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Over the years sustainability practices have become extremely important for companies as well as for the society. Although most companies have developed sustainability programs, as they are reducing waste, cutting carbon emissions, and otherwise enhancing operational efficiency, we are witnessing a mishmash of sustainability tactics that does not add up to a sustainable strategy. To endure, a sustainable strategy has to cope with the competing – and apparently divergent – interests of all stakeholders: investors, employees, customers, governments, NGOs, and society (Eccles and Serafein, 2013; Epstein et al., 2015). In this context Performance Measurement Systems play a key role as they help companies to formalize and implement their sustainable strategies as well as to proactively identify new trajectories that help companies to appropriately reconcile the trade-offs between different stakeholders’ wants and needs (Franco-Santos et al., 2007; Epstein and Roy, 2001). As a matter of fact, in the last fifteen years, various streams of research within the performance measurement and the management accounting domain, have examined the measurement and management of sustainability from various perspectives. An extensive body of research has examined environmental disclosure and reporting - see Berthelot, Cormier, and Magnan (2003) for a review. Other research has defined the concept of environmental management accounting (e.g., Bartolomeo et al., 2000; Burritt, 2004), other studies have examined the role of accounting/accountants in environmental management (e.g., Wilmshurst and Frost, 2001) and issues related to environmental cost accounting (e.g., Antheaume, 2004; Herbohn, 2005) or eco-control (Henry and Journeault, 2009, 2010). Despite the growing number of studies that have discussed these issues, a consistent framework that explores and details this growing body of research is yet to be identified. For this reason the purpose of this paper is to develop a systematic literature review of the practices and methods that managers can adopt to plan and execute a proper measurement and management of sustainability. Specifically, this paper aims to analyse the literature on sustainability measurement and management, to identify its subfields, and to suggest avenues for future research on this topic.

Purpose - As the global market conditions become progressively more volatile and unpredictable, public and private organisations are increasingly pressured to rely on innovation and adaptability as crucial sources of sustained performance. Our study investigates the still underexplored link between organisational knowledge assets and contextual ambidextrous learning. Specifically, we study how different configurations of knowledge assets - also called intellectual capital architectures - influence an organisation's ability to simultaneously pursue knowledge exploration and exploitation. Methodology - We tested our model on a large hospital of about 250 beds and 35 wards located in the northern part of Italy. We surveyed health professionals by means of a structured questionnaire and also employed objective data in order to measure our outcome variables. Selected respondents included head physicians and assistants. Collected data were analysed using structural equations modelling (SEM) methodology in its PLS form and fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). Originality/Value - We propose and empirically explore the relation between intellectual capital architectures and organizational ambidexterity. In so doing we contribute to the debate concerning how organizations can simultaneously pursue both knowledge exploitation and exploration giving birth to ambidextrous learning processes. Also, by conciliating two bodies of literature that come from organizational learning and intellectual capital theory, our study extends the current understanding of the relationships between knowledge management activities and continuous improvement in healthcare. Practical implications - Our study might have implications for managers of healthcare organizations in that it sheds first light on the responsibility hospital managers have to promote current practice improvement through a set of interventions aimed at increasing healthcare organisations' intellectual capital.

