Luca Zanette, Leonardo Reyneri and Giuseppe Bruni
This paper aims to present an innovative system able to establish an inter-satellite communication crosslink and to determine the mutual physical positioning for CubeSats…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present an innovative system able to establish an inter-satellite communication crosslink and to determine the mutual physical positioning for CubeSats belonging to a swarm.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a system involving a smart antenna array managed by a beamforming control strategy, every CubeSat of the swarm can measure the direction of arrival (DOA) and the distance (range) to estimate the physical position of the received signal. Moreover, during the transmission phase, the smart antenna shapes the beam to establish a reliable and directive communication link with the other spacecraft and/or with the ground station. Furthermore, the authors introduce a deployable structure fully developed at Politecnico di Torino that is able to increase the external surface of CubeSats: this surface allows to gain the interspace between elements of the smart antenna.
Findings
As a consequence, the communication crosslink, the directivity and the detection performance of the DOA system in terms of directivity and accuracy are improved.
Practical implications
Moreover, the deployable structure offers a greater usable surface, so a larger number of solar panels can be used. This guarantees up to 25 W of average power supply for the on-board systems and for transmission on a one-unit (1U) CubeSat (10 × 10 × 10 cm).
Originality/value
This paper describes the physical implementation of the antenna array system on a 1U CubeSat by using the deployable structure developed. Depending on actuators and ability that every CubeSat disposes, various interaction levels between elements can be achieved, thus making the CubeSat constellation an efficient and valid solution for space missions.
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Michela Piccarozzi, Cecilia Silvestri, Fabrizio Rossi, Katarzyna Szopik-Depczyńska and Giuseppe Ioppolo
This study aims to provide a systemic and integrated view of how Industry 4.0 and its enabling technologies affect companies' internal and external environments. It offers a…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to provide a systemic and integrated view of how Industry 4.0 and its enabling technologies affect companies' internal and external environments. It offers a comprehensive view of the contribution about ten years after the start of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Design/methodology/approach
The study performs a systematic literature review based on Industry 4.0 management literature. Analyzing the results of the 308 final papers in the sample made it possible to build a theoretical model to explain the contribution of Industry 4.0 to the internal and external environment of the company.
Findings
The results highlight the contribution of Industry 4.0 to the processes and environment of the company by providing a systemic and integrated view, highlighting the most applied enabling technologies and their internal, external, and combined usefulness in business processes.
Research limitations/implications
Finally, the paper provides a broad view of the Industry 4.0 topic ten years after its origin through an extensive literature analysis that allows us to highlight the significant studies and the areas still under-researched by researchers and opens the debate on the Industry 5.0 scenario.
Originality/value
The model makes it possible to appreciate the role of Industry 4.0 and its enabling technologies in companies in a broad and systemic view and to understand, from a managerial point of view, the interactions, synergies, and possibilities within processes and the reflection on the external environment.
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Anatoliy G. Goncharuk and Giuseppe T. Cirella
The aim of this study is to explore the perception of existing academic institutional models through the lens of individual university teacher assessment scores and add knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to explore the perception of existing academic institutional models through the lens of individual university teacher assessment scores and add knowledge base to the root causes of the effectiveness level of higher educational models between Eastern and Western European universities. The research utilizes higher education instructor performance by exploring positive and negative outcomes from both models.
Design/methodology/approach
This mixed methods study is based on 195 questionnaires in conjunction with 42 in-depth interviews of early-stage university teachers, associate professors, and senior university instructors (i.e. full professors) from the University of Banja Luka (UBL), Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Paris Diderot University (UP7), Paris, France. Key performance indicators are calculated in piecing together the existing institutional models to elucidate the opportunities and challenges university instructors face at these institutions. A scoping literature review that examined an East-West European divide was also conducted to add weight to the research.
Findings
Results indicate the UBL model is considered mostly ineffective while the UP7 model showed signs of ineffectiveness. An East-West divide that exists in European universities was deduced through additional literature, and cohesion-based practices may be needed to truncate model differences as a result of the East's lack of academic freedom.
