The paper aims to present a collaborative and distributed model of a decision support system (DSS) as tool for the governance of an urban context according to the principles of an Intelligent City. The proposed model is centered and inspired to the open innovation (Chesbrough, 2006), user-driven innovation (Prahalad et al., 2008; Prandelli et al., 2008), and collective intelligence (Kim, et al., 2011; Atlee et al., 2006). In this perspective, the proposed model highlights the crucial role played by Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) as emerging structures for the smart configuration of a city (Komninos, 2011, 2008). By concentrating the analysis and the discussion on the collaborative and distributed governance of intelligent cities, the proposed study offers: - an integrative perspective of intelligent city based on a review of the main issues related to, with a specific attention to the governance processes; - a holistic view and a collaborative and distributed decision making model for city governance, which gives much more relevance to knowledge assets of the community of stakeholders rather than to the physical infrastructures.

Framed in the scientific and institutional debate on the intelligent growth of regions, the paper discusses the sustainable innovation ecosystems as dynamic and multi-actors environments for the innovative entrepreneurship fertilisation. In coherence with the European agenda for the smart specialisation, the innovative entrepreneurship is presented as driver for the achievement of the regional intelligent growth and for the regions’ successful positioning in the geography of the innovation. Based on a qualitative academic and policy-based literature review, the paper provides evidences on the meaning of the innovation ecosystems as environments in which the virtuous dynamics of knowledge creation, diffusion and absorption within a large community of stakeholders, sustain the emerging of innovative entrepreneurship. Focusing on the innovation and the entrepreneurship as core processes for the knowledge-based regional development, the study offers a set of implications for the agenda of scientists and policy makers, coherently with the European strategy for the smart specialisation.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are crucial processes for the economic growth, productivity and employment, and thus for the competitiveness of countries and regional systems. In particular, entrepreneurship based on science and technology seems to be very effective for this ambitious goal. The development of entrepreneurial attitudes in engineers and scientists requires a significant change of the higher education systems, that have to integrate education and research, to design and experiment sustainable innovation processes and practices. Framed in these premises, and on the basis of a real case, the paper aims to investigate which principles, actors and processes should characterize the operational model of a higher education system to develop an entrepreneurial mindset in engineers.

Digital technologies have enabled the emergence of a new breed of business ventures and introduced the concept of digital entrepreneurship as a transformative trend in the study of entrepreneurial processes and their outcomes. In particular, open innovation and collective intelligence have contributed to create a new techno-organizational system - or ecosystem - in which entrepreneurial activities are conceived and conducted. However, despite the significance of the phenomenon, the idea and archetype of Digital Entrepreneurship Ecosystem (DEE) is still largely undertheorized. In particular, there is a need to build a comprehensive definition and define the modalities required to successfully design and govern such kind of ecosystem. This article propose a conceptual breakdown of digital entrepreneurship ecosystem with the purpose to identify the founding constructs and elaborate a definition and the foundations of a management approach. A governance model is defined which includes four key dimensions (how, what, why, how) and six fundamental processes. An illustrative application of the model is finally presented to describe a case of DEE.

Research has shown that university technology transfer offices (TTOs) learn through experimentation and failure, and by sharing these experiences with others. There are many barriers to successfully sharing best practice between TTOs. The Maturity Model (MM) created by Secundo et al. (2016) provides a means by which the performance of a TTO can be better understood to allow for the effective sharing of best practices. The aim of this study is to improve and validate the MM to formalize a mechanism through which best practices can be identified and shared between TTOs. This was accomplished by testing the MM in 54 TTOs across Europe and the United Kingdom. Findings regard several improvements of the intangible indicators and the maturity levels of the MM. This research improves the rigor of the MM and formalizes its application as a mechanism for sharing best practices through the Improved MM.

The paper aims to contribute at the emerging debate on smart tourism by presenting a methodological framework to support destinations in creating their own identity. The methodology is the result of a literature review aimed to deepen the meaning of tourism as regional integrated system of actors and knowledge-intensive industry largely interested by the diffusion of digital and social technologies that enable processes of users’ co-creation as well as of the preliminary evidences of two case studies built around two ongoing experimentations of digital tourism, #Appiedi and #SalentoUpNDown. Carried out in Apulia, both the two initiatives are aimed to promote and testing a model of smart tourism, labelled with the #ApuliaSmarTourism, inspired to the principles of service co-creation, digitalization and user centrality.

This paper presents the preliminary results of a wider research about Corporate Blogs as emerging effective tools for a new approach to Customer Relationship Management. Despite the increasing interest on the emergence of a virtual dimension of CRM and the main implications in terms of knowledge sharing, customers retention and reputational consequences, the research on Web 2.0 technologies applied to marketing is still in its infancy. This paper aims to provide a set of guidelines to suggest a more effective way to utilize a corporate blog. We applied Social Network analysis to illustrate a case in which the dimensions and dynamics of a Customers Virtual Community go beyond the boundaries of the official institutional blogs. The evidences from the case show the potential benefits of a network-based approach to help direct marketing efforts and invest in scanning the Blogosphere where ideas, opinions and comments may represent lost business opportunities.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how collaborative entrepreneurial learning (EL) processes between entrepreneurs and university students can enhance the entrepreneurial practices in the context of knowledge-intensive enterprises. These learning processes represent a valuable source for entrepreneurship development in incumbent enterprises in the forms of innovative products, services, processes or organizational renewal. Design/methodology/approach – An extreme case study is the project “Mimprendo” (www.mimprendo.it), an initiative promoted by the Italian Conference of the University Colleges and the Italian Association of Young Entrepreneurs in collaboration with Italian universities. This is analyzed in the period 2009-2015, during which seven editions were developed. Findings – A framework is presented based on collaborative EL processes to perform relevant entrepreneurial projects in knowledge-intensive enterprises. The framework provides a coherent and systematic approach to generate, select and implement entrepreneurial practices in incumbent companies starting from a project competition involving creative students and innovative entrepreneurs. EL processes in the community composed of entrepreneurs, experts and university students are grouped into the entrepreneurial phases of inspiration, exploration, exploitation, acceleration and growth, and include the learning processes of “intuition and sensing,” “contamination,” “experiential and contextual learning,” “experimenting and acting” and finally “thinking and reflecting.” Research limitations/implications – Implications for research can be identified according to many perspectives to deepen the centrality of the learning process in the research on knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship. Practical implications – The framework results to be a promising approach to diffuse an entrepreneurial culture both in incumbent enterprises and in university students through a synergic collaboration among industry, university and institution. Practical implications could be derived for enterprise, students and educators involved in the design of innovative learning initiatives to sustain the development of an entrepreneurial mind-set. Originality/value – The framework contributes to extending an emerging research area exploring entrepreneurship as a never-ending dynamic learning process. The involvement of brilliant university students in activating EL process with entrepreneurs in incumbent enterprises represents a novel aspect in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation.

The recognized importance of entrepreneurship as a driver of socio-economic value, along with disruptive advances in nano, bio, info and cogno technology domains, have increased the world demand of technology-based entrepreneurial ventures or “technology entrepreneurship”. In this endeavour, engineering education can play a crucial role in the development of professionals able to proactively identify and pursuit market opportunities driven by discoveries in science and technology. There is thus a need to create effective entrepreneurial higher education systems which develop innovation-oriented competencies and skills through hands-on and experiential approaches and a synergy among academic and industry stakeholders. Our experience is aimed to infuse the essence of entrepreneurship in engineering professionals with the ultimate goal to develop the next-generation profile of entrepreneurial engineer.