The topic of this doctoral thesis is the investigation of the most effective approaches and techniques that can be used to predict and map indicators of forest structural diversity, in a perspective of a more comprehensive assessment, management and monitoring of biodiversity in forest environments. The thesis is subdivided in two main sections, made up of five different but interdependent and organically connected studies, represented by as many published peer-reviewed original research articles, hereafter reported in Roman numerals as Studies I-V. The first section comprises the studies I-II-III. The contents of this section set the basis of methods and know-how that are subsequently used to estimate and map forest structure diversity in Studies IV and V. Several international cooperation projects has been stipulated in order to cope with the issue of the constantly loss of biodiversity at global scale, and because of the relevant influence that forest structure has on biodiversity, forest structure diversity needs to be to assessed and monitored on large areas. In Study I is demonstrated how this achievement can be efficiently tackled coupling ground data, such as those measured during forest inventory surveys, and remotely sensed data, in particular the ones derived from airborne laser scanning (ALS), which has proved to be a reliable source to characterize forest structure. The specific case of Study I presents how ALS data support the estimates of a common forest parameter, in such case forest above ground biomass (AGB), using field data gathered in a novel two-phase tessellation stratified sampling (TSS) design. In order to be used as a valid source of information for planning conservation strategies, along with the estimation, a detailed map showing the spatial patterns of structural diversity is of great usefulness. Study II presents an extensive meta-analysis carried out during the doctoral time frame where is demonstrated that the non-parametric k-NN is, among the others, the most used and effective technique to spatial predict and map forest attributes, alone or combined together to form synthetic indices. This technique can be further improved implementing an optimization step aimed to set the k-NN parameters in order to achieve the best prediction performance possible. Study III demonstrates that, if an optimization phase is carried out before running the k-NN procedure, the performance in the predictions improved sensibly. In the second and last section, the methods experimented in the first section are applied in two different research studies. Study IV describes the use of ALS data and ground data for the areal estimate of mean values of two forest structural diversity indices in a model-assisted framework. Along with the areal estimates, the study proposes the calculation of the confidence intervals of such estimates and the mapping of the investigated indices. Study V is framed as a methodological paper that takes a step further than Study IV, showing how, using the capability of an optimized k-NN techniques in predict simultaneously different parameters, is possible to map a more comprehensive structural diversity index (SDI) combining different forest structural diversity indices. Il tema trattato in questa tesi di dottorato è l'acquisizione e applicazione degli approcci e delle tecniche più efficaci che possono essere utilizzati per stimare e mappare indicatori di diversità strutturale delle foreste, nell’ottica di una più completa valutazione, gestione e monitoraggio della biodiversità in ambienti forestali. La tesi è suddivisa in due sezioni principali, costituite da cinque diversi ma interdipendenti e organicamente collegati studi, rappresentati da altrettanti articoli pubblicati su riviste soggette al processo di referaggio, di seguito riportati in numeri romani come Studi I-V. La prima sezione comprende tre studi, Studio I-II-III. I contenuti di questa sezione forniscono le basi conoscitive che verranno successivamente applicate per la stima e la mappatura della diversità strutturale in ambito forestale negli studi della seconda sezione (Studi IV e V). Diversi progetti di cooperazione internazionale sono stati stipulati al fine di far fronte al problema della costante perdita di biodiversità a livello mondiale, e data la rilevanza che la diversità strutturale delle foreste ha in termini di diversificazione degli habitat, un monitoraggio costante del suo status su grandi aree è di indubbia necessità. Lo Studio I dimostra come questo risultato può essere affrontato in modo efficiente integrando dati a terra, come quelli rilevati durante le indagini di tipo inventariale, e da dati rilevati, in particolare quelli derivanti da scansione laser aerea (ALS), i quali hanno dimostrato di essere uno strumento affidabile nel caratterizzare la struttura del bosco. Nel caso specifico dello Studio I viene mostrato come i dati ALS vengano utilizzati nella stima di un comune attributo forestale come la biomassa epigea, utilizzando dati a terra rilevati secondo un originale schema di campionamento stratificato a due fasi. Al fine di essere utilizzato come valida fonte di informazione per la pianificazione di strategie di conservazione, congiuntamente con la stima areale del parametro di interesse, una mappattura dettagliata che mostra come la diversità strutturale si distribuisce spazialmente è di grande utilità. Lo Studio II presenta una vasta meta-analisi e analisi bibliografica, effettuata durante il periodo il dottorato, in cui è mostrato come la tecnica parametrica della k-NN è, tra gli altri, quella più utilizzata ed efficace per la stima e spazializzazione di attributi forestali, sia come singolo attributo che come combinazione di essi, atti a formare indici sintetici. Questa tecnica può essere ulteriormente migliorata implementando una fase di ottimizzazione avente lo scopo di impostare i parametri del metodo k-NN per ottenere le migliori prestazioni possibili di stima. Lo Studio III scende nel dettaglio di questa fase, confermando che se l’ottimizzazione è effettuata prima di eseguire la procedura di k-NN, la performance nelle previsioni migliorata in maniera rilevante. Nella seconda e ultima sezione, i metodi sperimentati nella prima sezione sono applicati in due diversi studi. Lo Studio IV descrive l'uso dei dati ALS e di quelli a terra per la stima del valori medi degli indici di diversità strutturali sull’area di studio, in un contesto dove le stime derivanti dal modello fungono da supporto migliorando la precisione della stima rispetto ad una stima basata solo sull’utilizzo dei dati rilevati a terra. Lo studio propone inoltre il calcolo degli intervalli di confidenza di tali stime e la mappatura degli indici esaminati. Lo Studio V è strutturato come un approccio metodologico, portandosi un passo avanti rispetto allo Studio IV. Questo è la sintesi di tutto ciò che è stato acquisito e applicato finora, e propone la mappattura e la stima di un indice sintetico di diversità strutturale (SDI) ottenuto tramite la capacità di un’ottimizzata k-NN nello stimare attributi di interesse in maniera simultanea, sintetizzandoli in un unico e più comprensivo indice di diversità strutturale. Dottorato di ricerca in Scienze agro-forestali, delle tecnologie agro-industriali e del territorio rurale. I sistemi forestali (XXVIII ciclo)