Originality/value
The research demonstrated important recommendations for academic institutional models by immediately signaling a need to open up the level of creativity of their instructors (i.e. the idea that university teaching is a creative profession that requisites a certain level of academic freedom). The research examined university concern – morally and financially – and weighed in on university instructors' options of abandoning university instructors' workplace in search of working in a prosperous Western country.
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Maria Grazia Pirozzi and Giuseppe Paolo Ferulano
The purpose of this paper is to define a new conceptual framework or model, to measure and manage organizational performance, both financial/non-financial and intellectual capital…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to define a new conceptual framework or model, to measure and manage organizational performance, both financial/non-financial and intellectual capital (IC), in a healthcare organization.
Design/methodology/approach
The integrated new model is produced by integrating the common assessment framework (CAF) model with two other frameworks representing the IC and leadership. These already existing models are originated, respectively by the Health Agency of Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy) and the National Healthcare System (NHS – UK). The integration phase is operated by comparing the CAF and IC models so as to assess the determinant factors that are present in both frameworks and eliminating such redundancies. Concerning the leadership determinant factor, the relevant conceptual framework of CAF model is substituted by the new leadership model proposed by the NHS.
Findings
A new integrated model is made available for a subsequent step of empirical implementation and validation through its application in a healthcare organization. The main advantage of this model is the ability to measure and manage IC and financial/non-financial performance. Moreover, the use of a single measurement system facilitates the interpretation and coherency assessment of measured data so originated.
Originality/value
The added value this work provides will enrich the academic literature regarding performance measurement systems in healthcare organizations, also providing an original integrated model that is able to exhibit the advantages highlighted above.
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Starting from Gino Arias’s dictum on the uselessness of international trade theory for fascism, this contribution aims to demonstrate two main points. First, the free trade…
Abstract
Starting from Gino Arias’s dictum on the uselessness of international trade theory for fascism, this contribution aims to demonstrate two main points. First, the free trade attitude displayed by fascism immediately before and after the “March on Rome” clashed with its nationalist origins. The nationalist movement had supported a strong protectionist policy starting from a rejection of the main principles of marginalist theory. This explains why some issues raised by Pareto and Barone which could have been used as arguments in favor of protectionism were neglected. In turn, this impasse played a major role in the rejection of Mihail Manoilescu’s theory in the thirties. The second point concerns the possibility of some – at least relatively – free theoretical debate on international trade theory and policy. When the regime set itself a clear objective, like the reduction of trade to begin with, and then autarky, the scope for free discussion narrowed to the point of eventually closing. In this context, refusing to support the regime’s choices in economic policy meant resigning oneself to becoming an outcast. A situation offering one more tessera in the complex mosaic of relations between science and politics in authoritarian regimes.
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Enrico Viganò and Richard Mattessich
The purpose of this paper is to offer a concise survey and comparison of Italian accounting research and academic publications during the second half of the 20th century.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer a concise survey and comparison of Italian accounting research and academic publications during the second half of the 20th century.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper discusses the special relation between economia aziendale (business and public economics) and ragioneria (accounting) in Italy. The subsequent discussion on “financial accounting” includes a sub‐section on income‐orientation (vs capital‐orientation), especially important in Italy during this period, and the present crisis of economia aziendale as affecting ragioneria, contributions by major Italian accountants of the period (above all, Onida and Amaduzzi) are discussed. After a section on “cost and managerial accounting” (of less significance in Italy than financial accounting), and a look at “novel accounting trends”, the paper closes with a discussion of some representative historical studies of the period.
Findings
The paper reveals the changing international position of Italian accounting research.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is limited by selecting the most prominent and relevant contributions among a host of pertinent publications.
Originality/value
In contrast to previous research, the paper offers an integrated survey of major Italian accounting publications of the entire second half of the 20th century.
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Andrea Moretta Tartaglione, Ylenia Cavacece, Fabio Cassia and Giuseppe Russo
Nowadays, international healthcare agendas are focused on patient centeredness. Policies are aimed at improving patient’s satisfaction by enhancing patient empowerment and value…
Abstract
Purpose
Nowadays, international healthcare agendas are focused on patient centeredness. Policies are aimed at improving patient’s satisfaction by enhancing patient empowerment and value co-creation. However, a comprehensive model addressing the relationships between these constructs has not so far been developed. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model which explains the effects of patient empowerment and value co-creation on patients’ satisfaction with the quality of the services they experience.
