Debora Tortora, Cinzia Genovino, Federico De Andreis, Francesca Loia and Maria Teresa Cuomo
This study intends to analyze the relationship between the digital maturity of SMEs and intellectual capital, investigating the determining factors. Starting from the endowment in…
Abstract
Purpose
This study intends to analyze the relationship between the digital maturity of SMEs and intellectual capital, investigating the determining factors. Starting from the endowment in terms of intellectual capital and evaluating Management Style, Decision-Making Competences, and Business Network, a model is proposed aiming to provide a comprehensive measure of SMEs’ digital maturity and thus to improve understanding and, consequently, effectiveness. The empirical analysis allows assessing the validity and applicability of the suggested model, providing valuable insights for the improvement of digital strategy and competitiveness of SMEs in the Amalfi Coast Tourist District (Italy), with evident implications also for policymakers and the community.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-methods research strategy was utilized to confirm research hypotheses that were derived from literature review. The field study was organized into two separate phases: the first phase, which is qualitative, employed focus groups comprising key stakeholders (managers and entrepreneurs) from various companies within the Amalfi Coast Tourist District. This phase adhered to the principles of homogeneity (to facilitate deeper discussions) and heterogeneity (to allow for a broader range of viewpoints among participants). The insights gathered from these preliminary focus groups informed the subsequent quantitative phase. In this second phase, structured interviews were conducted using a questionnaire to probe the participants’ views on digital maturity. This analysis involved 94 companies, all part of the Amalfi Coast Tourist District, assessing their digitalization levels and highlighting key management attributes. Logistic regression was applied to quantitatively analyze the data, effectively assessing the impact of various independent variables (such as Management Style, Decision-Making Competencies and Business Network) on the dependent variable, digital maturity. Employing both qualitative and quantitative methods provides a thorough and nuanced understanding of the digital maturity landscape within the specified context.
Findings
The main results suggest the existence of a correlation between the analyzed variables and digital maturity. Innovation, indeed, increases by applying a data-driven leadership style. Intellectual capital (measured in its three components of human capital: decision-making competences; structural capital: management style; and relational capital: business network) influences digital maturity, although some of the variables used are not equally weighted.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this article is to provide an in-depth understanding of the company components that favor digital maturity, to support strategic choices oriented towards a conscious digital transition. The results enrich the existing literature on intellectual capital in terms of its contribution to the digitalization of organizations, which can be a critical success factor in the context of SMEs.
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Francesca Loia, Nunzia Capobianco and Roberto Vona
This study aims to investigate the collective perception regarding the future of offshore platforms and frame the main categories of meanings associated by the community with the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the collective perception regarding the future of offshore platforms and frame the main categories of meanings associated by the community with the investigated phenomenon.
Design/methodology/approach
A data driven approach has been conducted. The collection of the peoples’ opinions has been realized on two specific social network communities as follows: Twitter and Instagram. The text mining processes carried out a sentiment and a cluster analysis.
Findings
The sentiment analysis of the most frequent words has been shown. The following four main homogeneous categories of words are emerged in relation to the decommissioning of offshore platforms: technological areas, green governance (GG), circular economy and socio-economic sphere.
Research limitations/implications
The alternative use of the offshore platforms, including tourism initiatives, aquaculture, alternative energy generation, hydrogen storage and environmental research, could improve the resilience of communities by offering the development of new jobs and the growth of local and innovative green businesses.
Practical implications
The adoption of a circular model and GG initiatives aims to limit the input of resources and energy, minimize waste and losses, adopt a sustainable approach and realize new social and territorial value.
Originality/value
The analysis underlines the importance to adopt a systems perspective, which takes into account the social, economic and environmental system as a whole, the different phenomena that occur and the variety of categories of stakeholders, from users to local governments that participate in the territorial development.
