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The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the relationship between three types of process innovations (i.e. innovation in production, IT, and logistics processes) and ambidexterity performance. Specifically, the paper attempts to examine whether changes in business processes help companies to reconcile exploration and exploitation learning activities within the firm domain.

This research is based on data of 2,843 manufacturing firms, whose data are available from the Italian Innovation Survey (period 2010-2012). Hypotheses are developed and tested by using a Tobit regression approach.

Innovation in production and IT processes favors ambidexterity performance, whereas changes in logistics activities, despite being positive, are less relevant.

This is one of the first attempts to offer empirical evidence about the relationship between process innovations and ambidexterity performance (without engaging in domain separation), hence providing additional insights into the ambidexterity literature and the literature on process innovation.

The conventional notion that adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) positively affects firm performance is often confronted with various examples of failures. In this context, large-scale empirical evidence of the economic performance implications of adopting AI is poor, especially in the context of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Drawing upon the Resource-Based View and the Digital Complementary Asset literature, we assessed whether the adoption of AI affects SMEs’ revenue growth.

First, we examine the relationship between the adoption of AI and SMEs’ revenue growth. Second, we assess whether AI complements the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data Analytics (BDA). We use firm-level data from the European Commission in 2020 on 11,429 European SMEs (Flash Eurobarometer 486).

Among the key findings, we found that ceteris paribus, the adoption of AI positively affects SMEs’ revenue growth and, in conjunction with IoT and BDA, appears to be even more beneficial.

Our results suggest that AI fosters SME growth, especially in combination with IoT and BDA. Thus, SME managers should be aware of the positive impacts of investments in AI and make decisions accordingly. Likewise, policymakers are aware of the positive effects of SMEs’ reliance on AI, so they may design policies and funding schemes to push this digitalization of SMEs further.

The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive picture of the innovative efforts undertaken over time to develop the digital technologies for managing the interface between supply chain management and marketing processes and the role they play in sustaining supply chain management-marketing (SCM-M) integration from an information processing point of view.

Patent analysis and actual examples are used to carry out this study. In detail, first, the authors identify the subset of enabling technologies pertaining to the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) that can be considered the most relevant for effective SCM-M integration (i.e. Industrial Internet of Things, Cloud computing, Big Data analytics and customer profiling, Cyber security). Second, the authors carry out a patent analysis aimed at providing a comprehensive overview of the patenting activity trends characterizing the set of digital technologies under investigation, hence highlighting their innovation dynamics and applications.

This research provides insightful information about which digital technologies may enable the SCM-M integration. Specifically, the authors highlight the role those solutions play in terms of information acquisition, storage and elaboration for SCM-M integration by relying on illustrative actual examples. Moreover, the authors present the organisations more involved in the development of digital technologies for SCM-M integration over time and offer an examination of their technological impact in terms of influence on subsequent technological developments.

So far, much has been said about why marketing and supply chain management functions should be integrated. However, a clear picture of the digital technologies that might be adopted to achieve this objective has yet to be revealed. Thus, the paper contributes to the literature on SCM-M integration and Industry 4.0 by highlighting the enabling technologies for the Industry 4.0 that may particularly serve for managing the SCM-M interface from an information processing perspective.

Knowledge assumes a pivotal role in the open innovation (OI) paradigm. Yet OI has been scantly investigated by adopting a knowledge management (KM) lens. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic literature review of the KM practices analysed by prior literature to support OI activities.

To perform a valuable literature review, the steps for systematic review proposed by previous studies have been adopted. These steps have yielded a final sample of 34 articles. Afterward, the authors have distinguished and analysed the identified articles according to the three main OI processes, i.e. inbound, outbound and coupled OI processes.

This research groups and highlights the most relevant KM practices to support OI activities on the basis of the inbound, outbound and coupled OI processes.

Despite knowledge is the most relevant resource exchanged in OI activities, this is the first attempt to highlight how knowledge should be managed in an OI context by adopting a KM lens. Furthermore, the authors also identify relevant topics that have been so far understudied, which the authors suggest as future research directions.

This paper aims to map the evolution of hydrogen-based technologies (HBTs) by examining the patenting activity associated to these technlogies from 1930 to 2020. In doing so, the study provides a novel perspective on the development of HBTs and offers implications for managers and policymakers.

We collected patent data at the level of patent families (PFs). Our sample includes 317,089 PFs related to hydrogen production and 62,496 PFs to hydrogen storage. We examined PF data to delineate the state of the art and major technical advancements of HBTs.