Design/methodology/approach
The links between patient satisfaction, empowerment and value co-creation are theoretically outlined via an in-depth literature review. The resulting model is tested through a survey administered to 186 chronically ill patients. The results are analyzed through covariance-based structural equation modeling.
Findings
The results show that patient empowerment positively influences value co-creation which, in turn, is positively related to patient satisfaction. In addition, the analysis reveals that patient empowerment has no direct effects on satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
Although the cross-sectional design made it possible to clearly estimate the relationships among variables, it overlooked the longitudinal dimensions of co-creation processes.
Practical implications
The study provides practitioners with suggestions to design patient-centered healthcare services by leveraging on patient knowledge, participation, responsibility in care and involvement in the value-creation process.
Originality/value
Over the last decade, healthcare management literature has shifted its focus from healthcare organizations to patients. The number of contributions about patient satisfaction, empowerment and value co-creation exponentially increased. However, these dimensions are often studied separately. This work advances available knowledge by clarifying and testing the relationships between these three constructs.
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The purpose of this paper is to understand why the neo‐Thomist natural law approach to social economics does not represent a trustworthy epistemological reference for the current…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand why the neo‐Thomist natural law approach to social economics does not represent a trustworthy epistemological reference for the current social economists but, rather, definitively belongs to the past history of economics.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach ventures beyond an epistemological, methodological, and historical analysis of the causes that led to the rediscovery of Thomism, its golden age, and its abandonment. The theoretical and practical contents of the neo‐Thomist natural law approach to social economics are also carefully examined in order to identify its originality.
Findings
From this study, it clearly emerges that the modern conception of economics as a value‐free and context‐independent science is due to historical facts and ideological convictions and not to evidence in nature. This study also demonstrates that the disappearance of the neo‐Thomist natural law approach from the social economics debate is basically attributable to political, scholarly, and ecclesiastical factors and not to the loss of scientific reliability.
Research limitations/implications
The treatment of the neo‐Thomist school is deployed in general terms with special reference to the principal scholars, Taparelli, Liberatore, and Leo XIII. In order to focus on the paper's aim, the author has not explored the particularity of each neo‐Thomist author's thought.
Practical implications
The practical desirability is to always render economists more aware of the fact that the societal and ethical context significantly mattered and continues to matter in the elaboration process of the economic theories.
Originality/value
The novelty consists of the attempt to explain the theoretical and practical reasons that historically and currently determine the sharp separation between the neo‐Thomist natural approach tradition and the social economics theory.
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Giuseppe Festa, Matteo Rossi, Ashutosh Kolte and Mario Situm
This study aims to analyze the territory as a distinctive factor through which the concept and practice of “Made in Italy” operates. Specifically, the study considers the role of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the territory as a distinctive factor through which the concept and practice of “Made in Italy” operates. Specifically, the study considers the role of local and sub-national entrepreneurial collaborations that preserve and enhance factors such as history, style and talent as the essence of Italian “quality” and as the pillar of Italian territorial capitalism.
Design/methodology/approach
The research examines this Italian phenomenon by investigating small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that successfully compete abroad (and also in the domestic market) with a “glocal” approach, adopting the entrepreneurial formula of industrial districts.
Findings
The results indicate that international expansion is becoming increasingly more complex (as is every growth/development strategy) but that “glocalism” could represent a potential driver for the success of internationalization strategies. Specifically, for SMEs operating in industrial districts, territorial capitalism could emerge as a unique competitive factor, because it is a component of local structural capital and global reputational capital, as in the case of “Made in Italy.”
Originality/value
In an increasingly globalized market environment, many companies look to foreign markets to maintain and expand competitive advantage and business performance. Once the companies embark on this endeavor, organizations are involved in governing and managing these networks of finance, production and communication and the distribution-related relationships that constitute globalization. The push to engage in international development is currently imperative for SMEs, which need to extend their business engagement beyond conventional local markets and identify and exploit their distinctive competitive advantage to be able to succeed. One possible way of achieving this is the close interaction with the local territories in which these enterprises reside.