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Austrian economist Ludwig Mises’s central role in the socialist calculation debates has been consensually acknowledged since the early 1920s. Yet, only recently Nemeth, O’Neill, Uebel, and others have drawn particular attention to Mises’s encounter with logical empiricist Otto Neurath. Despite several surprising agreements, Neurath and Mises certainly provide different answers to the questions “what is meant by rational economic theory” (Neurath) and whether “socialism is the abolition of rational economy” (Mises). Previous accounts and evaluations of the exchange between Neurath and Mises suffer from attaching little regard to their idiosyncratic uses of the term “rational.” The paper at hand reconstructs and critically compares the different conceptions of rationality defended by Neurath and Mises. The author presents two different resolutions to a detected tension in Mises’s deliberations on rationality: the first is implicit in Neurath’s, O’Neill’s, and Salerno’s reading of Mises and faces several interpretational problems; the author proposes a divergent interpretation. Based on the reconstructions of Neurath’s and Mises’s conceptions of rationality, the author suggests some implications with respect to Viennese Late Enlightenment and the socialist calculation debates.

Food insecurity in the Latin American region has become a complex problem that significantly impacts people's physical and mental well-being. The factors causing food insecurity are varied, ranging from social, political, and economic causes. Ensuring access to food is not a task with limited responsibilities; on the contrary, both public and private institutions must contribute to creating sustainable and innovative solutions. In general, it is necessary to ensure that the food system flows correctly, ensuring the availability of balanced and nutritious food for the diet of the inhabitants of a given nation. Alternative solutions apart from the government's help include sustainable cultivation, finger millet, and close cooperation with the farmers from the agriculture sector. The present research aims to consolidate theoretical information on the Latin American situation and seek the leading solutions of the parties involved.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is vastly impacting the digital transformation of societies, economies, businesses, markets and enterprises, at a very fast pace, mostly after the global success of the generative algorithms. In this respect, this study, with an exploratory intention, aims to provide evidence about the fundamental issues of AI, particularly if generative, when adapted to humanism, with a specific focus on the wine business.

An exploratory analysis, conducted on a convenience sample of wine business operators, has been performed to investigate AI applications when connected with the conceptual platform of the “Industry 5.0” framework.

The results of the survey provide evidence about the success of AI in the wine business. Specifically, the research outcomes highlight that the interviewees (wine business operators) recognized the high relevance of the potential use of AI in the strategic and operating management of wine firms.

This study aims to provide new empirical evidence with regard to the application of AI in real business contexts. More specifically, in this exploratory investigation, a potential interaction between AI and sustainability has been highlighted in the wine industry, especially from an environmental point of view, i.e. for respectfully governing and managing the business impact on the planet and also for increasing the general efficiency of the process, with peculiar applications on the managerial, economic and financial side of the wine business.

The purpose of this study is to identify and characterize the role of both original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and module supplier (MS) knowledge in the smartphone industry. In particular, this study aims to evaluate which of the two actors possesses the knowledge that has the greatest impact on the market satisfaction.

This study explores and combines the concepts of modularity and knowledge management by investigating the patent portfolio of 16 leading smartphone OEMs and 144 MSs. The applied methodology is based on the content analysis of patent data to extract information on both OEM’s and MS’s component knowledge.

The results show that, although its components are purchased from external MSs, the OEM should preserve both a general and specific concentration of component knowledge, as well as on the end product, to achieve a greater market satisfaction. Moreover, a positive direct relationship was found for the MS between the general concentration of component knowledge and the market satisfaction.

The novelty of this study is to segment the knowledge of both the OEM and the MS on multiple levels. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies that investigates the end product and component knowledge of both actors by filtering patent data using text-mining techniques. The originality of this work is to intercept the relationship between the different shades of knowledge of each actor and the market satisfaction.

Purpose – The authors investigate the interpretations of senior university decision-makers on three questions: (1) What constitutes “relevant” research? (2) In what ways is the relevance of research typically measured? and (3) What alternative ways might be adopted in measuring the relevance of research?

