchers have worked on understanding the disclosure action from a user-centered perspective and have not considered all of the elements of online communication. This study puts the focus on all of the elements of communication during disclosure actions, taking into account the properties of the message and receivers and the impact on users' cost benefit value.
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The aim of this study is to identify what values and lifestyles best explain environmentally friendly behaviours.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to identify what values and lifestyles best explain environmentally friendly behaviours.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adapts the Values and Lifestyle scale and the Environmental and Attitude and Knowledge scale to the Spanish context in order to describe the ecological consumer profile. The data were obtained from a questionnaire handed out to a random sample of 573 individuals. With the information obtained, and after the scales validation process, a structural equation analysis has been conducted.
Findings
Findings of the study highlight that environmental patterns and self‐fulfilment values are those that best characterise the ecological market segment. This group of consumers is characterised by their self‐fulfilment feeling. They are people who always try to improve themselves and take actions which pose a new challenge for them. They are also characterised by having an ecological lifestyle, that is, environment consciousness, selecting and recycling products and taking part in events to protect the environment. This kind of consumer would be interested in firms that are committed to the environment and launch new products, showing them as a new and exciting experience.
Originality/value
The results of this study might interest consumer behaviour researchers and those firms that care about the ecological consumers. Further research is needed including new psychographic variables.
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Although social networking sites (SNS) are providing marketers a lot of information, it is also providing consumers with the ability to present their virtual identities, limiting…
Abstract
Purpose
Although social networking sites (SNS) are providing marketers a lot of information, it is also providing consumers with the ability to present their virtual identities, limiting the benefit of such information. The purpose of this paper is to understand how marketers can segment virtual consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of the literature is first conducted. Followed by a survey method, data from 258 consumers were analyzed using a combination of scales including best-worst scaling. Classes and other demographics, behavioral and psychographic covariates were determined using latent-class analysis.
Findings
Findings show there exist three different segments based on values: self-conservers, social entertainers, and achievers. The results show how SNS consumers differ in their motivation to use social media, even when there is similarity in the uses (virtual behaviors) of SNS.
Research limitations/implications
Analyzing behavior of virtual consumers can be limited by the fact that they are presenting their virtual identity. Psychographic metrics should be the focus of future research when dealing with online consumers, values and motivations provide a better way as they are more consistent than the virtual behavior.
Practical implications
Practitioners should look for more ways to integrate SNS segments with traditional segments, values-segmentation can aid in this. Additionally, practitioners should maximize the information access benefits of SNS by focussing also on underlying motives to certain behaviors on SNS.
Originality/value
This research value is derived from the fact that it is the first to perform values-segmentation on SNS. The results show that it is reliable and necessary when segmenting consumers on SNS.
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L Varriale, T Volpe and V Noviello
Purpose: In March 2020, due to the global emergency ensuing from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Italian government closed all national museums, institutes and places of culture…
Abstract
Purpose: In March 2020, due to the global emergency ensuing from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Italian government closed all national museums, institutes and places of culture heritage and landscape. The shutdown highlighted the need to develop and implement digital solutions, especially through ICTs, to enhance the cultural heritage worldwide by allowing people to go on admiring it, albeit remotely. Numerous initiatives were promoted, such as virtual experiential tours, online collections and ad hoc social and digital programs, all of which contributed to the rich dialogue between people and culture. Although digital initiatives for using and enjoying the cultural heritage have been successfully developed and implemented, in Italy the process of digitalisation of cultural heritage and the services provided are still far from being completed. This chapter investigates the development and implementation of digital technologies in the museums located in the Campania Region in Southern Italy throughout the COVID-19 outbreak to identify and analyse the experiential strategies and initiatives developed through information communication technologies (ICTs) to face the emergency.
Design/Methodology/Approach: By adopting a qualitative methodology, using primary and secondary data sources through a manual content analysis, experiential strategies and initiatives employed by the Campania regional museums when using digital solutions have been identified and categorised.
Findings: Despite the effectiveness of digital initiatives, and the experiences investigated appear both significant and interesting, there is still a need to develop and implement new experiential strategies in this field.
Research Limitations: This study presents several limitations, mostly related to its qualitative explorative nature, but also because its results cannot be generalised.
Practical Implications: These first results outline the need to further develop innovative strategies and initiatives within the museums. The process of digitalisation of cultural heritage and the services provided are still far from completion, potentially providing wide margins of further evolution by means of further investments in technology innovation, to rethink and redesign the traditional management models for enhancing the cultural heritage through digital technology.
Originality: This study provides a portrait of museum experiences supported by digital technologies in a country which plays a crucial role in the field of international cultural heritage. The analysis can also usefully contribute to the existing literature due to the qualitative technique employed for carrying out the multiple case study.
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Roberto Peretta, Martina Cuomo, Lucia Rovelli and Giorgia Milesi
As the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has stated in their original definition of quality (ISO 8402:1994), quality is “the totality of characteristics of an…
Abstract
As the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has stated in their original definition of quality (ISO 8402:1994), quality is “the totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs.” The authors consequently believe that not only learning from challenges – the relevant entity – should be intended as a task aimed to satisfy the needs of both challenged learners and challenged businesses, but also that not all the entity's needs are stated from the beginning of the process.
These were the methodological assumptions of a workshop on destination management held from October 2020 to February 2021 in the frame of tourism studies at the University of Bergamo. Though the workshop was entirely run through digital channels in a time of pandemic, it successfully provided five destination management organizations (DMOs) and an association among hosts in the Bergamo Alps with a variety of digital communication products.
The workshop was special in terms of satisfaction expressed by participants as well as the involved DMOs. The participants' deliveries became active components of the destinations' policies. A professional video came as a welcome addition.