This research looks at how performance measurement systems can be used to drive simultaneously exploitative and explorative behaviours in the context of a single business unit. The project draws on two main bodies of literature: organizational ambidexterity (exploration and exploitation), and performance measurement and management. The results of our survey of 153 Italian companies suggests that: (1) integrating diagnostic and interactive uses of measurement systems positively affects organizational performance (financial and non-financial); (2) this relationship is mediated by a company’s ability to innovate its products or services, while exploiting existing assets and resources in the same context.

This study presents a micro-level investigation that provides new insights into how employees’ knowledge sharing affects their own innovative work behaviours (IWBs). Our study posited three mechanisms linking an individual’s knowledge sharing behaviours to his or her own IWBs: (i) a direct effect whereby the act of sharing elicits a recombination and translation of knowledge that facilitates innovation; (ii) an indirect effect whereby knowledge sharing creates social conditions (i.e., reciprocation with new knowledge) for innovation; (iii) a distal effect whereby the antecedents of knowledge sharing also promote innovation. We tested these hypotheses on 155 employees in four palliative care organizations. Our results provide original evidence that employees who share knowledge also engage more in creating, promoting and implementing innovations. This study reveals a direct, unmediated link between knowledge sharing behaviours and IWBs. Our evidence suggests that it is the act of knowledge recombination and translation embedded in knowledge sharing that exerts the most positive effect on IWBs. We discuss how this result indicates that sharing knowledge ignites transformation and exploitation capabilities that help sharers innovate their own work practices.

The acquisition of information about growing stock is a fundamental step in the framework of forest management planning and scenario modeling, besides being essential for assessing the amount of carbon stored within forest ecosystems. Gallaun et al. (2010) produced a panEuropean map of forest growing stock by the combination of ground and remotely sensed data. The first objective of the current paper is to assess the accuracy of this map versus the ground data collected during the latest Italian National Forest Inventory (INFC). Next, a new walltowall estimation of growing stock is obtained by combining ground measurements of four regional forest inventories with the CORINE land cover map of Italy and the global canopy height map derived from Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. More particularly, the growing stock measurements of the four inventories are stratified by ecosystem type and extended over all Italian forest areas through the application of locally weighted regressions to the GLAS/MODIS canopy height map. When compared to the INFC measurements, the new map shows higher accuracy than that by Gallaun et al., particularly for high growing stock values. The coefficient of determination between estimated and INFC growing stocksis improved by about 0.5, whilst the mean square error is reduced from 90 to 48 m3 ha−1. L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.elsevier.com/locate/jag

The innovation of Healthcare operations requires practitioners’ involvement in the generation, promotion and implementation of novel practices. Practitioners, in fact, are the crucial possessors of the expert knowledge about the needs, opportunities and feasibility of innovation. What affects professionals’ innovative work behaviour is however a matter of concern. Our study addresses this gap by proposing a model which tests the linkage between knowledge assets and individual employees’ innovative work behavior. Results provide empirical support of (a) the differentiated impact of knowledge assets on different forms of knowledge sharing behaviors and innovative behavior; (b) the mediation operated by psychological safety and (c) the appropriateness in studying knowledge sharing and innovative work behavior as composite constructs.