Entrepreneurship is a catalyst for economic growth and national competitiveness. Succeeding in the Sustainable Knowledge Society (SKS) is based on the development of a new archetype of human able to identify and develop new ideas, exploiting technology-based opportunities, in order to create economic and social value. Such new profile has been defined as entrepreneurial engineer (EE). However, the development of EE requires radical innovations that cannot be confined to the traditional education system. This article, relying on the discussion of the preliminary results of a high-tech district case study, addresses the role of an Entrepreneurship ecosystem as intermediary to facilitate public-private partnerships in research and education, with the ultimate purpose to instill entrepreneurial attitudes in engineers, so fostering innovation and technological entrepreneurship in a local context.

Purpose – This paper aims to demonstrate how customer knowledge management (CKM) can opportunely support the process of value creation from Big Data. Focusing on tourism as a knowledge-intensive industry, the paper tries to contribute to the debate on management of Big Data by proposing CKM as a meaningful approach for transforming the huge amount of data available on social networks into valuable assets for competitiveness of tourism destinations. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a qualitative research methodology based on multiple exploratory case studies identified in a set of digital local events related to the Apulia destination (southern Italy). Findings – Research findings demonstrate that the three dimensions of CKM (knowledge for, from and about customers) could be adopted as lens for analyzing the huge amount of data created for, from and about tourist experiences and for transforming them into valuable assets supporting the competitiveness of tourismdestinations. Research limitations/implications – Limitations are related to the industry and the regional dimension of the sample. Accordingly, more research is necessary to prove the validity of the approach and to assure its larger replicability. Practical implications – Implications for the agenda of organizations and destinations’ makers for designing and implementing knowledge-based services and products arise. Originality/value – Elements of originality reside into the adoption of CKM as framework to analyze Big Data in the tourism industry.

Abstract: Universities are increasingly being viewed by policymakers as engines of innovation through the technology transfer office (TTO). The process of innovation in developing countries, such as South Africa, is different from that of developed countries, with mature technologies often being adopted with limited success in developing countries. South Africa can be regarded as an inefficient innovator according to the Global Innovation Index 2015. In the wake of the IPR-PFRD Act of 2008 TTOs at universities in South Africa have had a reactive rather than a proactive approach to technology transfer. To become a more efficient innovator, South Africa needs to assess and enhance the current efficiencies of its TTOs and universities to activate steps to improve them. Framed in the above premises, this study aims to develop a Maturity Model to assess through non-monetary indicators, the efficiency of technology transfer. The fuzzy AHP is adopted to determine the priorities and weights of the non-monetary indicators, as they are ambiguous. The Maturity Model will be inspired by the Berkley (PM)2 Model which allows an organization to determine strengths and weaknesses, and to focus on weak practices to achieve higher maturity. The main components of the model will cover the following efficiency areas: IP Strategy and policy; Organization design and structure; Human resource; Technology; Industry links; and Networking. The findings will then inform the design of a customizable solution to barriers to the success of technology transfer and highlight weaknesses within each university or TTOs efficiency which may be improved upon to further aid success. Limitations of the study regard the need to test and apply the Maturity Model in some TTOs in South Africa. Several papers have highlighted the problems that exist with transferring best practice in different countries. The expected contribution of this study is to provide a means by which to overcome these difficulties and to sustain the decision-making process more effectively.

Crowdfunding (CF) is increasingly adopted as a strategy to fund innovative projects and start-ups using the Internet. Although the advantages of CF overcome financial aspects, an integrative model depicting all the categories of benefits is yet to be introduced in literature. Based on a systematic review of entrepreneurship and CF-specific literature, the article elaborates and presents an integrative model of benefits for the project, the start-up and the creator in areas including, but not limited to, viability, cost reduction, market research, product design, and customer relationships. The model was refined and validated surveying experts and campaign creators, and analyzing successful cases of CF campaigns. The value of the article is both at theory level, with a comprehensive and cross-disciplinary classification of benefits, and at practitioner level, with a checklist and insights for individuals involved into the design and launch of attractive business ventures or CF platforms.

Continuous monitoring of learners’ satisfaction (LS) is a key activity for designing effective and successful collaborative learning experiences. Grounded on constructivism and connectivism learning theories, modern ICT platforms allow students performing collaboratively many online tasks, generating large data sets on their interactions. This creates the opportunity to leverage the emerging Big Data paradigm to setup a “non-intrusive” evaluation strategy of online courses that integrates explicit and implicit knowledge. Indeed, the application of Big Data in the collaborative learning domain is a recent explored research area with limited applications, and may have a significant role in the future of higher education. By adopting the design science methodology, this paper presents and discusses the application of an innovative system that relies on Big Data techniques to measure in real-time, both in progress and at the end, the level of LS of online courses. The research contributes to investigate new methods and approaches to measure LS in online collaborative systems by using the Big Data paradigm. The result presented can provide mentors and learning managers with the knowledge and tool for monitoring in progress and at the end the individual learning experience, thus allowing them to intervene effectively along the entire learning process.

The paper presents the conceptual model of an entrepreneurial learning centre as initiative to fertilize the emerging of the knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship and the larger diffusion of an entrepreneurial culture in the regions. Framed in the scientific and institutional debate on the intelligent growth of the territories in the knowledge economy, the study debates the meaning of the entrepreneurship as knowledge-intensive process resulting from the application of the key enabling technologies to answer at the current societal challenges. Due at the knowledge intensive nature of those technologies as well as at complex dynamics emerging in the market, the entrepreneurship results more and more a learning processes; this is the reason why a learning strategy is required. Inspired by this debate and also by the emerging issue of the entrepreneurial universities, the entrepreneurial learning centre is conceived as a dynamic environment focused on the knowledge triangle, characterized by a learning strategy based on anticipatory and action learning approaches and the presence of a wide large community of regional stakeholders. Finally these characteristics contribute to the achievement of the regional smart specialization strategy.

This paper presents an experimentation, realized within an International Master's, aimed to develop in tomorrow's engineers the entrepreneurial capabilities required to develop technology-intensive products and services in the domain of e-business. The new professional profile of the Entrepreneurial Engineer is introduced, along with the innovative features of an "i-learning" environment which supports the development of such profile. The interdisciplinarity, interactivity, immediacy, internetworking and individualization aspects of the environment are discussed with a particular focus on the curriculum design and the action learning strategy applied in the program.

