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The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link. This research is set to address the scant research on the relationship between the key drivers and consequences of knowledge hiding within international entrepreneurial organisations at the interpersonal level. It further aims to compare knowledge hiding behaviour among international entrepreneurs in two diverse contexts of emerging countries versus advanced economies. Therefore, this research employs a total number of ten international entrepreneurs in Iran and Italy and takes advantage of the Multi-Criterion Decision-Making (MCDM) approach. In this regard, DEcision-MAking Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method is applied to disentangle the cause-effect relationship between knowledge hiding components and present conceptual frameworks for the interrelationship of knowledge hiding factors in each context. Furthermore, in order to assess the importance and ranking of factors in Italy and Iran Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) is performed. As such, this research provides different contributions to the knowledge hiding literature as well as key implications for practitioners.

The fashion industry is one of the main businesses in the global economy in terms of employment, investment, trade and revenue and Italian companies are worldwide recognized as representative of cultural heritage, expertise and high-quality standards. The adoption of traceability technologies, such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFId), from the very early stage of the production chain, may help to obtain a more effective process and may also assure the origin of the garments, a key aspect in the fashion industry. The chapter aims at presenting an Italian family business, Oscalito, which has adopted the RFId technology, joining tradition and innovation in its production. A qualitative case study methodology has been adopted, to explore this experience within its context. Oscalito has applied RFId tags to each label, to ensure complete traceability throughout the production chain for each single item (and not merely by lots), fine-tuned control over the production process, and timely and accurate shipment. Thanks to their application, the production chain has been monitored and the Italian origin of the garments has been guaranteed. This research has undoubtedly some limitation due to the applied method. Deeper studies are requested in order to check a general fashion industry trend with reference to the application of RFId technology.

Big Data is one of the most debated topics, as its implications for innovation management and entrepreneurship development are attracting interest from researchers and practitioners. Despite the increasing interest on this topic, a relevant research question remains unsolved: what are the conditions required for the effective management of Big Data? Adopting the interpretative lens provided by Systems Thinking and Service Logic, a set of hypotheses are defined and tested through the Partial Least Squares (PLS), with reference to the 50 Big Data companies for 2017 as identified by Big Data Quarterly. The results show that several elements such as company's investment in innovation and technology and specialization of human resource positively impact on Big Data Companies' Return on Investment (ROI). Results and discussions herein enrich previous managerial debate about the domain of Big Data highlighting ‘tangible’ elements on which act for improving innovation management approaches for companies.

PurposeThe increasing adoption of digital technologies such as social media have changed the way consumers share knowledge about products and services among each other. The aim of this paper is to test what factors drive customers to share knowledge about products and services on social media pages.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative survey design was employed for this study. Empirical data were drawn from 358 consumers in Italy, using a purposive sampling technique. The hypothesised relationships were tested using ordinary least squares regression modelling.FindingsThe results of this study reveal that the usage frequency of online reviews (UFORs), social bonds (SBs), subjective happiness (SH) and reciprocity positively impact on customer knowledge sharing (CKS). By contrast, the perceived usefulness of online reviews (PUORs), helping others, customer susceptibility to interpersonal influence (CSII) and informational (INFO) do not impact CKS.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is amongst the first to empirically test the antecedents of knowledge-sharing behaviours about products and services on online social media. The present work offers relevant implications for theory. First, the work enriches the customer knowledge management (CKM) theory by providing empirical evidence on factors leading to the higher sharing of knowledge amongst customers. Second, the work adds to the literature on social media, demonstrating the individual determinants on knowledge-sharing behaviours about products and services in online communities. Practically speaking, this paper identifies some key elements driving CKS in social media conversations. Thus, building upon the findings of this study, the authors provide some guidelines for social media managers and retailers for promoting CKS on social media pages.

Open innovation practices have been found to positively affect innovation and entrepreneurship due to the complementarities and uniqueness of resources and knowledge provided by each organization. Today, this approach may be even more important in the so called “smart cities”, where different private and public stakeholders cooperate to co-design and co-develop new cutting edge products and services aimed to create shared value through entrepreneurial behaviors. However, concrete examples of smart city projects revealed that public governments often do not have the necessary capabilities as well as innovative approaches to collaborate with companies and other stakeholders’ ecosystems. So, this paper aims at analyzing (open) innovation in public governments shedding lights on the barriers and challenges that public governments face in smart city development. The study uses primary data gathered through interviews from multiple smart city stakeholders to highlight how public governments should operate in the smart city context to overcome barriers and challenges, and to favor an entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem as well as public-private collaborations. These barriers are related to: lack of rules; as all the others tasks and responsibility; scarce integrated view of the city planning; lack of fit of administrative styles & interdepartmental coordination and communication; risk adversity; data availability; disincentives & non flexible public procurement rules; lack of resources; lack of technological capabilities. Moreover, the study provides contributions for different and interrelated streams of research, in particular developing several implications in the field of entrepreneurship and smart city.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the micro-linkages fostering consumers’ e-loyalty in grocery retailers B2C e-commerce context. Specifically, the authors focused on the neglected role of security, privacy and website design. Grocery retailing has been selected as the context of research because grocery retailers too have been required to develop B2C e-commerce platforms to meet their consumers’ evolving preferences.Design/methodology/approachA survey was distributed to several students from University of Florence (Italy). Structural equation modeling was used to compile the research, and its results reflect the impact on e-loyalty development on specific features of the e-commerce environment.FindingsThe main findings of this research are related with the importance of website characteristics as antecedents of e-loyalty in online grocery retailing.Originality/valueAlbeit the explored phenomenon has been subject to extensive study, some of its facets are yet to be fully explored. In particular, though the influence of e-trust, e-satisfaction and e-commitment on e-loyalty has been shown, little attention has been paid to the factors affecting these three antecedents of e-loyalty. In this regard, this research focuses on the importance of B2C e-commerce platform characteristics such as security, perceived relationship investment and website design. In addition, the phenomenon was scarcely explored in grocery retailers B2C e-commerce context.