Many organisations have introduced Performance Measurement Systems (PMS) with the aim of gathering data that could help them implement their strategies, achieve their key strategic goals, and align management practises. Empirical research conducted in the field of Performance Measurement (PM) has also demonstrated that an increasing number of organisations have been using performance indicators that are not exclusively financial (Kaplan & Norton, 1992; Said, HassabElnaby & Wier, 2003). In management research, increasing emphasis has been put on the use of a balanced (e.g. financial and non-financial) set of performance indicators (Ittner & Larcker, 2003; Ittner, Larcker, & Randall, 2003; Said, HassabElnaby, & Wier, 2003), and proponents of the Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan & Norton, 1992) frequently described non-financial indicators as measures that relate to the customer, internal processes, and learning and growth performance areas. this research looks at the interrelation between firm strategy, introduction of KPIs and company performance.

Purpose - As the global market conditions become progressively more volatile and unpredictable, public and private organisations are increasingly pressured to rely on innovation and adaptability as crucial sources of sustained performance. Our study investigates the still underexplored link between organisational knowledge assets and contextual ambidextrous learning. Specifically, we study how different configurations of knowledge assets - also called intellectual capital architectures - influence an organisation's ability to simultaneously pursue knowledge exploration and exploitation. Methodology - We surveyed health professionals by means of a structured questionnaire. Selected respondents included physicians, nurses and technicians. Scales for each construct were derived from extant literature. The final sample include 165 questionnaires that represent a 63% response rate. Collected data were analysed using structural equations modelling (SEM) methodology. Originality/Value - The value of our research lies in the operationalization and the empirical validation of multi-item scales that capture the constructs of human, organizational and social capital classified in their specific components: Specialist and Generalist Human Capital; Mechanistic and Organic Organizational Capital; Cooperative and Entrepreneurial Social Capital. Also, drawing on the organizational learning literature we propose and empirically explore the relation between intellectual capital architectures and organizational ambidexterity. In so doing we contribute to the debate concerning how organizations can simultaneously pursue both knowledge exploitation and exploration giving birth to ambidextrous learning processes. Practical implications - Our study might have implications for managers of healthcare organizations in that it sheds first light on the responsibility hospital managers have to promote current practice improvement through a set of interventions aimed at increasing healthcare organisations' intellectual capital.

Healthcare has been largely acknowledged as a knowledge-intensive industry. Consequently, healthcare professionals are increasingly pushed to exploit their current knowledge and to develop new knowledge to continuously improve healthcare delivery. Despite this relevance, operations executives of healthcare organizations are experiencing difficulties in leveraging knowledge assets to effectively promote innovative work behaviour. Past research supports the idea that knowledge assets can produce significant changes once they are able to modify knowledge-related behaviours at the individual level, and in particular to facilitate knowledge sharing. While previous contributions have already investigated the antecedents of employees’ knowledge sharing behaviour in the OM context, the way in which knowledge assets and knowledge sharing affect individual innovative work behaviour has remained largely unexplored. The objective of our study is to narrow this gap. To this end, two main research questions are addressed. Which are the main drivers that promote knowledge sharing among health professionals and innovative behaviour in current practice? Should hospital managers leverage on these factors to promote innovative behaviour and thus continuous improvement?

Il legame esistente tra capitale intellettuale e innovazione è oggetto di grande attenzione in ambito accademico e manageriale. Numerosi studi, infatti, suggeriscono che la capacità innovativa di un’organizzazione è fortemente legata alla sua capacità di immagazzinare ed utilizzare efficacemente la propria conoscenza. Stewart (1997), ad esempio, sostiene che lo sviluppo di nuovi prodotti richiede un forte utilizzo di conoscenza da parte dell’organizzazione, Madhavan e Grover (1998) descrivono il processo innovativo come un processo ad alto contenuto di conoscenza, ed inoltre Nonaka e Takeuchi (1995) affermano che le aziende più innovative sono quelle che più di altre contribuiscono a generare conoscenza. Sebbene la comunità accademica sia sempre più interessata alla relazione tra conoscenza e innovazione, tale relazione non è stata ancora completamente analizzata e dettagliata in letteratura. Gli studi che, fino ad ora, hanno affrontato questo tema, hanno trattato le tematiche della conoscenza e dell’innovazione come costrutti ampi e, spesso, troppo generici per poter comprendere a fondo la loro natura e il loro ruolo. Dove viene immagazzinata la conoscenza all’interno delle organizzazioni e come può essere utilizzata in modo efficace? Esistono differenti tipologie di innovazione che le organizzazioni possono adottare e come vengono definite? I diversi approcci che le organizzazioni utilizzano per accumulare ed utilizzare la propria conoscenza influenzano le dinamiche d’innovazione? Pochi studi hanno cercato di dare risposta a queste domande (Subramaniam, Youndt, 2005) e, ad ora, nessuno ha analizzato la relazione tra conoscenza e innovazione nel contesto del Sistema Sanitario Nazionale italiano. In questo capitolo, attraverso una review estesa della letteratura sui temi del capitale intellettuale, dell’innovazione e del management sanitario, identifichiamo la conoscenza e l’innovazione come due dimensioni fondamentali per le organizzazioni sanitarie.