Abstract: Many researches celebrated Academic Spin-Offs (ASOs) for their key driver role in regional development, as a consequence of optimistic data about their growth dynamics. At the same time, literature highlights also substantial differences with Corporate Spin-Offs (CSOs), established by independent entrepreneurs from existing corporate context. Just in few cases literature refers to their comparison in terms of IP (Intellectual Property) strategies, always without establishing a clear connection with their growth rate. Framed in the above premises, the paper intends to provide a contribution to the following research question: How IP strategies can influence ASOs and CSOs growth rate? At this aim, moving from the existing literature and from the specificities of the health sector, a theoretical framework is designed according to three main blocks: growth indicators, technology exploitation processes and IP strategies. In the first block, economic, financial and intangible indicators are taken into account; the second block relates to the technology exploitation processes consisting of ten stages that could fit with both ASOs and CSOs; the third block identifies, for each stage of the exploitation process, the possible IP strategies, highlighting the main alternative options in term of IP protection. The proposed framework fits on the particular requirements of health industry, characterized by a rigid exploitation process and it is designed to extract and compare the IP strategies used by ASOs and CSOs. The framework will contribute to verify if these alternative choices have an impact in term of growth rates and if there are any weakness elements that affect their growth capacity. Implications for theory allow to identify reasons and strategies for which the exploitation of Intellectual Property to commercial products proceeds with higher success rates in corporate than in the universities spin off. Practical implications allow to technology entrepreneurs to decide the best IP strategy mix in new ventures.

Regional development in the knowledge-based economy is not just determined by the creation of new knowledge but also by the ability and willingness to transform this knowledge into new products and processes that create economic and social value. Improving this entrepreneurial mindset in human capital is becoming one of the most important challenges to raising innovation, productivity and regional growth. With the aim to provide a contribution in this direction, the paper presents an innovative curriculum model to sustain the development of the entrepreneurial mind set especially in engineers and scientists. Based on an ongoing experiment with five education projects launched by a technological district located in south Italy, the preliminary results emphasise the role of an entrepreneurial-directed approach based on the phases of developing, managing and growing new 'technology intensive' ventures. Implications for theory and practices highlight the strategies for designing entrepreneurial learning programs that could support the creation of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship for regional development, mainly in those regions where entrepreneurship does not arise spontaneously.

Recent studies has pointed out the emergence of a new model of network, called value creation networks (VCNs), to respond effectively to changes in the business environment and customer demands. VCN model posits networks, communities of individuals, and refusal of a centralized mindset as the core elements of their frame of reference. Their networked configuration is characterized by flatter hierarchy and teambased work organization, to respond efficiently to changes in the business environment. The aim of this introductory paper is to discuss some strategic issues concerning VCNs: their concept of value,their strategic role in the so-calledknowledge economy, their intangible benefits. Moreover, we highlight theopportunities deriving from informationand communication technologies (ICTs) to create further intangible value. In the final section, werelate the other papers in this special issue to our discussion.

Sustainable mobility is today a central theme in the strategic agenda of policy-makers, public managers, and global institutions (e.g. World Bank Committee for Sustainable Development). A sustainable mobility system (SMS) is a socio-technical system which ensures the mobility right within, outside and among cities, without impacting negatively the society in terms of externalities such as atmospheric and acoustic pollution, traffic congestion and accidents. The problem is strongly interdisciplinary and domains like urban planning, engineering, architecture, computer science, economics and business management, operations research and service engineering can contribute to define effective and innovative solutions. A SMS enables persons, ideas and knowledge to move effectively, resulting in a more “intelligent” model of city which enhances the creativity, learning and innovation potential of its citizens. The adoption of a collective intelligence approach to design and realize a sustainable mobility system ensures that social value and individual interests are preserved. At this purpose, this paper provides a holistic framework to support the design of a SMS, and an operational roadmap with a set of guidelines for supporting the implementation in policy decision making settings.

Promoting excellence in manufacturing emerges as a strategic goal for the years to come, both for industry and society; manufacturing education has been identified as a major driver to achieving this goal. However, the pace of economic, social and technological change has increased the gap between the competences needed by industry and those provided by the universities’ curricula. This requires an increasingly integrated approach by academia and industry in order to afford the problem of engineering competences’ obsolescence. Framed in the above premises, the aim of this paper is to present the results of a two year postgraduate training program aimed at developing a new archetype of human capital to face the requirements of Intelligent and Sustainable Manufacturing. The case study presented in the paper addresses the needs for providing manufacturing education to meet the challenges in terms of ‘‘who’’—the profile for the next generation of manufacturing engineer; ‘‘what’’—the new system for education and its contents, and ‘‘how’’—innovative learning approaches and strategy to incentive the development of competence. The findings demonstrate the radical innovation in developing the next generation of engineers for Intelligent and Sustainable Manufacturing and the importance of a learning environment that is strictly based on virtuous industry–university partnerships.

According to the Open Innovation approach, collaborative relationships between cultural and creative organisations and business are consistently growing in the last few years. This paper first develops a typology of these relationships. Then, adopting a multiple case-study research method and using a selected sample of Italian manufacturing and services companies, these kinds of collaborative relationships are empirically investigated. Motivations, practices as well as factors enabling or hampering these collaborative relationships are identified and analyzed.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to contribute at the discussion on the corporate entrepreneurship by providing evidences on the adoption of a collaborative entrepreneurial learning approach to enhance the entrepreneurial practices of companies. More in depth, the paper will discuss and evaluate a coherent methodology to promote corporate entrepreneurship by transforming the creative thinking of young talents (university students and post-graduated), into valuable products/services/process or organisational renewal. Design/methodology/approach - The methodology adopted a longitudinal extreme case study, the Project "Mimprendo" (www.mimprendo.it) case, an initiative promoted and managed by the Italian Association of Young Entrepreneurs and the Conference of the University Colleges in collaboration with some universities and the primary enrolment of students. Originality/value - The collective entrepreneurship approach has been successfully supported and implemented by Mimprendo to sustain and promote entrepreneurial spirit development in companies using the strength of the collective idea and creativity of young talents to generate, select, and implement innovations in companies starting from their ideas. Practical implications - The study provides theoretical implications for future studies as well as practical implications for universities and companies.

Entrepreneurial learning emerged as an important yet insufficiently understood area of enquiry in the field of technology-driven entrepreneurship. However, very few studies are available that examine specific processes that take place at individual and collective level in entrepreneurship to transform experience into entrepreneurial development goal. With the aim to cover this gap, this papers develops a new understanding in this area, defining an integrated framework for entrepreneurial learning process happening in the context of technology intensive enterprise. The defined framework encompasses a plurality of building blocks regarding: a) the entrepreneurship outcomes, b) entrepreneurial goals, c) the entrepreneurial learning processes, d) the ontological levels of entrepreneurial learning, and e) the types of entrepreneurial stakeholders. The framework contributes to demonstrate how a “learning lens” can be applied to create avenue for further research in entrepreneurship. Originality in the framework consists in the integration of entrepreneurship with the entrepreneurial learning area providing insights and implications for theory and practices.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the articles presented in the special issue “Entrepreneurial learning dynamics in knowledge-intensive enterprises.” The special issue is inspired by recent research on entrepreneurial learning dynamics in knowledge-intensive enterprises literature. The aim is to extend and consolidate this emerging research area exploring entrepreneurship as a never-ending dynamic learning process, as well as, to cross-fertilize entrepreneurship and organizational learning studies. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a literature and published document review, experiential reflections and argument. Findings – The paper reveals an integrative framework to highlight the breath of entrepreneurial learning research according to different level of analysis: the context where learning happen, the different typologies of entrepreneurial learning processes, the ontological levels at which learning can occur and the different typologies of entrepreneurial learners. Continuous learning processes allow entrepreneurs to develop and grow, as well as, enable knowledge-intensive enterprises to engage in strategic renewal processes. Research limitations/implications – Although, entrepreneurial learning research so far has focused on applying existing theories in the entrepreneurial context, more research is needed to broaden the perspective and understanding how entrepreneurial learning can help to face key entrepreneurship’s challenges in different context. Originality/value – The paper presents an holistic approach of current entrepreneurial learning research and encourages researchers to explore how different learning types come into play in different entrepreneurial contexts (start-up initiatives, strategic renewal in incumbent enterprises, ventures development and growth).