The global pandemic has reshaped the scenario for marketing organizations across several industries, as the former apparently represents one of the most remarkable environmental changes in modern marketing history, with relevant consequences on consumer behaviour. Overall, the latter had more time at home, which resulted in new habits and new opportunities of engagement. In this context it is becoming more and more important to study the relationship between the magnitude of brand loyalty and store loyalty as PLs enhance customer store loyalty. PLs have been able to build brand equity throughout their development, with considerable differences across product categories. The aim of the paper is to analyse the components of Private Label equity and the positive relation between PL loyalty and store loyalty: PLs enhance customer store loyalty, setting the basis for further research in this field. Higher level of PL brand equity reduces the price competition between PLs and NBs and enhances their differentiation, which allows more market power for both.

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link. Building on the resource-based view, this study aims to address the scant research on the context-specific micro-foundations that impact on internationalisation of SMEs in emerging markets. Therefore, the paper explores managerial resources and dynamic capabilities in three categories of international networking, vision, and experience and competence. In this regard, we employ a mixed-method analysis and focus on Iran as representative of a low supportive institutional context for SME internationalisation belongs to emerging markets. Hence, in qualitative analysis, we utilise multiple case study and conduct ten interviews, which led to the identification of fourteen important managerial resources and capabilities. This is followed by expert-based decision-making approaches, taking advantage of interpretive structural modelling (ISM) and Matrix-based Multiplication Applied to a Classification (MICMAC), which contributed to investigation the relative function of identified factors as well as proposing a conceptual framework for the inter- and cross-relationships among explored drivers in three targeted categories and provides theoretical and practical suggestions.

While the global COVID-19 pandemic affected all the industries, the Italian agri-food sector positively performed over this period, supported by the exports, underlining the need for new international strategies to authentically engage consumers. This study aims to investigate the impact of customer education (CE) on the perceptions and evaluations of foreign consumers towards Made in Italy products as a part of the food experience in the agri-food sector. After a literature review, the paper illustrates the main topics of customer education, food experience and country-of-origin (COO) effect of Made in Italy. The purposes of the conceptual paper relate to the strategic use of country-of-origin effect by companies in order to promote products and services in foreign markets, and to the analysis of the impact of customer education within the food sector on the perception of Made in Italy products taking into account the new challenges of the current situation.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the progress of risk management and the tools that can help companies to better deal with the risks they face. The research carried out on a sample of companies from different sectors offers confirmation and new conviction. The documentation collected was examined by asking four questions. Is there a specific risk management function? With which risks does it deal in particular? Which policies? What place does risk management have in the organisation? The main conclusions reached by authors have been compared with what companies do in reality. For this purpose, a sample of companies from the automotive, pharmaceutical, electronic, air transport and mass retail sectors was chosen.

This paper seeks to investigate the micro-foundations of engaging in open innovation (OI) in the context of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). More specifically, the study aims to understand the characteristics of entrepreneurs managing small companies and whether these influence the proclivity towards openness. A theory building approach is applied with an exploratory multiple case-study analysis consisting of eight Italian SMEs operating in knowledge intensive sectors. The information gathered through interviews indicate that several factors and variables related to the entrepreneur, employees and firm level have an impact on the propensity towards engaging in OI. Regarding the entrepreneur, delegation, trust in internal and external partners, individual ties and risk taking approach increase the approach towards OI. Moreover, it has emerged that several factors regarding employees contribute to establishing OI strategies. The interviews have also underlined that entrepreneur level factors have an impact on employee level factors in the sense that their joint effect leads to increased openness. These factors are also influenced by firm level factors. In terms of implications, this is one of the first studies on the micro-foundations of OI and, to the best of our knowledge, the first taking the entrepreneur perspective.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how big data can shape ambidextrous business process management (BPM) in terms of exploitation and exploration. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative methodology involving case studies has been chosen to explore the impact of big data deployment on exploitative and explorative business processes. Findings The results of case studies offer some opportunities and challenges for service firms related to both the exploitative and the explorative aspects of BPM driven by big data. Originality/value The deployment of big data in business processes has attracted a large amount of interest recently. However, these studies are mostly conceptual, so empirical research about this complex relationship is quite rare, especially research with specific arguments regarding exploitative and explorative activities. This paper aims to fill this gap by offering empirical evidence for big data-driven business processes.