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Francesca Loia, Davide de Gennaro and Paola Adinolfi
How can a manager lead an organization or a team in a particularly turbulent time? How can management cope with chaos and uncertainty? Drawing on behavioral strategy theory, this…
Abstract
Purpose
How can a manager lead an organization or a team in a particularly turbulent time? How can management cope with chaos and uncertainty? Drawing on behavioral strategy theory, this study aims at investigating how hubristic managers can enable organizations to thrive, even over small time periods, in chaotic and uncertain contexts and settings.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a qualitative methodology to explore the possible positive effects of hubris in a behavioral strategy. In particular, 45 interviews with leaders and followers of particularly high-performing secondary schools have been administered to try to fully understand the origin, process and performance evolution of organizations led by hubristic managers.
Findings
The results showed that, in chaotic and uncertain times, hubris can prove to be a trump card for managers in dealing with the pitfalls and uncertainties of the context in which the organization operates. Three major attributes were identified – overconfidence and over-persistence, recklessness and contempt for critical feedback – defining the positive behavioral strategies implemented by hubristic managers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to highlight, by means of qualitative methodologies, the positive managerial hubristic-behavioral strategy during turbulent times in the school sector.
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Anna Visvizi, Orlando Troisi, Mara Grimaldi and Francesca Loia
The study queries the drivers of innovation management in contemporary data-driven organizations/companies. It is argued that data-driven organizations that integrate a strategic…
Abstract
Purpose
The study queries the drivers of innovation management in contemporary data-driven organizations/companies. It is argued that data-driven organizations that integrate a strategic orientation grounded in data, human abilities and proactive management are more effective in triggering innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
Research reported in this paper employs constructivist grounded theory, Gioia methodology, and the abductive approach. The data collected through semi-structured interviews administered to 20 Italian start-up founders are then examined.
Findings
The paper identifies the key enablers of innovation development in data-driven companies and reveals that data-driven companies may generate different innovation patterns depending on the kind of capabilities activated.
Originality/value
The study provides evidence of how the combination of data-driven culture, skills' enhancement and the promotion of human resources may boost the emergence of innovation.
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Maria Vincenza Ciasullo, Orlando Troisi, Francesca Loia and Gennaro Maione
The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the reasons why people use or do not use carpooling. A further aim is to collect and analyze empirical evidence…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the reasons why people use or do not use carpooling. A further aim is to collect and analyze empirical evidence concerning the advantages and disadvantages of carpooling.
Design/methodology/approach
A large-scale text analytics study has been conducted: the collection of the peoples’ opinions have been realized on Twitter by means of a dedicated web crawler, named “Twitter4J.” After their mining, the collected data have been treated through a sentiment analysis realized by means of “SentiWordNet.”
Findings
The big data analysis identified the 12 most frequently used concepts about carpooling by Twitter’s users: seven advantages (economic efficiency, environmental efficiency, comfort, traffic, socialization, reliability, curiosity) and five disadvantages (lack of effectiveness, lack of flexibility, lack of privacy, danger, lack of trust).
Research limitations/implications
Although the sample is particularly large (10 percent of the data flow published on Twitter from all over the world in about one year), the automated collection of people’s comments has prevented a more in-depth analysis of users’ thoughts and opinions.
Practical implications
The research findings may direct entrepreneurs, managers and policy makers to understand the variables to be leveraged and the actions to be taken to take advantage of the potential benefits that carpooling offers.
Originality/value
The work has utilized skills from three different areas, i.e., business management, computing science and statistics, which have been synergistically integrated for customizing, implementing and using two IT tools capable of automatically identifying, selecting, collecting, categorizing and analyzing people’s tweets about carpooling.
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Davide de Gennaro, Francesca Loia and Gabriella Piscopo
The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected millions of people globally, and it has exacerbated the existing gender inequalities that have affected women. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected millions of people globally, and it has exacerbated the existing gender inequalities that have affected women. The purpose of this study is to understand the perceptions of women concerning gender inequality in the workplace during the current pandemic. The goal is to give women a voice so they can explain their feelings regarding the problems they face in a pandemic world.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, four poetic inquiries were developed to investigate how the lives of working women were changed during the pandemic in Italy. Poetic methodology is a creative and aesthetic representation of qualitative research that is capable of reporting data with more fluidity and freedom.