Design/methodology/approach – This exploratory study adopts an inductive approach, informed by data collected from semi-structured interviews with senior research-related university leaders and archival sources in five Australian and eight US universities.

Findings – There is considerable convergence in the conceptualization as well as the operationalization of the notion of relevance between the Australian and US universities participating in this study. The evidence supports a relational rather than currently prevailing transactional approaches in operationalizing the concept of research relevance. This relational approach emphasizes the importance of stakeholders, their needs and expectations, and their engagement in the articulation of measures that demonstrate the relevance of research in both the short and longer terms.

Research limitations/implications – The evidence is primarily based on the views of university senior management drawn from a relatively small number of universities leading to questions about the representativeness and generalizability of the findings. Moreover, the findings have been informed by leaders at the most senior hierarchical levels. Although consistent with the aim of the study, the views of university leaders provide only one view on our research questions.

Originality/value – The authors provide a conceptual view of research relevance from the perspective of one pivotal group – university senior management – that has been largely and surprisingly overlooked in discussions of the relevance of academic research.

The progressive increase in the size of datasets has given life to the so-called big data that provides researchers with the opportunity to extract a greater amount of useful information in many sectors, especially in the tourism industry.

The chapter aims to demonstrate that sustainable tourism (ST) could be particularly favored by using big data and a data-driven approach. Furthermore, as ST appears in line with a new type of responsible entrepreneurship, called Humane Entrepreneurship (HumEnt), this chapter investigates the link between ST and HumEnt and the impact of big data and data-oriented approaches on ST and HumEnt.

The research adopts a qualitative approach, applying the case study technique. The authors conducted ten semi-structured interviews with key informants from a specific form of hospitality: Albergo Diffuso. Findings show the advantages of the data-driven approach to tourism and entrepreneurship highlighting how using data creates new opportunities for decision making in ST and HumEnt.

The present research aims to understand the performance disclosure levels provided by Italian healthcare organisations (HCOs). The authors conducted this study to assess the transparency of HCOs' performance reporting processes by examining the amount and the type of information disclosed in Annual Performance Reports (APRs).

The present study uses a qualitative research methodology based on manual content analysis. The APRs of a sample of 171 Italian public HCOs were analysed.

Results evidence that the APRs provide a sufficient level of disclosure of performance information, putting high attention on the epidemiological conditions; however, the APRs do not present a strong information function for stakeholders' decision-making purposes. The Italian HCOs APRs are not easily understandable because the APRs are not very concise and present information mainly in discursive terms with limited graphic support.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first research investigating both the extent and type of performance information reported by Italian HCOs in the APRs, considering the particular contextual conditions caused by the most significant challenge the healthcare (HC) sector has faced in recent years: the epidemiological crisis of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The study also explores whether APRs are currently used by HCOs as a merely regulatory requirement or as an information tool for accountability and decision-making purposes.

Intellectual capital (IC) is attracting increasing attention from scholars and practitioners in the private sector, while research in the public sector is still in its embryonic stage, especially in regards to local governments. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by channelling conceptual and empirical findings from the large body of IC literature.

The research investigates IC in action in the local government domain. A survey has been carried out involving both managers and politicians of all Italian local governments (ILGs) with more than 40,000 inhabitants. In order to define the constituents of each IC dimension perceived by ILGs, principal component analysis was used in investigating the results.

Results highlights how IC components are perceived in ILGs: human capital is a combination of aptitudes in pursuing target performances, sense of ownership and motivations; relational capital is a combination of values, relationships and acts; structural capital includes procedures and routines supporting the decision-making process, the ability of achieving objectives and handling changes.

While the research findings are limited due to being based on a survey in a single country, they present opportunities for future research regarding further testing of how IC is perceived in LGs in different context. The conclusion could be beneficial also for standard setters, providing a path to support the IC disclosure by LGs.

The paper contributes to a narrow strand of research – IC in LGs – adding new knowledge in “IC in action” research stream.