Purpose – This paper aims to present an innovative approach to enable the creation of entrepreneurial attitudes in engineers and scientists in the domain of high technologies such as tissue engineering, nanotechnologies for human health and ICTs for product/services design. The Model arises from an ongoing experimentation launched by a Technological District located in Apulia Region in the South of Italy, strategically projected in the future to operate as an ecosystem to stimulate Innovative Entrepreneurship in the local context. Design/methodology/approach – In the paper we adopt a method based on a case study (Eisenhardt, 1989) to explore the processes that influence successful development of entrepreneurial competence in Engineering field. The case study describes the first results of an innovative experimentation related to five post graduate education and research programs launched by a technological District Dhitech created by the Italian Government in the South of Italy in 2005 (in the Apulia Region, exactly) to promote innovation, to create, diffuse and share knowledge for technology entrepreneurship capability, so increasing the competitiveness of the Region. Originality/value – The article provides an integrated framework for the creation of the Entrepreneurship perspectives in high technology industry in a Region where the resources for innovation and entrepreneurship are not generated spontaneously. The work start from the analysis of Apulia Region Innovation index, in order to demonstrate the real usefulness of the model in a Region where the development of initiatives and projects to diffuse Entrepreneurial attitudes is still in infancy. Practical implications – From a theory perspective, the identification of the phases for activating high tech entrepreneurship process is an attempt to advance the discussion on strategies for entrepreneurship education in non-business studies, with a particular focus on high technology domain such as: nanotechnology, biotechnology and tissue engineering, ICTs for innovative product and service design. Formal education programs and Academic-Business initiatives in entrepreneurship education targeted for non-business studies are still in infancy in Italian Higher Education systems and especially in South Regions. For practitioners, the article gives evidence about a “process based curriculum” to instil an entrepreneurial perspective in scientist and engineers.

The rising of Web 2.0 technologies is changing the traditional way companies search and interact on the web, enabling open knowledge sharing processes and collaborative innovation. This paper describes a methodology to consolidate a collaborative Innovation approach based on exploitation of knowledge shared on the web and active participation of customers within new product development process. We tested the methodology in a case of a global automotive company that has enhanced its new product development process by launching a forum and creating a virtual customers community. The research has been articulated into three main steps: 1) identification of the main areas of analysis: New Product Development Strategies and Collaborative Innovation Tools; 2) data collection through the observation of the Company’s forum and forum/blogs launched by other firms; questionnaires and face-to-face meetings with a manager in charge of new product development; 3) application of a web text mining model (Yin, et al., 2007) to extract relevant data from the information exchanged on the company’s forum. The preliminary results indicate that the ideas exchanged by customers on the company’s forum could be used in the phase of “New Ideas Generation” and “Product Concept Design”. The next step of this research is to implement the web text mining tool within the Company’s platform for relational marketing, in order to explore the links among the emerging ideas and recognize lead users.

Research laboratories, universities and consulting firms undertake research activities for performances analysis, businesses, technologies, products and services developments, governments, and political and sociological systems developments. In the case of firms' studies, the key informants regarding any research are the firms' managers that are involved either through interviews, or ethnographies or questionnaires responses. The key informants provide many types of data for the development of research and their role is primordial in its on-going process. In the process of data collection, there can be some challenges and obstacles slowing down the move toward data analysis for the confirmation of the hypothesis of the research or the achievement of the research output. Thus, the aim of this paper is to investigate on the factors that can slow down the on-going process of any research while communicating with the managers for their research participation. The 'Deja Vu' research method derived from the research and used is based on the analysis of the interactions taking place among university's researchers and firms' managers in the automotive and aerospace industry. The initial purposes of these interactions were for action research for businesses analysis and development and case studies creation from the firms for action learning of an international master program students. The paper presents the 'Deja Vu' research method' and provides details and definitions of the factors' constraints with respect to the firm's managers research participation. We find out that both actions -research and learning-have common factors' constraints as the managers availability and managers' strategic position in the firms, and different factors regarding the implications as value-added to business development and financial funds, and the brand image and the financial support for learning, respectively. And according to the types of actions and based on the factors' constraints, we derive a brief methodology for researchers to enhance firms' managers participation in research.

The paper presents a thematic conceptualization of a Regional Entrepreneurial Learning Center, conceived as a catalyst of the knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship in the regions and a strategic asset for their growth in the scenario of the entrepreneurial economy (Thurik, 2008; Audresch and Thurik, 2001). Incardinated on the Knowledge Triangle and aimed to enhance, primarily, the social and economic valorization of the Key Enabling Technologies, the Center will promote the synergic integration between the universities, primary actors in the process of the knowledge creation, the companies, that allow the socio-economic valorization of the knowledge available through the innovation and entrepreneurial processes, and the governmental institutions, supporting their knowledge exchanges and knowledge valorization processes. Coherently with the emerging nature of the knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship as entrepreneurial learning process and inspired by the current debate on the innovation ecosystems, the Center will promote the development of continuous and dynamic entrepreneurial learning processes to create a young knowledge intensive entrepreneurs, the evolution of the Universities towards an entrepreneurial configuration, and to accelerate the diffusion of entrepreneurial behaviors and culture in all the regional organizations and institutions.

Purpose: To contribute to the literature on the nexus of Intellectual Capital (IC) and Big Data by exploring emerging researchers trends. Design/methodology/approach: To present a literature review discussing contributions from IC research and Big Data highlighting novel and emerging issues. Findings: A conceptual framework demonstrating how Big Data perspective validates the need to shift IC research from focusing on the organization to the eco-systems focus. The framework has four main dimensions: Why: the managerial reasons for using Big Data for IC; What: the typologies of Big Data for IC practices; How: the Big Data processes adopted for IC management; Who: the organisation’s stakeholders involved and impacted by value creation. Originality/value: The paper is novel because it investigates the effects and implications that Big Data can offer IC research, by supporting the emergence of a fourth stage of IC research. Additionally, it explores recent literature on Big Data through an IC lens. Practical implications: Outlines the socio-economic value of Big Data, from and about the companies’ ecosystems; identifies entrepreneurial opportunities for existing companies through Big Data for renewing their value proposition; and outlines new tools for managing Big Data to support disclosing IC value drivers and for creating new intangible assets.

