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Entrepreneurial universities, through their intellectual capital (IC), can promote the development of a third mission, which involves collaborating with business and societal organizations to create value. Joint research projects are undertaken within entrepreneurial universities leveraging their IC. These generate value for both the academic community and the territory as they generate impact, in terms of regional IC. At the micro level, scientists in the principal investigator (PI) role are influential actors in generating impact and IC that is beneficial for all joint project stakeholders. The purpose of the paper is to address the existing gap in entrepreneurial university literature concerning the impact generation process.

The paper represents a theoretical contribution adopting a deductive approach.

This paper proposes a novel approach to support PIs in entrepreneurial universities in the process of managing innovative initiatives toward IC impact generation. First, we present the IC-based Research Impact Tool (ICRIT) to guide PIs acting as explorative entrepreneurs; then we propose an IC-based Research Impact Report (ICRIR) including some key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate impact and IC.

The theoretical approach proposed could be developed further. This could be furthered through more empirical studies using initially, for example, comparative cross-country case study research.

The paper sheds new light on the importance of the final impact generated by research initiatives, focusing on the crucial role played by PIs and promoting the adoption of an IC-based strategic approach, to maximize the final impact of projects, in terms of regional IC.

Firms strive to find new ways of boosting value creation through integrating knowledge for innovation. Open innovation has altered this quest for excellence and, accordingly, this study aims to investigate the antecedents and enablers of innovation performance in firms belonging to a knowledge-intensive service sector of a developing country.

As such, data were gathered through a survey approach, targeting telecom service firms in Pakistan. Hypotheses were tested using the partial least squares technique. Measurement and structural models were assessed following the recommended two-stage procedure.

Results showed that knowledge sourcing and customer engagement impact the innovation performance of firms, whereas transformational leadership, knowledge sourcing and customer engagement are linked to innovation with the mediating effect of absorptive capacity.

This research helps to improve the innovation management practices of the firms belonging to this important sector and thus enables them to achieve sustainable competitive advantage through building their absorptive capabilities.

Knowledge-intensive business services are largely excluded from the great debate on open innovation so far, with a few exceptions. This research proposes and tests a model of enablers of open innovation that contributes toward improving the innovation performance of telecom firms in a developing country.

Research on leaders’ knowledge management systems focuses exclusively on how leaders gather and disseminate knowledge in collaboration with external actors. Not much is known about how leaders address the psychological aspects of employees and strategize internal communication. In addition, while previous work has treated high uncertainty as a default feature of crisis, this study aims to propose that perceived uncertainty varies in experience/meaning and has a crucial bearing on the relative balance of cognitive/emotional load on the leader and behavioral/psychological responses.

The authors contribute by qualitatively examining the role of leader knowledge systems in designing communication strategies in the context of the COVID-19 crisis by investigating communication characteristics, style, modes and the relatively unaddressed role of compassion/persuasion. In this pursuit, the authors interviewed 21 C-suite leaders, including chief executive officers, chief marketing officers, chief financial officers, chief human resource officers and founders, and analyzed their data using open, axial and selective coding, which were later extracted for representative themes and overarching dimensions.

Drawing from grounded theory research, the authors present a framework of knowledge systems and their resultant communication with employees in high uncertain and low uncertain crises. The authors highlight interactions of a set of concepts – leaders’ preparedness, leaders’ support to employees tailored communication adapted to perceived uncertainty, leading to enhanced trust – in the achievement of outcomes related to balancing operational and relational systems with employees. The findings suggest that a structured process of communication helps employees mitigate any concern related to uncertainty and feel confident in their leadership.

The research has implications for leaders in managing their knowledge systems, for human esources practitioners in designing effective internal communication programs, as well as for scholars in knowledge management, communication and leadership.

Dealing with intellectual capital (IC), the purpose of this paper is to provide a strategic tool for management activities in knowledge-based organizations. In particular, in the contribution, an integrated framework for intangibles’ representation, evaluation and control in Science Parks is developed.

Starting from a review of the main instruments for measuring intangible resources in an organization, an integrated model of IC for Science Parks is formulated.

The paper demonstrates that Science Parks are big repositories of knowledge but they are neither familiar with the IC management nor with the use of methodologies functional for the resources representations and for the variations dynamics of their value. Thereby it answers to questions related to the IC process representation, responding to managerial exigencies and to measurability and repeatability as strategic activities for business running.

Unlike the great number of studies on IC that formulate objective metrics of the value of firms’ intangible assets, the paper presents a model not to describe but to shape processes in a knowledge-based organization and to achieve and communicate results both for management and for increasing transparency of communication with external stakeholders.

Recognising the increasing relevance of digital platforms in socio-economic dynamics, the paper aims at investigating in which ways digital platforms can influence the economic performances of Italian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) actively engaged in foreign countries.

The paper adopts the interpretative lens provided by the exploration–exploitation dichotomy within current studies in knowledge management for defining knowledge-based factors able to influence the economic performance of Italian SMEs in foreign countries. An explorative study on secondary data related to 746 Italian SMEs is conducted for testing via structural equation modelling (SEM) the positive relationships between (1) SME's investment in information and communication technologies (ICT), (2) number of languages available for the SME's website and (3) number of languages available for SME's social pages and SME's return on sales (ROS) in foreign countries.

The results underline the key role of exploitation factors in terms of influence on SME's performance in foreign countries.

The paper enriches current studies about international marketing providing preliminary evidence about the key role of exploitation factors in influencing SME's performance in foreign countries.

This paper aims at identifying factors that might affect academic patent activities. It investigates the characteristics of universities acting on the number of academic patents, thus classifying elements of differentiation among universities able to determine the level of patent activity.

Three hypotheses are tested through a regression analysis, considering various academic variables.

Results demonstrate that the patent activity is mainly influenced by the presence of universities’ internal policies that regulate such a field. The adoption of a regulation is a signal for academics of the university inclination and attempt to develop an environment conducive to patent activities, and to offer structured support to inventors in the different phases of the patenting process.

The study, as it focuses on a single country, Italy, may reflect some peculiarities of the national system. Future research may extend it to different geographical areas in which institutional and environmental factors are different, or, maintaining the geographical location, study the impact of institutional factors to the change over time in the rate of patenting universities.

Unlike the great number of studies which focus on institutional factors affecting university patent activity, the present study explores the academic elements able to valorize and exploit scientific knowledge, providing also a practical guidance for university governance.