Per analizzare la relazione tra capitale intellettuale e innovazione, il tema dell’apprendimento organizzativo (organizational learning) costituisce una chiave di lettura particolarmente efficace. L’apprendimento organizzativo rappresenta il processo attraverso il quale un’impresa riconosce, condivide ed integra nuova conoscenza proveniente dall’esterno, ma anche rielabora conoscenza già in proprio possesso. Questo processo implica una tensione costante tra l’assimilazione di nuova conoscenza (knowledge exploration) e la rielaborazione di conoscenza esistente (knowledge exploitation) (Crossan et al., 2009). È interessante notare che le due dimensioni di apprendimento sono fortemente correlate alla capacità di innovare di un’organizzazione. Attraverso l’acquisizione di nuova conoscenza proveniente dall’esterno, infatti, l’organizzazione realizzerà più facilmente innovazioni di tipo radicale, al contrario, attraverso la rielaborazione di conoscenza esistente, sarà più probabile il verificarsi di innovazioni incrementali (McGrath, 2001; Kang e Snell, 2009). Alcune ricerche hanno evidenziato il forte legame esistente tra l’insieme delle conoscenze di un’organizzazione e la sua capacità di apprendere. In particolare, le tre dimensioni del capitale intellettuale contribuiscono in modo diverso e specifico al processo di individuazione, miglioramento e condivisione di nuova conoscenza (Kang e Snell, 2009). Sulla base del modello proposto da Kang e Snell (2009), in questo capitolo analizzeremo come gli attributi specifici del capitale umano (generalista vs specialistico), del capitale sociale (cooperativo vs autonomo), e del capitale organizzativo (formalizzato vs non formalizzato) influenzano l’acquisizione e la rielaborazione di conoscenza e svilupperemo ipotesi di ricerca che testeremo empiricamente nel contesto di un ospedale dell’A.S.L. XYZ.

Le aziende ospedaliere sono chiamate a soddisfare gli obiettivi contrastanti di massimizzare i livelli di salute e ridurre le risorse impiegate (Tarricone, 2005). Una condizione fondamentale per soddisfare questi obiettivi è il miglioramento sistematico delle prestazioni operative ed innovative. Tale miglioramento si fonda sulla capacità organizzativa di creare e trasferire conoscenza (Grant, 1996). La letteratura, nonostante la crescente attenzione per questo tema, presenta ancora due fondamentali criticità. Primo, lo specifico legame tra capitale intellettuale e prestazioni sanitarie è ancora poco esaminato in letteratura. Secondo, la letteratura ha riservato poco spazio al livello di indagine individuale che pure è ritenuto centrale per la comprensione del capitale intellettuale in quanto “la conoscenza incomincia sempre dall’individuo” (Nonaka, 1991: 3), ossia la conoscenza posseduta da un’organizzazione si traduce in un miglioramento delle prestazioni solo previo intervento attivo degli individui che sono chiamati a gestirla e movimentarla (Wiig, 1997). Per colmare questi gap, questo articolo studia l’impatto della gestione del capitale intellettuale sulla condivisione di conoscenza tra practitioners negli hospice (Lettieri et al., 2010).