Il volume propone una lettura interdisciplinare di alcuni temi di grande attualità nel dibattito scientifico ed istituzionale sulle dinamiche competitive delle imprese e dei territori nello scenario dell'economia della conoscenza. L'imprenditorialità innovativa è identificata nel volume come driver per la crescita e processo strategico per la creazione di valore economico e sociale a partire dalla valorizzazione di know-how tecnologico, al fine di fornire risposte ai bisogni di un mercato sempre più interconnesso e globale. La rivoluzione digitale, che caratterizza il nostro presente e che in maniera così preponderante impatta sugli assetti strategici ed organizzativi delle imprese e dei territori, rappresenta il fattore comune alla base delle riflessioni che accompagnano il volume che si prefigge, quindi, l'obiettivo di dimostrare quale sia la natura e l'intensità del legame tra imprenditorialità, marketing ed innovazione, attraverso l'analisi di contributi teorici e casi di studio. La declinazione dei temi trattati a livello organizzativo e territoriale rende il volume uno strumento di utile riflessione per studiosi delle dinamiche competitive d'impresa e di crescita regionale e per chi con passione ricerca in tal senso.

The manufacturing industry today has to cope with the third millennium challenges of environmental and social sustainability. This requires more integrated approach between academia and industry in order to face the problem of engineering competences obsolescence. The aim of this paper is to present the first results of a case study, a post graduated two years training program “Experiencing i-Design”, aimed to develop a new archetype of human capital to face the requirements of intelligent and sustainable manufacturing. The article addresses the role of Industry-University Learning Network as intermediary to facilitate the virtuous integration between research and education, with the ultimate purpose to instil entrepreneurial attitudes in engineers, so fostering innovation and technological entrepreneurship in a regional context

The paper aims to discuss the role of intangible assets in higher education and research institutions and presents a measurement framework, along with an illustrative application. A review of existing theories and practical experiences is undertaken to build the core conceptual model and a dashboard of indicators. The model is then applied to investigate the mission and performance angles of intellectual capital with reference to an Italian higher education and research institution. Creating intangible assets is at the core of the mission of education and research organizations. The identification and measurement of intellectual capital is thus an operational priority to evaluate the alignment between strategic orientation and performance within such institutions. The research has to be considered as exploratory and presents a single case, resulting in the need for further applications. However, the dashboard of metrics proposed is comprehensive and can thus represent a useful ground for refinements, mostly related to the links between indicators and management/strategy issues. The dashboard can be used as a stakeholder communication tool and a “tableau de bord” to support the strategic decisions related to the human, social and structural capital of education and research organizations. The article presents a first discussion on the systematic identification, classification and reporting of intellectual capital indicators in higher education and research.

Organizations need to share and acquire new information to sustain competitive advantage in complex environment. They communicate through IT-based integrated systems to fasten communication and knowledge sharing for the creation of innovative products. Firms are, thus, extending their operations to integrate strategic knowledge from partners in the product development process. In this paper, we present a case study related to process innovation in an aerospace firm integrating its information systems with one of its partners to facilitate the design of the models of a complex product. We investigate on the strategy followed to integrate the information systems, the types of these latter, on their success factors and their impact on the product development. The case study provides important insights on the integration of information systems for product design outsourcing.

The extended enterprise create partnerships with its external environment in order to acquire strategic information and achieve competitive advantage. For that, it integrates its information systems with the partners for fast communication and new knowledge integration in the product development process. The integrated systems involved in the interorganizational collaboration have specific functions and features. In this paper, we present the case study related to an aerospace firm integrating its information systems with one of its partners for complex product design. We investigate on the types of systems integrated, on their success factors and their impact on the product design. The results of the study provide important insights on the integration of the information systems for product development outsourcing.

This article discusses the role of intangibles for the strategic management of academic entrepreneurship and presents a framework for analysis and measurement of value creation dynamics. Most scholars are interested in that entrepreneurial dimension that allows academia to pursue innovation development and commercialization, for example through intellectual asset management, university spin-offs and technology transfer and brokering. While initially conceived as an institution with a teaching mission, in recent years, the university is assuming a "third mission", contributing to society and economic development more directly and so integrating the traditional teaching and research mission. In this strategic role, Knowledge assets and intellectual capital (IC) underpin the core drivers of value creation and need to be appropriately management and measured to assess the impact at economic and social level. The assessment of performance of academic entrepreneurship is not easy since the concept of IC can be used as a valid strategic management framework and competitive tool for Universities. In the tentative to cover this gap, the article tries to provide a contribution in this direction, presenting an integrative framework for IC management highlighting the dynamic relationship among the three components of intangible assets and their strategic impact on value creation dynamics in academic entrepreneurship. The critical examination of how IC evolves in practices over time is really relevant and allow the personalization to universities in different stage of IC maturity. The framework is coherent with the need to assume IC as a management technology especially in cases of universities attempting to manage IC for the first time. The framework provides a theoretical continuum along which the process of maturity of the University allows to be developed incrementally from one level to the next one, analysing how IC evolves in practice over time with regard to academic entrepreneurship activities. Implications for theory will be discussed along with future research.

Purpose: This study contributes to the literature on intellectual capital (IC) in light of the emerging paradigm of Big Data. Through a literature review, this paper provides momentum for researchers and scholars to explore the emerging trends and implications of the Big Data movement in the field of IC. Design/methodology/approach: A literature review highlights novel and emerging issues in IC and Big Data research, focussing on: IC for organisational value, the staged evolution of IC research, and Big Data research from the technological to the managerial paradigm. It is expected that identifying these contributions will help establish future research directions. Findings: A conceptual multi-level framework demonstrates how Big Data validates the need to shift the focus of IC research from organisations to ecosystems. The framework is organised into four sections: ‘why’ – the managerial reasons for incorporating Big Data into IC; ‘what’ – the Big Data typologies that enhance IC practice; ‘who’ – the stakeholders involved in and impacted by Big Data IC value creation; and ‘how’ ¬– the Big Data processes suitable for IC management. Originality/value: This paper investigates the effects and implications Big Data offers for IC management, in support of the fourth stage of IC research. Additionally, it provides an original interpretation of IC research through the lens of Big Data. Research implications: The paper provides many avenues for future research in this emerging area of investigation. The key research questions posed aim to advance the contribution of Big Data to research on IC approaches. Practical implications: The paper outlines the socio-economic value of Big Data generated by and about organisational ecosystems. It identifies opportunities for existing companies to renew their value propositions through Big Data, and discusses new tools for managing Big Data to support disclosing IC value drivers and creating new intangible assets.

Literature highlights substantial differences between Academic Spin-Offs (ASOs) and Corporate Spin-Offs (CSOs), considering their characteristics as some of the causes that could affect their growth capacity along the time. Most of the studies refer to various factors like the entrepreneurial attitude, education, efficacy of technology transfer services and, just in few cases, realizing a comparison among ASOs and CSOs dimension and competitiveness. Focusing on factors related to Intellectual Property (IP) rights, this paper gives a contribution in defining a theoretical framework useful to highlight the main differences between ASOs and CSOs, identifying the impact of these differences on their growth rates. In particular, the paper describes the technology exploitation process used by Academic and Corporate Spin-Offs, extracting “phases” and “IP strategies” adopted in both cases. The framework contributes to demonstrate if and how different IP strategies implemented by ASOs and CSOs have an effect on their growth rate, in the attempt to support or not a recent point of view of some scholars that observe higher success rates in independent companies compared to academic ones.

