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Cruising is one of the industries most susceptible to the current COVID-19 health crisis, due to the closed environment and the contacts between cruisers and crewmembers. This study aims to understand if the perceived crowding and the health risk perception related to the pandemic situation might threaten passengers’ intentions to cruise. The study also examines corporate reputation and trust, as well as social motivation and self-confidence, as possible predictors of consumers’ intention to cruise.

The study is based on the development of a structured questionnaire submitted online via social media. Overall, 553 individuals’ responses were used for understanding the factors that can affect consumers’ intention to cruise by performing several regression models.

The results show that the perceived crowding related to the pandemic does not seem to influence people’s intention to cruise. On the contrary, trust in the cruise company, corporate reputation, cruisers’ self-confidence and research of social motivation are positive predictors of intention to cruise, thus reducing the perceived risk’s deterring impact. The importance of such factors differs in respect of repeat and not repeat cruisers.

The study presents several managerial implications as it analyses the variables that could help cruise management cope better with COVID-19’s negative impact.

Despite the severity of COVID-19’s impact on the cruise industry, no studies have yet focussed on how the current pandemic situation may influence customers’ intention to cruise in the future.

This study investigates the relationship between the strength of innovative entrepreneurial ecosystems and subjective well-being in 43 European smart cities. Subjective well-being is operationalized by a Quality of Life (QOL) survey that references the level of multidimensional satisfaction or happiness expressed by residents at the city level. The entrepreneurial ecosystem concept depicted here highlights actor interdependence that creates new value in a specific community by undertaking innovative entrepreneurial activities. The research uses objective and subjective variables to analyze the relationships between the entrepreneurial ecosystem and subjective well-being.

The authors conducted a cluster analysis with a nonaggregative quantitative approach based on the theory of the partially ordered set (poset); the objective was to find significant smart city level relationships between the entrepreneurial ecosystem and subjective well-being.

The strength of the entrepreneurial ecosystem is positively related to subjective well-being only in large cities. This result confirms a strong interdependency between the creation of innovative entrepreneurial activities and subjective well-being in large cities. The smart cities QOL dimensions showing higher correlations with the entrepreneurial ecosystem include urban welfare, economic well-being and environmental quality, such as information and communications technology (ICT) and mobility.

Despite the main implications being properly referred to large cities, the governments of smart cities should encourage and promote programs to improve citizens' subjective well-being and to create a conducive entrepreneurship environment.

This study is one of the few contributions focused on the relationship between the entrepreneurial smart city ecosystem and subjective well-being in the urban environment.

The purpose of this study is to build a proposal for an integrated analysis / evaluation / decision / implementation framework to suit entrepreneurial companies intending to redefine their strategic behaviours and their competitive schemes in the global environment.

A conceptual approach, based on theoretical perspectives relating to globalisation-based management and decision-making of entrepreneurs, is adopted.

The paper presents a conceptual framework useful for supporting entrepreneurial decisions for global strategies, drawing on an integrated analysis of external environment and internal components, with a specific focus on the entrepreneur's characteristics in terms of cognitive and emotional profiles. It is suggested to adopt a logical process aimed at identifying which strategic levers are available for entrepreneurial players to implement their strategies.

Entrepreneurial decision-making may benefit from an integrated framework which helps entrepreneurs, who aim to compete in the global marketplace, to explore and exploit all the key factors useful to defining their strategies.

There is a lack of decision-making frameworks that put the entrepreneur at the centre and, at the same time, present a potential balance between the external factors (globalisation drivers and local opportunities) and the resources and competences required to manage risks and difficulties of the global environment (internal factors). The originality of the proposed framework consists in filling this gap. Moreover, this framework can be useful for “re-born global” or “global-again” firms that are currently a neglected typology of studied firms.

The authors’ aim is to investigate if entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has a role in interpreting an external crisis, such as COVID-19, as an opportunity for investing in digital transformation.

The authors undertook multiple case study research on the digital transformation of seven “Made in Italy” SMEs and proposed a conceptual framework that sees an external stimulus (e.g. the pandemic) as a driver of the digitalisation, filtered by the entrepreneurial orientation of SMEs.

The authors’ results show how EO deals with the changing environment and helps address the market opportunities related to digitalisation.

This study contributes to the existing literature on EO and digital transformation of SMEs, creating a new model for forthcoming studies on this topic. In addition, interesting insights are offered on the role of EO to promote the introduction of digital transformation in SMEs operating in the “Made in Italy” sectors.

This study shows the role of EO as a reactive characteristic during a crisis. Thus, the authors’ suggestion to SMEs is to develop their EO as a part of the strategic orientation. In addition, this work encourages policymakers to invest in the promotion of specific interventions aimed at supporting entrepreneurs in enhancing their capacity to effectively manage digital transformation.

Identifying the most important triggers of digitalisation in times of crisis remains an underexplored area of research. Thus, this study adds value to both digital transformation and entrepreneurial orientation topics.