Our analysis provides evidence of an increasing patenting activity in the area of HBTs, hence suggesting relatively high levels of expectations on the economic potential of these technologies. US and Japan hold the largest proportion of PFs related to HBTs (about 60%), while European applicants hold the highest proportion of highly cited PFs (about 60%). While firms represent the applicant with the highest share of PFs, our analysis reveals that firms holding HBT PFs are primarily from the chemical sector.

While our analysis is limited to examining patent data which capture some aspects of the innovation activity around HBTs (namelly, patented inventions), our study enriches existing literature by performinng a patent analysis on a much larger sample of data when compared to previous studies.

Two main implications emerge from our study. Firstly, there seems to be an urgent need to support the emergence of a dominant design so as to facilitate the consolidation and diffusion of the HBTs, hence the transition to a more sustainable energy production. Secondly, the majority of HBT PFs are held by a small number of countries. This, in turn, suggests opportunities to develop cross-country cooperation (e.g. international agreements, research and technology offices) to support the development and adoption of HBTs globally.

Considering the results obtained in this study, from a social point of view, the attention that organizations have paid to hydrogen related technologies is evident. This suggests that the development HBTs can function as a social enabler for a sustianable energy transition.

Extant research has focused on the individual components of the hydrogen chain. As a result, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the progress made in the area of HBTs. To address this gap, this study examined HBTs by focusing on both production and storage technologies since their initial developments, hence adopting an observation period of about 70 years.

Advances in information technology and the increasing digitalization of the general public have favored the growth of the sharing economy. The sharing economy is based on transactions of idle resources between individuals to satisfy cogent needs. Notwithstanding the great interest in this emerging phenomenon, it is still not clear which factors are driving the shift in consumer consumption behavior from the traditional economy toward this new economic model. Grounded in self-determination theory, we contend that what is needed is a holistic approach that considers the three elements involved in sharing economy transactions, namely (1) consumer motivations, (2) web-based platforms and (3) types of assets exchanged.

To conduct our study, we used the Flash Eurobarometer 467 database titled “The Use of the Collaborative Economy,” collected by the European Union with Flash Eurobarometer datasets and openly available to the public. Consequently, our study aims to provide results based on a large-scale quantitative analysis involving a large number of individuals and multiple sectors.

Our findings provide empirical evidence of the positive effects of the shift in consumption behavior toward the sharing economy brought about by (1) consumers’ intrinsic motivations, (2) the quality of the platform and (3) the human asset-based categories of products offered.

This research seeks to advance understanding of the factors that facilitate the adoption of the sharing economy, and we provide managers and policymakers with suggestions regarding the factors they may leverage to further favor the spread of this economic model.

The effect of the transition toward digital technologies on today’s businesses (i.e. Industry 4.0 transition) is becoming increasingly relevant, and the number of studies that have examined this phenomenon has grown rapidly. However, systematizing the existing findings is still a challenge, from both a theoretical and a managerial point of view. In such a setting, the knowledge management (KM) discipline can provide guidance to address such a gap. Indeed, the implementation of fundamental digital technologies is reshaping how firms manage knowledge. Thus, this study aims to critically review the existing literature on Industry 4.0 from a KM perspective.

First, the authors defined a structuring framework to highlight the role of Industry 4.0 transition along with absorptive capacity (ACAP) processes (acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation), while specifying what is being managed, that is data, information and/or (actual) knowledge, according to the data-information-knowledge (DIK) hierarchy. The authors then followed the systematic literature review methodology, which involves the use of explicit criteria to select publications to review and outline the stages a process has to follow to provide a transparent and replicable review and to analyze the existing literature according to the theoretical framework. This procedure yielded a final list of 150 papers.

By providing a clear picture of what scholars have studied so far on Industry 4.0 transition, in terms of KM, this literature review highlights that among all the studied digital technologies, the big data analytics technology is the one that has been explored the most in each phase of the ACAP process. A constructive body of research has also emerged in recent years around the role played by the internet of things, especially to explain the acquisition of data. On the other hand, some digital technologies, such as cyber security and smart manufacturing, have largely remained unaddressed. An explanation of the role of these technologies has been provided, from a KM perspective, together with the business implications.

This study is one of the first attempts to revise the literature on Industry 4.0 transition from a KM perspective, and it proposes a novel framework to read existing studies and on which to base new ones. Furthermore, the synthesis makes two main contributions. First, it provides a clear picture of the different digital technologies that support the four ACAP phases in relation to the DIK hierarchy. Accordingly, these results can emphasize what the literature has looked at so far, as well as which digital technologies have gained the most attention and their impacts in terms of KM. Second, the synthesis provides prescriptive considerations on the development of future research avenues, according to the proposed research framework.