Il capitale intellettuale, cioè l’insieme delle conoscenze che le imprese detengono e utilizzano per conseguire posizioni di vantaggio competitivo, rappresenta una risorsa di importanza strategica rilevante per le imprese, in quanto può contribuire a supportare il processo di apprendimento organizzativo, l’innovazione e le performance di un’organizzazione. Le metodologie e gli strumenti per la misurazione del capitale intellettuale possono supportare il management nel processo di controllo direzionale, in quanto integrano la tradizionale informativa economico patrimoniale aziendale e favorire il processo di monitoraggio e reporting delle risorse intangibili a disposizione dell’impresa. In questo articolo presentiamo l’implementazione del modello IGIA-index per la misurazione e il controllo del capitale intellettuale in una realtà aziendale italiana nel biennio 2005-2006 e proponiamo alcuni dei principali risultati conseguibili dall’implementazione di tale strumento.

Ageing and recession are scaring health policy makers worldwide in terms of sustainability of healthcare expenditure over the next decade. Since healthcare is heavily labour-intensive, only a radical change of healthcare professionals’ behaviour can boost productivity over time. During the last decades, a number of researchers started to investigate how to improve performance of healthcare organisations and deliver more for less. Many of them argumented that healthcare organisations are knowledge-intensive organisations and thus improved knowledge assets dynamics could enable performance improvement (e.g. Hansen, 1999). Despite this interest, the present understanding of the modalities by which intellectual capital enables performance improvement in healthcare organisations is still “a black box”. This paper aims to shed first light on how knowledge assets are a source of performance improvement in healthcare organisations. In particular, this linkage has been investigated through knowledge sharing behaviours among health practitioners.

The paper presents some selected findings from an ongoing national research project which aims to investigate knowledge assets as performance driver and essential engine of value creation in Healthcare (HC) organisations. Especially, the article illustrates the current research activities and the related preliminary results. They focus on the role that knowledge and knowledge-assets can play to improve innovation in HC.

This paper investigates the factors that might promote or inhibit knowledge sharing among healthcare organisations at the individual level through the lens of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. The study has been set in hospice and palliative care organisations. Results from the survey confirms that knowledge sharing is a major enabler for innovative behaviour and that organisational features and practices are a major leverage for promoting knowledge sharing. The perceived technological control, on the contrary, is not significantly related to the intention to share knowledge.

Il capitale intellettuale rappresenta l’insieme delle conoscenze che le imprese detengono e utilizzano per conseguire posizioni di vantaggio competitivo e comprende le dimensioni del capitale umano, del capitale organizzativo e del capitale relazionale. È oramai noto che tali risorse aziendali contribuiscono a migliorare il processo di apprendimento organizzativo, le capacità innovative di un’impresa e le performance individuali e organizzative. La misurazione del capitale intellettuale rappresenta, dunque, un elemento di particolare importanza per le imprese. Tuttavia, i tradizionali sistemi di rendicontazione economico-patrimoniale aziendali non sono in grado di misurare e monitorare efficacemente tale sistema di risorse immateriali. Negli ultimi anni, numerosi modelli di misurazione e controllo del capitale intellettuale sono stati proposti nella letteratura e nella pratica manageriale. In questo articolo presentiamo e discutiamo alcuni di questi modelli e proponiamo una sintetica valutazione per favorire una loro efficace e corretta implementazione nel contesto aziendale.

Dyadic multiple case studies have been conducted in the construction industry to investigate the impact of buyer’s unethical practices on supplier performance and overall satisfaction. Empirical findings show that unethical practices can actually affect overall satisfaction in the relationship and moderately affect supplier performance.

Our research aims to empirically explore the link between intellectual capital dimensions and exploratory and exploitative learning processes. We contribute to existing literature in two ways. First, we advance research on intellectual capital by extending and empirically validating the conceptual distinction between the three intellectual capital dimensions of human, organizational and social capital. Second, we contribute to research regarding the analysis of organizational antecedents of exploratory and exploitative learning processes and specifically focus on the link between intellectual capital and knowledge exploitation/exploration.