Implied needs which the workshop came across – namely, doubts on the reliability of tourism data, cooperation among local actors, prerequisites in building a new website, the role of food and recipes in promoting a destination identity, best practices in guiding guests through planned itineraries, and the role of a city administration in controlling overtourism – were identified while researching and producing.
Maria Elena Santagati, Sara Bonini Baraldi and Luca Zan
Decentralization is a widespread and international phenomenon in public administration. Despite the interest of public management scholars, an in-depth analysis of the…
Abstract
Purpose
Decentralization is a widespread and international phenomenon in public administration. Despite the interest of public management scholars, an in-depth analysis of the interrelationship between two of its forms – deconcentration and devolution – and its impact on policy and management capacities at the local level is seldom investigated.
Design/methodology/approach
This article addresses this gap by examining the implementation of deconcentration and devolution processes in France and Italy in the cultural field, combining the analysis of national reform processes with in-depth analyses of two regional cases. The research is the result of document analysis, participatory observation and semi-structured interviews.
Findings
The article reconstructs the impacts of devolution and deconcentration processes on the emergence of policy and management capacity in two regions (Rhone-Alpes and Piedmont) in the cultural sector. The article shows that decentralization in the cultural sector in France and Italy is the result of different combinations of devolution and deconcentration processes, that the two processes mutually affect their effectiveness, and that this effectiveness is deeply linked to the previous policy and management capacity of the central state in a specific field/country.
Originality/value
The article investigates decentralization as a result of the combination of deconcentration and devolution in comparative terms and in a specific sector of implementation, highlighting the usefulness of this approach also for other sectors/countries
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Claudia Arena, Simona Catuogno, Anna Crisci and Valeria Naciti
Different mechanisms allow intellectual capital (IC) to affect performance. This paper aims to analyze the value of relations for the academic performance effect of IC and explore…
Abstract
Purpose
Different mechanisms allow intellectual capital (IC) to affect performance. This paper aims to analyze the value of relations for the academic performance effect of IC and explore how the university’s reliance on digital technologies facilitates the contribution of IC to the overall academic performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors develop a model linking elements of IC to academic performance in the form of teaching, research and entrepreneurial activity. The model is centered on relational capital (RC) that is supposed to directly fuel performance and mediate the link between the other two IC dimensions and performance. From a methodological point of view, the authors base the empirical investigation on a sample of Italian public universities and applied structural equation modeling to test the mediation and a group comparison to disentangle the effect of universities’ digitalization.
Findings
The authors find a significant and positive effect of RC on performance. RC fully mediates the relationship between structural capital and academic performance, whereas it only partially mediates the link between human capital and academic performance. The authors also suggest that digital technologies guide the prominence of the relationship in the university’s ability to fulfill teaching, research and entrepreneurship missions through IC.
Originality/value
This study offers a representation of how the relational dimension of IC is the mean through which the stock of knowledge inside IC can be translated into entrepreneurial, education and research achievements and how digital technologies are essential for the exploitation of the performance effect of IC in the digital era.
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Bruno S. Sergi, Elena G. Popkova, Aleksei V. Bogoviz and Tatiana N. Litvinova
Manuel Expósito-Langa, José-Vicente Tomás-Miquel and Andreea-Elena Fotă
This study aims to contribute to the debate on the firm’s innovative determinants. Drawing on the relevance of internal resources, such as the knowledge base, in developing the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to contribute to the debate on the firm’s innovative determinants. Drawing on the relevance of internal resources, such as the knowledge base, in developing the innovative practices, it also considers the multiplier effect of network competence, defined as the ability to develop and consciously manage relationships with other actors in the territory.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on data obtained from personal interviews with managers and oenologists from the wineries that adhered to the Protected Designation of Origin in the Alicante province/region.
Findings
The results confirm the positive effect of the knowledge base. In addition, it shows that increased competence in managing the firm’s relational context allows it to obtain external knowledge inputs, which, combined with internal knowledge, benefits its innovative practices.
Originality/value
This study contributes to a better understanding of how companies can improve their innovation by combining internal knowledge with developing and strengthening links with other agents in the territory.
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Elena-Mădălina Vătămănescu, Juan-Gabriel Cegarra-Navarro, Aurora Martínez-Martínez, Violeta-Mihaela Dincă and Dan-Cristian Dabija
The study sets out to explore the mediating role of intellectual capital (IC) dimensions (i.e. human, structural and relational) between scholars' affiliation to online academic…
Abstract
Purpose
The study sets out to explore the mediating role of intellectual capital (IC) dimensions (i.e. human, structural and relational) between scholars' affiliation to online academic networks and institutional knowledge capitalization. Online academic networks are tackled through the lens of knowledge networks which have been of primary importance for new relevant knowledge acquisition during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire-based survey of 305 academics from 35 different countries was conducted from July to December 2021, employing a partial least squares structural equation modelling technique. The database was initially filtered to ensure the adequacy of the sample, and data were analyzed using the statistics software package SmartPLS 3.0.
Findings
Evidence was brought forward that the proposed conceptual model accounted for 52.5% of the variance in institutional knowledge capitalization, the structural and relational capital availed by knowledge networks exerting strong positive influence on the dependent variable.
Research limitations/implications
The study has both research and managerial implications in that it approaches a topical phenomenon, namely the capitalization of online academic networks in the COVID-19 context, which has dramatically altered the way that research and teaching are conducted worldwide.
Originality/value
The most important contribution of the paper resides in the comprehensive research model advanced which covers individual, organizational and network multifaced layers, starting with the personal and institutional motives to join a specialized network, continuing with the opportunities provided by knowledge networks in terms of intellectual capital harnessing, and ending with its influence on higher education organizations.
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