This study aims to verify the influence of chief executive officer (CEO) cognitive trust and governmental support on marketing innovation. Additionally, it evaluated the influence of CEO cognitive trust on the marketing innovation of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs).

The authors empirically assessed the impact of CEO cognitive trust on SMME marketing innovation. Furthermore, the authors examined the mediating effect of governmental support on this relationship. The authors then studied a sample of 1,770 SMMEs in China by applying partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The authors found that CEO cognitive trust was negatively associated with marketing innovation. Moreover, governmental support has a competitive mediating effect on this relationship. Thus, while governmental support is urgently needed to enhance the marketing innovation of SMMEs, CEO cognitive trust negatively impacts this relationship.

This study empirically establishes the importance of CEO cognitive trust and governmental support as antecedents in SMME marketing innovation. This contributes to the knowledge base of the management field, adding to important streams in the wider business literature, such as marketing studies, leadership management, strategic management and innovation. While the model is parsimonious, the relationships it highlights are robust and can be generalized to other contexts.

Managers must not only have high levels of trust and authority but must also embody these characteristics rationally. Simultaneously, managers must actively establish a trusting relationship with the government, thereby improving their company’s ability to integrate government policy information while also actively seeking governmental support. These measures are helpful in enhancing the marketing innovation capabilities of SMMEs.

SMMEs occupy an important position in all countries’ economies and their vitality directly determines the strength of the economy. Formulating reasonable marketing strategies will help enhance market competitiveness and promote the rapid development of SMMEs.

The literature on marketing innovation has paid little attention to CEO cognitive trust, while CEOs’ cognitive characteristics are an increasingly relevant antecedent in SMME marketing innovation. This study analyzed CEO cognitive trust as a possible antecedent of marketing innovation activities in SMMEs, with this influence path being evaluated. This study extends the current knowledge in this field by considering the effects of CEO cognitive trust on marketing innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the influence of the presence in foreign markets on small- and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) financial performance. Furthermore, it seeks to examine the moderating effect of corporate group and alliance portfolio size on this relationship.

First, the authors develop hypotheses concerning the relationship between the presence in foreign markets and SMEs’ financial performance as well as the moderating role of the size of an SME’s corporate group and alliance portfolio. Afterward, the authors used ordinary least square regression to the test the hypotheses based on a sample of 5,885 high-tech US SMEs registered in the Orbis database (Bureau van Dijk).

Results of the study reveal that the presence in foreign markets is positively associated with an SME’s financial performance, with the size of the corporate group enhancing this relationship, hence confirming the conjectures. Instead, the size of the alliance portfolio appears to not exert any moderating effect, in contrast with the last hypothesis.

Form a theoretical perspective, the authors dig into the literature assessing the performance outcomes of SMEs and contingent effects of the possibility to tap into external resources of other firms. By so doing, the findings support a specific stream of the literature in claiming the positive effects deriving from being part of a corporate group. Conversely, the findings seem to go in the opposite direction of the majority of the literature that claim a positive impact of alliances on financial performances, while supporting those studies stressing that alliances pose significant challenges for SMEs and should be carefully identified and managed.

Given the limited understanding of the process of transgenerational entrepreneurship and that knowledge is a fundamental antecedent of entrepreneurial endeavors, this study aims to shed light on how entrepreneurial families (EFs) nurture entrepreneurship across generations, which knowledge is required within the EF to spur new entrepreneurial activities, and how is this knowledge acquired.

Considering the paucity of empirical evidence on the topic under investigation and the related exploratory nature of this study, the authors adopted a qualitative approach by conducting a case study on an Italian wine-making family business.

The case analysis reveals that EF members are required to acquire different types of knowledge at different generational stages to spur new entrepreneurial activities, specifically technical knowledge in the second generation and business knowledge in the third generation. Moreover, the data analysis shows two mechanisms, namely, trust among generations and role separation, that, during both generational transitions, enabled and empowered the younger generations to exploit their knowledge to explore entrepreneurial opportunities and engage in new entrepreneurial activities.

This study provides novel insights into the role of knowledge in transgenerational entrepreneurship, particularly looking at knowledge acquired by EF members across generations. Accordingly, this research contributes to the literature streams of transgenerational entrepreneurship, knowledge management in family businesses and broader knowledge management research.