Literature highlights substantial differences between Academic Spin-Offs (ASOs) and Corporate Spin-Offs (CSOs), considering their characteristics as some of the causes that could affect their level of performance. On this topic, this paper gives a contribution in defining a theoretical framework useful to highlight the main differences between ASOs and CSOs, identifying the impact of these differences on their growth rates. In particular, by focusing on factors that relate to Intellectual Property (IP) rights, the paper describes the technology exploitation process used by Academic and Corporate Spin-Offs, extracting the "phases" and "IP strategies" adopted in both cases. The framework contributes to demonstrate if and how the different IP strategies applied by Academic and Corporate Spin-Offs have an effect on their growth rate, in the attempt to support or not a recent point of view of some scholars that observe higher success rates in industry than in the education sector.

This regional spotlight demonstrates how tourism can be used to promote smart regional growth. Specifically, the study focuses on Apulia, a region of Italy that is attempting to achieve intelligent, sustainable, and inclusive growth through the use of a smart specialization strategy. Smart specialization is a strategy for supporting the socio-economic development of the European Union, based on identifying regional vocational areas and industries, and promoting place-based entrepreneurial development there. The relevance of tourism for smart specialization is confirmed by the dynamics that are currently reconfiguring the sector into a regionally-integrated and knowledge-intensive industry. This regional spotlight therefore aims to highlight the implications and strategic actions for the marketing and management of Apulia as a smart destination by demonstrating how its vocational identity as a regional tourism destination can be suitable as a means of promoting structural development and broader socio-economic wellbeing.

Enhancing competitiveness, shortening the response time to environmental changes, increasing profits and so forth are all goals that refer to the same concept: ‘improvement’. Yet, these elements are bounded to the same necessity: ‘measurement’. On such bases, this work intends to provide an operative framework which, using many heterogeneous typologies of tools and technologies, would enable enterprises to define, formalize and model key performance indicators (KPIs) according to Model Driven Architecture (MDA) vision. The tools required for achieving this goal belong to different categories, according to the particular step of the framework: the theories for identification of KPIs are the balanced scorecard (BSc) and the goal question metric (GQM); process modeling is realized trough BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation); KPIs were modeled using semantics of business vocabulary and business rules (SBVR), so as to enable automatic parsing, according to MDA vision. Finally, the mathematical formulas were represented in machine readable format through MathML.

The emergence of the blogosphere has created new challenges for large companies in the management of their corporate reputations, since grass roots blogs can generate negative perceptions about a firm and then spread them rapidly and widely. The blogosphere has also created new opportunities for firms to enhance their reputations, because the informal and personal communication that occurs on blogs may generate significant positive ‘ Internet word of mouth ’ . This paper examines the interaction between the blogosphere and a leading technology company, Dell Computer, over a critical two-year period. Our approach combines two novel techniques: automated mining of blog entries, enabled by parsing software, which generates semantic analysis and network maps of the relevant blog entries; and netnography, a method derived from ethnography for analyzing Internet-based discussions. This study shows that many established reputation management approaches, which were developed during the era of mass media, need to be reshaped to meet new realities in the age of Web 2.0.

The purpose of the paper is to provide a new paradigm and practical model whereby Intellectual capital (IC) in the evolving entrepreneurial university can be managed and created taking in consideration the collective intelligence (CI) perspective. A review of existing theories and practical experiences is undertaken to build the core conceptual model. The underlying assumption behind the model is to consider the Entrepreneurial University as a Collective intelligence system in which the tangible and Intellectual assets are coordinate toward the achievement of the third mission goal. The conceptual model harnesses the power of IC collectively created by the engagement of multiple stakeholders inside the University network. Taking the metaphor form the biology, the model is broken down in four main blocks or genes harnessing the IC collectively created. The genes are particular answer to the four questions: what is being done? Who is doing it? How is done? Why is done?. These questions provide the conceptual pillars to describe, respectively, an overall approach to IC management articulated in the final goal of an entrepreneurial University, the “collective Human capital” to achieve the goal, the processes activated inside the University and finally the motivations behind the achievement of the goal. The creation and management of IC is thus an operational priority to evaluate the alignment between the strategic orientation and the performance within a university contributing to the regional development. Even if the research has to be considered as exploratory, the model is comprehensive because it can thus represent a useful ground for refinements, mostly related to the links between creation, measurement and management of IC. Moreover, the approach can be used to strategically manage IC in other systems interpreted as “collective intelligence systems” in which the role of IC creation and management from multiple actors is relevant. The originality of the paper resides in bringing together issues that are usually dealt in literature separate domain such as Intellectual Capital Management and Collective intelligence perspective.

Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to provide a new framework for managing intellectual capital (IC) inside a university considering the collective intelligence perspective. Design/methodology/approach – The research method uses the fourth stage of IC research and adopts the collective intelligence approach. The underlying assumption behind the framework is to consider the university as a collective intelligence system in which the tangible and intellectual assets are coordinated towards the achievement of strategic goals. Findings – The conceptual framework for IC management harnesses the power of IC, collectively created by the engagement of multiple stakeholders inside the university network. The main components are the final goal of a university (what); the collective human capital to achieve the goal (who); the processes activated inside the university (how); and finally the motivations behind the achievement of the goal (why). Research limitations/implications – The research is exploratory and the framework offers opportunities for refinement. Future research is needed to verify the application of the framework to other organisations in the public sector intended as collective intelligence systems. A new perspective for managing IC in universities adopting the collective intelligence approach is developed. Contribution to the fourth stage (ecosystem) of IC research is highlighted, expanding the concept of IC value creation beyond the university into wider society. Practical implications – The framework can be used to manage IC strategically in all the systems interpreted as collective intelligence systems in which the role of IC creation from multiple actors is relevant. This makes possible the understanding of how IC helps create value for the society and the region in which the university operates. Originality/value – The originality of the paper is in bringing together issues usually dealt within the literature in separate domains, such as IC management and collective intelligence perspective. The concept of collective intelligence remains an unexplored field in relation to IC management in the public sector. The collective intelligence approach provides a novel contribution to managing IC and is intended to inspire future research.

Purpose – The process of innovation in developing countries is different from that of developed countries, with mature technologies often being adopted with limited success. Universities are increasingly being viewed by policymakers as engines of innovation through the technology transfer office (TTO). However, with the adoption of various new intellectual property right legislation, university TTOs in developing countries have had an inefficient approach to technology transfer. Framed in the above premises, this study aims to develop a Maturity Model to measure, through non-monetary indicators, the efficiency of TTOs. Design/methodology/approach – The Maturity Model is inspired by the Berkley (PM)2 Model which allows an organization to determine strengths and weaknesses and to focus on weak practices to achieve higher maturity. Fuzzy analytical hierarchy process is adopted to determine the priorities and weights of the non-monetary indicators because they are ambiguous. Findings – The Maturity Model to measure the efficiency of TTO cover the following efficiency areas: intellectual property strategy and policy; organization design and structure; human resource; technology; industry links; and networking. The model provides a theoretical continuum along which the process of maturity can be developed incrementally in TTO from one level to the next, moving from awareness, defined, managed, integrated and sustained stage. Research limitations/implications – The Maturity Model needs to be tested and applied in TTOs in developing countries. Practical implications – The Maturity Model provides a means to sustain the decision-making process more effectively, especially in those countries considered as an inefficient innovator. Originality/value – The findings inform the design of a customizable solution to barriers to the success of technology transfer and highlight weaknesses within each institution or TTOs efficiency.