Findings
The results suggest that the gender gap is increasing and is embodied in a series of relational and economic problems related to remote work, in difficulty in reconciling private and work life and in a series of new telematic violence against women.
Practical implications
This study offers practical implications for policymakers by suggesting the application of diversity management initiatives to remove barriers to gender equality.
Originality/value
This study, through a poetic approach, is the first to investigate women's perceptions during the pandemic related to difficulties experienced in the work sphere.
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Matteo Cristofaro, Alexandre Anatolievich Bachkirov, Nicholas Burton, Oana Fodor, Christian Julmi and Francesca Loia
The growing turbulence of the external environment has progressively led to the necessity by organizations of exploiting new opportunities provided by data-driven approaches for…
Abstract
The growing turbulence of the external environment has progressively led to the necessity by organizations of exploiting new opportunities provided by data-driven approaches for supporting the even more complex decision-making processes. The new digital environment has led to the development and adoption of innovative approaches; also in the urban context which has always been characterized by different, interconnected, and dynamic dimensions. Urban governance models have been enhanced by smart technologies, which act as enablers of advanced services and foster connections between citizens, public and private organizations, and decision-makers. In this context, the objective of this chapter is to examine the role of data-driven approaches in the urban context during the chaotic and high variable circumstances related to the diffusion of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). Thanks to the adoption of the co-evolutionary perspective, a cycle in urban governance decision-making approach based on digital technologies is depicted and its contribution for managing the ongoing Covid-19 is traced. The results of the analysis highlight how the data-driven approach supports urban decision-making process and shed light on the co-evolutionary perspective as heuristic device to map the interactions settled in the networks between local governments, data-driven technologies, and citizens. In this sense, this chapter offers interesting insights, potentially capable of generating useful implications for both researchers and professionals in the public sector.
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Anna Visvizi, Orlando Troisi and Mara Grimaldi
Big data is a buzzword of our times, and yet the awareness of what big data is, how it permeates our daily lives, and how it is applied either in the policy-making process or in…
Abstract
Big data is a buzzword of our times, and yet the awareness of what big data is, how it permeates our daily lives, and how it is applied either in the policy-making process or in the business sector remains relatively low. From a different perspective, while specialists, that is, practitioners and researchers, dealing with the technical facets of big data successfully uncover new features, new domains, and new opportunities related to big data, there is a need of evaluating and examining these findings through the lens of social sciences and management. This chapter offers an insight into key issues and developments that shape the broad and multi-directional big data debate. To this end, the content of the book is elaborated and the key findings are highlighted. In this way, this chapter serves as a very useful guide into the question of how big data is applied across issues and domains and how it is valid and relevant to all of us today.
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Francesca Loia and Davide de Gennaro
Over the past years, the educational environment has undergone a revolution, caused mainly by the wide diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs), and the…
Abstract
Over the past years, the educational environment has undergone a revolution, caused mainly by the wide diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs), and the multiscalar implications of the Covid-19 pandemic. This chapter taps into educators’ first-hand experience relating to the adoption of online technologies in an action learning process during the pandemic. Action learning is one of the experiential training methodologies aimed at individual, group, and organizational growth and development through practical, hands-on experience. It is an educational process that facilitates and improves the mechanism and functioning of groups of people who come together to support real challenges or activities, also by learning from direct experience. To this end, the case study of a University Master Course in leadership and change management is examined, based on unstructured interviews and analysis of written documents. The case study represents an emblematic case of adaptation and response to the change imposed by Covid-19 through the promotion of an innovative teaching and learning method. Results show how the adjustments devised to cope with the consequence of teamwork virtualization proved to be synergistic, delivering positive outcomes in terms of participants satisfaction, learning and impact, and producing deeply innovative change management projects. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.