Building on an in-depth understanding of the constituting elements of intellectual capital in creative industries, this study provides theoretical insights on the major drivers of organizational performance and innovation capabilities for performing arts organizations. More specifically, it: 1) adopts an intellectual capital framework to explain organizational performance and innovation in the creative industries in general and performing arts in particular; 2) refines extant models explaining organizational performance in the creative industries by proposing brand-new research hypotheses that suggest how intellectual capital affects both the performance and the innovation capabilities of a specific subset of performing arts organizations: opera companies; 3) provides a valid tool to test the aforementioned hypotheses. By adopting a qualitative approach to the study of performing arts organizations, this paper: 1) develops new (and refines extant) hypotheses on the relationships between intellectual capital attributes and on one hand the dimensions of performance typical in the performing arts (financial, commercial, artistic) and on the other hand the types of innovation that can take place in the operatic sector; 2) generates a questionnaire useful to empirically test the aforementioned hypotheses and model .

This paper reports the first step of the ‘BRC project. Building Responsible Competitiveness’, a research project funded by the European Commission, DG Enterprise and Industry, that specifically focuses on the European construction companies. The focus of this study is on the buyer-supplier relationship. Specifically, the aim of the paper is three-fold in that it seeks: (1) to identify CSR practices that address the buyer-supplier relationship and that are perceived to be relevant by managers of construction companies; (2) to explore the adoption of such practices by a panel of major players in the Italian construction industry; and (3) to investigate the link between the adoption of such CSR practices and the strengthening of the buyer-supplier relationship. In order to explore these issues in detail and given the lack of research on these topics in the construction sector, we adopt a multiple case study methodology. We examine the issues of interest through a dyadic study of governance relationships between six Italian general contractors (GC) and two suppliers for each GC involved in the study.

This study reports an investigation of the effect of performance management and Human Resource (HR) practices on performance. Drawing on ten case studies across a range of small medium and large companies in the UK, we report the key people management practices that were being used and which of these practices were believed to deliver better business performance. The findings highlighted the importance of objects, goals and targets, so we went onto further investigate our findings using a survey and published financial data. The findings highlight the interaction between performance management and HR practices as drivers of business performance.

This study explores the role played by intellectual capital in the context of healthcare organizations and investigates the relation between intellectual capital and the ability of an healthcare organization to adopt innovative services. By means of an extensive literature review of intellectual capital, innovation management and healthcare organizations, this study develops research propositions that relate intellectual capital to the adoption of innovative services by healthcare organizations.

This paper presents an in-depth study conducted in a highly diversified group of companies, which has grown significantly in the last few years through the creation or acquisition of a number of firms. This dramatic expansion has required greater coordination, development of common strategies, and identification of synergies across the group. However, efforts were directed mainly towards the development of a shared information system, rather than a cohesive strategy executed through a comprehensive performance measurement system. This paper looks at the issues the group has faced and will be facing particularly from a performance management perspective. The discussion of the research findings will be followed by the presentation of key implications for theory and practice

This document reports on an extensive study into the impact of the Investors in People Standard on business performance. We started by reviewing what is already known about the Standard’s impact on business performance, before building a framework of the expected benefits of IIP from the Strategic Human Resource Management literature. This framework was tested using case studies, a survey and financial analysis to create a body of knowledge that improves our understanding of how the Investors in People Standard improves business performanc

Intellectual capital (IC) management represents a topic that, in recent years, gathered considerable importance in the strategic management as well as in the knowledge management and in the management accounting fields. Both academic and practitioner literatures describe the implementation of IC management systems prevalently in industrial contexts in northern Europe, and address the IC theme empirically usually adopting an inter-organizational perspective. The aim of this paper consists in the presentation of the development of an IC accounting system within an Italian Industrial Group that is a leader in the agricultural food product sector. The research questions posed by the present study are two: 1) in what way does IC create value for the corporate reality under analysis? and 2) which of the firm’s strategic policies have a positive impact on the creation of IC? Based on the data gathered by means of two surveys on all the company employees (the sample consists of 1,117 observations) the results suggest that: 1) IC positively affects the performance of individual employees; 2) human capital and relational capital positively affect individual performance through the mediating role of the structural capital dimension; 3) IC has a leverage effect in improving the effectiveness of firm’s strategic policies in relation to the employees performance.

In this study we propose the theoretical development of a performance measurement system (PMS) for organizations operating in the performing arts sector. We adopted an intellectual capital (IC) approach to develop the proposed PMS. In particular, the aim of this paper is twofold in that it seeks: 1) to analyze the role IC plays in the performing arts organizations and 2) to propose research hypotheses that may suggest the impact IC has on the performance of these organizations.