The paper aims to contribute at the debate on smart tourism destinations as intelligent configuration of regional integrated and multi-sectorial system, evaluating the promptness of Apulia, as regional destination of growing popularity. At this purpose, a web-survey was used to gather data regarding the level of use of technologies, internet and social media for communication; the collaboration attitude and the level of integration with the other actors of the tourism system for creating new and innovative business opportunities; the level of interaction and collaboration with customers for experience and service co-creation; and the advantages and the main drawbacks related to the use of ICT applications. The results of context analysis evidence that the Apulian offering of hospitality need to invest more in the ICTs’ infrastructure, increasing digital services for customers and employees as well as in the creation of a cultural background able to sustain the process of emancipation of the destination in a smart perspective. Moreover, results suggest also the needs to create a culture of collaboration, enhancing dynamic interaction between diverse tourism actors.

Purpose Universities concerned with third mission activities are engines that increase regional competitiveness since their primary role in the knowledge-based economy is to stimulate innovation by transferring new knowledge and technologies to industry and society. Due to the correlation between efficient university technology transfer and intellectual capital (IC), this study will show how IC can be mobilised by university technology transfer offices (TTOs), so contributing to the third stage of IC research. Design The application of the Maturity Model developed by Secundo et al., (2016) is expanded by collecting data from 18 universities in the European countries to illustrate how IC can be used as a strategy and solution to the barriers faced by TTOs. Findings TTOs with increased access to and utilization of IC tend to have higher maturity levels. This new application of the Maturity Model, proves that IC can be utilized to manage and improve the efficiency of TTOs. Research implication An indication of the level of access that TTOs have to university IC is given leading to recommendations to improve university technology transfer. Practical implications Knowing which IC components are essential to the efficiency of TTOs, and which IC needs greater utilization, will provide insights into policy and practical interventions to improve their efficiency, resulting in increasing universities’ competitiveness. Originality A new approach and perspective on utilizing IC to improve university technology transfer so contributing to the third stage of IC research calling for more practice-oriented research. Research limitations Future research should include a wider sample of universities to increase the validation of the Maturity Model and to prove it as a suitable and strategic approach for IC management at TTOs.

The study aims to investigate which are the meaning and impact of a modularity platform approach for the competitive management of a tourist destination. Focusing on tourism as a knowledge-intensive business sector and bundle of products and services, this study adopts a constructive and qualitative literature review to demonstrate as a modularity platform approach can be adopted as basis for the effective management of a destination. The study offers implications for companies and decision makers. The application of modularity to increase the competitiveness of a destination highlights the importance of a deep knowledge of the area as well as of the technological and strategic mechanisms that have an impact on the execution and co-creation of a successful tourist experience.

Healthcare systems have been experiencing a radical change, moving from a centralized to an open model, where patients can contribute in creating the basis for their own wellbeing. In parallel, literature is giving an increasing interest to the Open Innovation approach, where large, medium and small enterprises cooperate. Despite the great interest in Open Innovation approach, few contributions are related to healthcare industry that includes both public and private organizations (hospitals, companies, universities), as well as “untraditional” players like doctors, nurses and patients. Framed in the above premises, the study develop an unique framework able to represent interactions among all actors involved in healthcare ecosystem, highlighting knowledge and information flows within them to improve their innovation potentialities according to an open approach.

Purpose This paper aims to highlight the main Intellectual Property (IP) protection strategies adopted in the R&D phases of a company operating in the bio-pharmaceutical industry, according to an open innovation (OI) approach. Design/methodology/approach In order to assess how R&D intensive firms adopt IP strategies during OI practices, this research uses a single case-study design. The case has been studied over an extended period of time (from 2008 to 2015), triangulating data and information by means of multiple interviews with different key informants and projects documents. The novelty of the research justifies the use of a single case study. Findings The study reveals how a mix of formal and informal tools for IP protection are used, with a final attempt to maintain control over different technological solutions during their validation process and profiting from stable R&D collaborations with research partners. Research limitations/implications Limitations of the study relate to the single case study methodology as well as to some peculiarities of the analyzed company and of the Bio-Pharmaceutical industry. Practical implications Research managers could find some food for thought in the adoption of OI approaches for reducing costs and risks associated with technological uncertainty, with particular attention to the strategic role of IP rights. Originality/value Despite knowledge protection being widely recognized to be a critical issue for implementing OI approaches, how IP strategies should be used in the different phases of R&D is still debatable. Moreover, few empirical studies relate to the adoption of optimal combinations of IP tools in relation to the different R&D phases in such technology intensive industries as the bio-pharmaceutical industry.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are crucial processes for economic growth and regions' competitiveness. A key element to succeed in the entrepreneurial economy is the development of a new archetype of human capital, the 'entrepreneurial engineer', who is capable to match technology innovation with business challenges and societal development, assuring economical, technological and environmental sustainability. The development of such professionals requires to universities a deep reconfiguration towards the 'entrepreneurial university' model, by integrating research, education and innovation, and promoting public-private partnerships. Framed in these premises, and based on a longitudinal case study carried out within an Italian university, the paper proposes the principles, actors and processes that should characterise a higher education system engaged in experimenting the entrepreneurial university model. A set of guidelines is also provided to educators, professors and practitioners involved into the experimentation of innovative learning environments conducive for the development of entrepreneurial attitudes in engineering and technical profiles

This paper explores the contribution of project management to entrepreneurship development with a specific focus on business start-up projects. More and more the success for the launching a new entrepreneurial ventured depends from many factors, among these, the capacity to organize and manage the complexity of all the activities required to initiate the new venture. Sometimes the entrepreneurs lack the appropriate managerial skills and the business start-up launch is managed without taking in consideration the appropriate methodologies of project management. With the aim to cover this gap, an holistic process oriented framework supporting the business startup projects development adopting the methodologies of project management is presented. The framework mix the phases to initiate a new entrepreneurial act with the area of project management, to support the entrepreneurs involved in such new venture, to afford the complexity and the uncertainty of this particular typologies of nascent organization projects. The innovativeness of the paper relies on the unconventional connection between the literature on project management, and studies of entrepreneurship. The discussion provides contribution to the field of project management, in the attempt to provide a customization of the PM standard for a particular typology of project: business start-up. Implications for practices regard the utilization of the framework by the nascent entrepreneur, by the start-upper, or by the researcher of University students for the launching of a spin off.

This study focuses on the roles of after-sales services in the automaker innovation process and on the importance of specific structures creation to facilitate their knowledge integration in the innovation process. The analysis of an inter-organizational strategic community (SC) for new products and services development provides the creation and continuous success mechanisms and dynamics. Data were collected through interviews with the managers and the founders and a questionnaire dedicated to the members of the SC. The findings show that the most important mechanisms and dynamisms are IT-based communication, the strategic leadership of the founders, the use of a reward system as incentive to knowledge creation and sharing, and the indirect ties of the SC with other after-sales services firms.

This article investigates the impact of cultural and professional diversity of students on engineering education. A study of international post-graduate programs is used to obtain insights with reference to student’s relationships with colleagues, school staff and faculty, student’s cognition about the program and learning process. The article shows how cultural and professional diversity can be addressed by leveraging a strategy based on interdisciplinarity, action learning and open learning environment. Findings are used to envision a model favoring the adoption of a ‘glocal’ approach in the design of engineering programs. The model can be of value for practitioners and educators involved in the creation of multicultural learning initiatives to address the culture-specific needs of students while adhering, at the same time, to the global trends in engineering education.