The literature mainly concentrates on the relationships between externally oriented digital transformation (ExtDT), big data analytics capability (BDAC) and business model innovation (BMI) from an intra-organizational perspective. However, it is acknowledged that the external environment shapes the firm's strategy and affects innovation outcomes. Embracing an external environment perspective, the authors aim to fill this gap. The authors develop and test a moderated mediation model linking ExtDT to BMI. Drawing on the dynamic capabilities view, the authors' model posits that the effect of ExtDT on BMI is mediated by BDAC, while environmental hostility (EH) moderates these relationships.

The authors adopt a quantitative approach based on bootstrapped partial least square-path modeling (PLS-PM) to analyze a sample of 200 Italian data-driven SMEs.

The results highlight that ExtDT and BDAC positively affect BMI. The findings also indicate that ExtDT is an antecedent of BMI that is less disruptive than BDAC. The authors also obtain that ExtDT solely does not lead to BDAC. Interestingly, the effect of BDAC on BMI increases when EH moderates the relationship.

Analyzing the relationships between ExtDT, BDAC and BMI from an external environment perspective is an underexplored area of research. The authors contribute to this topic by evaluating how EH interacts with ExtDT and BDAC toward BMI.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of strategic orientation (defined using the Miles and Snow’s paradigm) on the processes of strategic decision-making and organisational design in medium-sized firms (MEs) operating in the Italian family food and beverage industry (F&B). It answers the following research questions: Does the orientation towards market development lead to different strategic formulation styles and developing innovative approaches towards organisational design?

The study is based on five cases of Italian family MEs operating in the F&B industry with a focus on premium segments, following the Mediobanca and Unioncamere criteria.

The strategy formulation process and the organisational design are affected by strategic orientation, highlighting the relevance of the “prospector” orientation in modifying the behavioural models among the selected companies.

The limitations concern the number of examined case studies and the geographical location of firms.

The attitude to plan and develop new organisational designs is required by a more “prospector” strategic orientation due to the increasing level of work complexity and the process of innovation to manage the market share. Thus, the emergence of a prospector attitude must be reinforced with specific managerial competencies and suggested as necessary support for development strategies.

This study focusses on strategic and organisational profiles of MEs operating in the F&B context, where literature is still fragmented. It explores the relationship between strategic orientation, strategic formulation and organisational design by analysing all constructs simultaneously, thereby bridging the theoretical gap in the existing literature.

In recent years, critical events have heavily affected the cruise industry. Such events may variously influence customers’ intention to take a cruise in the future depending on different factors. This paper aims to study such factors, in particular the emotions related to the event, the prior corporate reputation and the use of social media in the corporate communication strategies followed during the crisis.

The study is based on the development of a structured questionnaire submitted online via blogs and other social media. Overall, 572 cruiser opinions were used to test five research hypotheses by performing logistic regression analysis.

The degree of anger increases the likelihood of a critical event influencing the intention to take a cruise in the future. On the contrary, a former excellent corporate reputation reduces that likelihood and the high importance placed by potential customers on information about the critical event transmitted via social media does not have any influence.

The study has several managerial implications, as it identifies and analyses the variables cruise company managers should consider when dealing with critical events.

Despite the relevance of this topic, no studies have yet focused on how (and by which factors) a critical event may influence customers’ intention to take a cruise in the future.

The study analyses the role that open social innovation (OSI) perspective played for Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus (FBAO), a food bank in Italy, in responding to the COVID-19 crisis. It answers the following research question: how does a crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, stimulate the adoption of OSI practices to revamp the activities of FBAO and facilitate appropriate solutions to carry out its social mission?

This study employs a qualitative approach. It is based on a single case study.

The study shows how COVID-19 has stimulated the adoption of OSI practices to continue to meet the social mission, creating innovative projects or finding new ways to do the same things.

The study is based on a single case study.

The paper contributes insights into the literature on OSI, examining how inbound and outbound OSI mechanisms can modify business models and increase the adaptation capacity of food banks and their effectiveness. In addition, it provides a rich context in which the social value drivers provided by OSI are studied.

This paper applies the OSI to a food bank to evaluate what this action mode produces for the food bank during a health crisis. Specifically, this is the first paper that studies the COVID-19 crisis response of a food bank from the OSI perspective, focusing on the inbound and outbound OSI processes that characterized the entire network of relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the following research questions: Is the knowledge of a city environment a stimulus for entrepreneurship? Which knowledge profiles of cities are more propulsive in order to stimulate entrepreneurship?

In order to answer the aforementioned research questions, two multidimensional indexes have been created: Knowledge-Based City Developing Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurship (ENT). The sample includes all capital cities in the EU28. The presence of cities from EU28 countries is important to foster the entrepreneurial attitude in each European Country. The authors have also included 32 non-capital cities in the EU that are important hubs, contributing to a sample formed of 60 cities.

The empirical results show that the social and cultural environment may significantly improve the entrepreneurship in EU cities, more than others factors that are usually connected to economic development.

The work tries to contribute to the debate on urban economic development and entrepreneurship, providing implication for academics and urban policy makers.