If organizations wish to successfully compete they must act as continuously learning organizations, constantly expanding their knowledge capital (Osland, Yaprak, 1995; Senge, 1990). Intellectual capital (IC), defined as the stock of knowledge in the firm (Dierickx, Cool, 1989) and as the intellectual material – knowledge, information, experience – that can be put to use to create wealth (Stewart, 1997), represents a factor of relevant strategic importance. Therefore it is a necessity to evaluate this resource that, however, is difficult to measure in economical-financial terms using standard metrics and accounting systems (Bontis, 1998). Analysis and reporting of intellectual capital through the development of specific nonfinancial tools directed to measure it, are of great importance for companies because: • they allow managers to obtain useful information in the management control field, regarding an intangible strategic resource for the activity and the survival of the company. Therefore it is possible to plan wiser policies and strategic choices, on the basis of that information (Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, 2003; Darroch et al., 2003; Guthrie, 2001; Van der Meer-Kooistra et al., 2001); • they show the market information about the state and development of the IC, allowing the company to obtain from the market a real valuation of its assets (material and immaterial), which couldn’t be given through the traditional economical-financial reports (Hunter et al., 2005; Marr et al., 2003). By the use of nonfinancial measurement systems the company gets valued at a more accurate level than is possible without the disclosure of the performance of intangible assets. In this context our research places itself with the aim to develop and to implement a system for measuring, evaluating and reporting intellectual capital. Coherently with IC literature (Bontis, 1996; Edvinsson, Malone, 1997; Moon, Kim, 2006; Stewart, 1997) the proposed model identify IC as comprehensive of three dimensions: human capital, structural capital, and relational capital. The three dimensions of IC are divided in sub-factors, already developed in literature, so that the model completely represents the context analyzed. The research hypothesis are the following: Hypothesis 1. Human capital can be measured by using the following constructs: innovation, group cohesiveness, practical application, intrinsic work reflection, organizational commitment. Hypothesis 2. Structural capital can be measured using the following constructs: communication, contribution, and trust. Hypothesis 3. Relational capital can be measured using the following constructs: networking, and employees’ perception of customers and consumers.

Since the early 1990’s there has been a transition from a production-oriented society to a service-generation and sharing society. If organizations wish to successfully compete they must act as continuously learning organizations, constantly expanding their knowledge capital (Osland, Yaprak, 1995; Senge, 1990). In this context the notion of intellectual capital (IC), defined as the stock of knowledge in the firm (Dierickx, Cool, 1989) and as the intellectual material – knowledge, information, experience – that can be put to use to create wealth (Stewart, 1997), represents a factor of relevant strategic importance. Therefore it is a necessity to evaluate this resource that, however, is difficult to measure in economical-financial terms using standard metrics and accounting systems (Bontis, 1998). Numerous studies (Bontis, 1997; White et al., 1994) showed that those companies that widely use their IC, are estimated by the market much more than their “book value”, showing a Tobis’q value much greater than the unit. Analysis and reporting of intellectual capital through the development of specific nonfinancial tools directed to measure it, are of great importance for companies because: • they allow managers to obtain useful information in the management control field, regarding an intangible strategic resource for the activity and the survival of the company. Therefore it is possible to plan wiser policies and strategic choices, on the basis of that information (Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, 2003; Darroch et al., 2003; Guthrie, 2001; Van der Meer-Kooistra et al., 2001); • they show the market information about the state and development of the IC, allowing the company to obtain from the market a real valuation of its assets (material and immaterial), which couldn’t be given through the traditional economical-financial reports (Hunter et al., 2005; Marr et al., 2003). By the use of nonfinancial measurement systems the company gets valued at a more accurate level than is possible without the disclosure of the performance of intangible assets. In this context our research places itself with the aim to develop and to implement a system for measuring, evaluating and reporting intellectual capital. In particular the purpose of this study is threefold in that it seeks: • to operationalize the construct of IC and to develop an IC evaluation model; • to analyze the relations among the different dimensions of IC; • to define an index of IC that gives information relative to the creation and development of this organizational resource.