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The purpose of this paper is to satisfy a clear gap in the main field of open innovation research whereabouts a very little scholarship try to analyze the mechanisms of innovative milieu down smart cities environments by applying through innovative projects that seem to support efficiently the entry of private firms and citizens in public collaborations.

The research performed an exploratory and qualitative evaluation based on the case study method built on the evaluation of organizational behavior and urban boosting innovation through smart city initiatives. In doing so, after a literature review in smart city as well in lean methodology fields, the case of Turin Smart City follows.

As acknowledged by international literature, the paper shows how a lean approach enables local government to define and realize smart projects and initiatives in a faster and more effective way. Particularly, the government in one of the main cities in Italy, id est Turin, combines a lean methodology with the job-to-be done approach, according a new concept of smart initiatives involving a startup mentality for the lead users which enables interesting predictions relating the human aspects of open collaborations.

The specificity of this inquiry highlights valuable insights from double-gate smart cities’ innovation, social and urban as well. The research is largely interpretative and exploratory and while this provides a solid scientific foundation for further research, it does not, itself, subject any hypothesis to statistical testing and validation.

Since the city approached the smart city subject in a lean way, it was able to realize some projects in a faster way. Through specific initiatives, the city acquires the ability to involve more and better all its stakeholders such as citizens, companies, and public employees, among others. In this regard, the paper invigorates managerial debates concerning the urban and social aspects of open innovation ecosystems which represent in our minds a superior level of open innovation, testbeds of positive knowledge, and stimulus of knowledge dissemination process around the city.

This papers aims to deal with enterprise networks and clusters dynamics, as well as inter‐firm joint efforts and collaborations, in order to study their evolution and possible effects when radical innovation occurs inside them.

In order to study these dynamics, with the optimal balancing among different strategies and the importance of exogenous parameters in cluster creation, a model is presented. It follows the agent‐based paradigm, particularly suited for describing complex social systems in which many parts interact among them. This allows one to create simulations of the studied system, and to test different hypotheses. Besides, it is the only paradigm in which the emergent features of complex systems can arise spontaneously, thanks to the bottom‐up design. A model is introduced and described in detail.

Qualitative results are described, reflecting current state‐of‐the art theories. The results show how clusters emerge and evolve among enterprises, and how radical innovation can trigger this phenomenon. Different managerial behaviour (externally or internally focused) is discussed as well.

The most important feature of a model based on agent is the possibility of repeating the experiment several times, by changing one or few variables at a time, by leaving the others unchanged. It constitutes for social sciences the equivalent of lab experiments for such disciplines as physics or chemistry. The presented model allows the study of different clustering scenarios, by changing the initial conditions.

The article investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated and deepened the presidentialization of politics in Italy. It examines how a series of innovative rules and procedures adopted by the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to face the extraordinary event are part of a permanent presidentialization dynamic.

This study analyzes the role of prime minister in coping with the pandemic in Italy within the analytical framework of the personalization of politics. Section 1 investigates how the prime minister has resorted to autonomous normative power through intensive use of the Decree of the President of the Council of Ministers (DPCM). Section 2 observes the establishment of a more direct relationship with citizens through extensive use of digital communication and high engagement. Section 3 analyzes the “personal task force” appointed by the prime minister and highlights a new balance between technocratic/private roles and politics undermining democratic accountability.

By examining three main aspects of the personalization of politics, the article observes that the COVID-19 pandemic has facilitated the movement to presidentialization of power in Italy. It argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has strengthened political and institutional trends already in place before the crisis.

The article expands the comparative research on the presidentialization of politics. The Italian case clearly underlines how the pandemic crisis represented a further step of progressive dominance of the “executive” over the other branches of government. The article suggests an agenda for future cross-institutional and cross-national analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse a sustainable business model (SBM) implemented by an Alternative Food Network (AFN), namely the Italian Food Assembly, with the goal of exploring its drivers of success and explaining how it can contribute to enhance sustainable and anti-consumption behaviours. This research aims at combining principles from both SBM innovation and user-driven anti-consumption and well-being habits, in order to develop more successful, comprehensive and community-centred sustainable value propositions.

Given the research goal, an exploratory case study was prepared where multiple sources of data were employed, namely in-depth interviews, participant observation, focus groups and document analysis.

In the light of the Bocken et al. (2014) framework, this paper provides evidence on the implementation of an AFN where it is possible to observe a strong sharing of knowledge regarding sustainable consumption behaviours and an effective dissemination of best practices between members. The authors developed four propositions that support the creation of a sustainable food supply chain, laying the foundation for spreading consumer behaviours and motivations so that they become more sustainable in their consumption habits.

Even though the case study is very rich in the amount of data gathered, it cannot be generalised. Further research will overcome this limitation by adding more cases within a comparative approach and through a quantitative methodology.

It adds value to recent literature and practice by focussing on how networks of producers, consumers and other actors could act to improve food anti-consumption behaviours, by embodying alternatives to conventional food systems.

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a bibliometric analysis of the evolution and structure of business model research in industrial marketing scholarship during the period between 2011 and 2020 and to discuss potential directions for future empirical research.