The chapter aims to contribute at the discussion on the role that creativity can assume in sustaining corporate entrepreneurship development by focusing on the centrality of entrepreneurial learning in incumbent enterprises. Empirical evidences coming from the case study of “Mimprendo” project (www.mimprendo.it), an initiative promoted by the Italian Conference of the University Colleges and the Italian Association of Young Entrepreneurs, are presented. Findings provides insights about the collaborative entrepreneurial learning as happening in the community composed by University students, entrepreneurs, and researchers to solve relevant managerial and entrepreneurial innovation’s needs. Those evidences are at the basis of an integrated framework aimed to provide a coherent and a systematic view on the collaborative entrepreneurial learning processes to nurture, select, and implement creative ideas of universities students for sustaining the corporate entrepreneurship in incumbent companies.

Purpose (mandatory) Service supplier selection is a Multi-criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problem assuming a strategic role for the competitiveness of high-tech manufacturing companies. Nevertheless, especially for service quality evaluation, there is little empirical evidence of the practical usefulness of MCDM methodologies. Aiming to cover this gap between theoretical approaches and empirical applications, the paper proposes a Fuzzy Extended Analytic Hierarchy Process (FEAHP) approach for service supplier evaluation. Design/methodology/approach (mandatory) An hybrid approach which combines some of the strengths of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and of the Fuzzy Set Theory is presented, as organized in five steps. A case study is used to evaluate the applicability in a real company context. Findings (mandatory) The usability of the approach is demonstrated in an aerospace company for solving the supplier selection problem of a business software whose applications are still in infancy: a Test Data Management System (TDMS). The illustrative application contains both “general” criteria to be used for other service supplier selection contexts as well as service specific criteria related to sw selection. Research limitations/implications (if applicable) Even if the application regards the selection of a software supplier, the methodology can be generically extended to other services’ selection in complex manufacturing industries through the personalization of some criteria. Practical implications (if applicable) Implications can be derived both for business managers involved into the decision making process and for suppliers identifying the most promising features of software quality. Originality/value (mandatory) - The originality consists on the combination into an hybrid approach of the strength’s points of the AHP with Fuzzy set; the inclusion of multiple perspectives of decision criteria for service supplier selection, basically the "software product" and "supplier" ones; a real empirical application to test and demonstrate the efficacy and the practical utility of the proposed approach.

In complex environments, firms adopt continuously new IT-based systems and tools for knowledge management, otherwise knowledge can be dispersed or lost. And as a part of the new product development process, the product design is one of the most crucial phases for the relevance of its data and information and for the importance of the new knowledge creation of its designers and engineers. This chapter argues, through a conceptual model, the strategic role of the integration of knowledge management systems and special communities for the acceleration of the new product development process and presents an ontology-based knowledge management system and its application in the context of a community of automotive designers. More precisely, the issue management, based on this engineered IT-system, will accelerate and optimize the product design phase and knowledge sharing among the designers and engineers.

Framed in the scientific and institutional debate on the intelligent growth of regions, the paper discusses the sustainable innovation ecosystems as dynamic and multi-actors environments for the innovative entrepreneurship fertilisation. In coherence with the European agenda for the smart specialisation, the innovative entrepreneurship is presented as driver for the achievement of the regional intelligent growth and for the regions’ successful positioning in the geography of the innovation. Based on a qualitative academic and policy-based literature review, the paper provides evidences on the meaning of the innovation ecosystems as environments in which the virtuous dynamics of knowledge creation, diffusion and absorption within a large community of stakeholders, sustain the emerging of innovative entrepreneurship. Focusing on the innovation and the entrepreneurship as core processes for the knowledge-based regional development, the study offers a set of implications for the agenda of scientists and policy makers, coherently with the European strategy for the smart specialisation.

Purpose – Universities and research centres play a crucial role in the development and diffusion of scientific knowledge and innovation, which are at the core of their strategic mission. However, the measurement of performance of such institutions in terms of valuable assets created is not easy since their output/results are especially complex to define and evaluate. In such context, this article aims to discuss the importance of identifying proper measures of Intellectual Capital (IC) generation in universities, and particularly in modern universities showing entrepreneurial features. A model for analysis and measurement is presented along with an illustrative application. Design/methodology/approach - Major theoretical approaches and real experiences of measurement of IC in higher education and research settings are analysed to build the integrated framework. Six strategic areas are derived and used to define a dashboard of 62 indicators. A case study approach is used to pilot-apply the dashboard to an education and research institution. Originality/value – Although several methods for IC measurement and management exist, most fail to capture the peculiar links existing among strategic objectives, intangible assets and organizational performance. This article tries to contribute by presenting a discussion and a model which point to establishing a direct relation between the strategic mission of entrepreneurial universities and their performance in terms of IC created. Practical implications – The model proposed can be used as a stakeholder communication tool to report key performance related to human, social and structural capital. Internal functions can be served such as resource identification and capital budgeting whereas an external value stays in the possibility of making public a set of organization-specific information, facilitating evaluation and benchmarking.

The aim of this paper is to propose a dynamic integrated approach, based on modularity concept and on the business ecosystem approach, that exploit different eBusiness services for SME under an open business network platform. The adoption of this approach enables firms to collaborate locally for delivering the best product/service to the customers as well as globally by accessing international markets, interrelate directly with the customers, create relationships and collaborate with worldwide actors. The paper will be structured as following: We will start by offering an overview of the state of the art of eBusiness platforms among SME of food and tourism firms and then we discuss the main drawbacks that characterize them. The digital business ecosystem approach and the modularity concept will be described as the theoretical ground in which our proposed integrated model is rooted. Finally, the proposed model along with a discussion of the main value creation potentialities it might create for SMEs will be presented.

The case study explores the use of ICT in the external and internal collaborations to design or re-design a product in an Italian aerospace company. The data have been analyzed with the content analysis and. triangulation techniques are also used. The main role of collaborations among organizational units and with the customers/partners is highlighted and insights in the managerial practice are based on the evaluation of the collaborations types during the product design.

As a part of the product development process, the after-sales services are not only a source of innovation, but also they benefit from value creation through new managerial methodologies for the achievement of competitive advantage and customer satisfaction. The objective of the paper is to further understand value creation for the after-sales services. We present the case of the creation of a new business for the after-sales services for the entrance into a new market. The new business is created by two gurus in the aerospace industry. A typology of guidelines is derived, based on organizational and strategic perspectives, for the after-sales services value creation and the guidelines for the creation of a new business as well as for the entrance of into a new market are presented

A paradigm shift is taking place today that provides a compelling value preposition for organizations and requires the adoption of new business models for the management of their core activities in a competitive way. The new emerging business models are related with open innovation, cloud computing approach as well as social networking which create opportunities for firms to harvest the resources and knowledge that could be found outside firm’s boundaries. However in order for firms to grasp the most of the emerging technologies they should reconfigure their activities as to tackle the challenge and opportunity presented by new innovations and technology trends. In this paper we aim to demonstrate the changes that these new trends are witnessing for the business models of firms from a provider and user perspective.