Bibliometric methodologies are deployed to objectively evaluate the business model research that has made the most impact within industrial marketing scholarship as well as the prominent scholars and key topics driving the discipline at points in time.

The findings demonstrate the formative but increasing engagement that industrial marketing scholarship has had with business model literature and the limited but increasing degree that business models have influenced industrial marketing literature. Potential directions for the empirical development of business model literature are argued to lie in the areas of collaboration and coopetition by examining the notion of value within the relationships, interactions and/or networks evidenced in European seaports business models.

Bibliometric analysis is retrospective in nature so developments in the literature appear only after some time has elapsed. Different keyword selection when formulating search strings for sampling may have brought some deviations in the analysis.

Research that investigates the link between business models and industrial marketing is still scarce. This paper is among the few that analyze objectively the evolution and structure of business model literature in industrial marketing scholarship from a longitudinal perspective with a particular emphasis on the period between 2011 and 2020.

This chapter contributes to the Public Value (PV) literature in relation to accounting by providing evidence on its content's operationalization through performance measurement. In particular, it establishes the link with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which may work as guiding principles of a public organization’s action. Accordingly, organizations embedding SDGs include them in their strategic decisions and disclose them through performance measurement and narratives.

The SDGs' presence is explored in the PV of a sample of Italian health institutes through documentary analysis of their performance plans. The aim is to verify if and how SDGs are pursued and whether the COVID-19 pandemic has affected PV content.

Besides Goal No. 3 (Health), the PV content of the investigated institutes contains various SDGs. Before the pandemic, their PV was aligned with SDGs mainly related to prosperity, economic growth and social inclusion. In the following period, the number of SDGs increased, introducing planet and environmental protection dimensions. No one explicitly mentions pursuing SDGs, revealing a non-institutionalized sensitivity of managers towards SDGs. The analysis distinguishes between ‘core’ SDGs, revealed mostly by traditional performance measures disclosing the achievement of institutes' mission, and ‘complementary’ SDGs, expressed mostly through narratives. This can derive from performance measurement, which employs the language of performativity, while the contribution to society is relegated in the narratives, making them less incisive.

This study aims to combine open innovation (OI) and organizational learning (OL) literature in the context of strategic alliances.

The authors develop a conceptual framework that links OI to OL literatures. The authors empirically validate this framework through four representative cases of dyadic strategic alliances in which the allied partners have (mainly) adopted an inbound or outbound OI strategy and (mainly) used an experiential or experimental learning approach to access knowledge in the alliance.

The authors propose and validate a framework that links two well-known OI strategies (inbound and outbound) and two types of OL, namely, experiential and experimental learning. This, in turn, allows us to propose four different typologies of learning opportunities that could be pursued by alliance partners.

The research offers a framework that links experiential and experimental learning to inbound and outbound OI strategies. However, the authors focused on inbound and outbound OI. The authors are aware that sometimes coupled innovation could take place in alliances.

This study proposes best practices for companies willing to open their innovation processes with alliance partners by bearing in mind the learning outcomes that may be exploited through the alliance.

This study highlights four alliance archetypes emerging from the nexus between OI strategies to OL methods.

This study aims to explore how knowledge management (KM) influences the intellectual capital (IC) of organizations operating in health care and how IC and knowledge-sharing (KS) can contribute to the achievement of sustainable development in health systems. Notably, this study focuses on telemedicine, investigating how relational capital contributes to KS in the context of remote care services.

To comply with the paper’s aim, the authors use a qualitative research method based on a polar case study suitable for IC in health-care studies. More precisely, this study analyzes a nonprofit organization that, for over 15 years, has offered a free multispecialist teleconsultation service to answer medical questions from the most disadvantaged places in the world.

The findings show that the KM significantly contributes to the IC of organizations. Indeed, it improves the data management and transmission system, it increases performance flexibility in times of resource scarcity without compromising business objectives and it can attract new human resources even when not motivated by selfish goals (volunteer physicians).

This research contributes to studies on IC in health care by focusing on the contribution of telemedicine to the creation of IC. In particular, this work emphasizes the ability of telemedicine to develop and share knowledge in disadvantaged areas of the world. Moreover, in the current context, still strongly permeated by the health emergency generated by the pandemic and recently by the war in Eastern Europe, the importance of such assistance and diagnosis grows.

The conclusions the research findings lead may guide policymakers toward a policy supporting telemedicine. It would alleviate general health-care costs and completely revolutionize light health care’s role. Moreover, reducing socioeconomic distances, improving access to care and applying innovative technologies for sharing outcomes foster balanced socioeconomic development and knowledge dissemination.

This research has shown how telemedicine represents a new successful business model even in times of crisis. The organizational model makes it possible to offer cutting-edge specialized care, contain costs, easily reach disadvantaged areas of the planet, strengthen the skills and autonomy of the most backward countries through a process of KS and push the structures operating there to interact with those in advanced countries.

This paper analyses the cost efficiency of Italian football clubs using a stochastic frontier model. The frontier estimation confirmed that the model fits the data well with all coefficients correctly signed and in line with the theoretical requirements. Marketing and Sponsorship is taken into account as an explanatory variable and the factors which contributed to these findings, as well as other policy implications, are provided.