Previous article in issueNext article in issue Introduction: There is a limited documentation about the retreatment of patients failing a recommended NS5A-containing regimen in Italy. Materials & methods: Within the VIRONET-C network, 386 NS5A-failing patients infected with different HCV-genotypes (GT) (GT1a/1b/2a-c/3a-b-g-h/4a-d-n-o-v=93/124/19/112/38) were analyzed. Retreatment of 105 failures was investigated. HCV-resistance-test was performed by Sanger-sequencing. Results: Failures following seven different NS5A-containing regimens were studied: 3D/2D (paritaprevir/ombitasvir ± dasabuvir) ± ribavirin (N = 72/4), daclatasvir/ledipasvir/velpatasvir + sofosbuvir ± ribavirin (N = 105/131/20), grazoprevir/elbasvir ± ribavirin (N = 34), glecaprevir/pibrentasvir (N = 20). Notably, 18.1% of NS5A-failing patients did not show any resistance-associated-substitutions (RAS), while 81.9% showed at least one NS5A-RAS, with multiclass-resistance in 35.5%. NS5A-RAS were observed more frequently in glecaprevir/pibrentasvir failures (GT1a 83.3%: Y93H + Q30H/D or +H58D; GT3a: 83.3% Y93H + A30K/G or +L31I) compared to sofosbuvir/velpatasvir (GT1a 16.6%: Y93H + Q30H, p = 0.08; GT3a 20.0%: Y93H/N + A30K/T, p = 0.03). To date, 105 failures have started a retreatment: sofosbuvir/velpatasvir ± ribavirin (N = 30), sofosbuvir/velpatasvir/voxilaprevir ± ribavirin (N = 67), glecaprevir/pibrentasvir (N = 4), grazoprevir/elbasvir ± sofosbuvir + ribavirin (N = 3), 3D + sofosbuvir + ribavirin (N = 1). The majority of patients were cirrhotic (51.9%) and relapsers (87.5%). The prevalence of NS5A-RASs before retreatment was 80.9%, with multiclass-resistance 29.5%. Among patients completing post-retreatment follow-up, a sustained-viral-response at week 12 (SVR12) was observed in 26/33 (78.8%). SVR4 was documented in 49/56 (87.5%). SVR12 was 76.0% with sofosbuvir/velpatasvir ± ribavirin (N = 25). Differently, SVR12 was 100% with glecaprevir/pibrentasvir for 8/12/16 weeks (N = 3), grazoprevir/elbasvir ± sofosbuvir + ribavirin for 12/24 weeks (N = 3) or 3D + sofosbuvir + ribavirin for 24 weeks (N = 1), despite the presence of NS5A-RASs. Until now, 67 patients started sofosbuvir/velpatasvir/voxilaprevir ± ribavirin recommended-retreatment for 12 weeks. 54/67 (80.6%) showed at least one baseline NS5A-RAS, 23/67 (34.3%) multiple-NS5A-RASs, and 22/67 (32.8%) multiclass-resistance. Of 25 patients with available outcome, 96.0% had SVR4. Only 1 GT1b infected patient was non-responder, without RASs before retreatment. Conclusions: In this real-life setting, NS5A-RASs were frequently detected at failure, and multiclass-resistance was around 30%. Overall, SVR after resistance-test-guided retreatment was >95%, with the exception of the sofosbuvir/velpatasvir retreatment. Our results show how HCV resistance-test at failure may be useful to optimize retreatment strategies.

Objectives First-generation protease-inhibitors (PIs) have suboptimal efficacy in GT-1 patients with advanced liver disease, and patients experiencing treatment failure may require urgent retreatment. Our objective was to analyse the real-life efficacy of interferon (IFN)-free retreatment after PI-failure, and the role of genotypic-resistance-testing (GRT) in guiding retreatment choice. Methods In this multi-centre observational study, patients retreated with IFN-free regimens after first-generation PI-failure (telaprevir-boceprevir-simeprevir) were included. Sustained-virological-response (SVR) was evaluated at week 12 of follow-up. GRT was performed by population-sequencing. Results After PI-failure, 121 patients (cirrhotic = 86.8%) were retreated following three different strategies: A) with ‘GRT-guided’ regimens (N = 18); B) with ‘AASLD/EASL recommended, not GRT-guided’ regimens (N = 72); C) with ‘not recommended, not GRT-guided’ regimens (N = 31). Overall SVR rate was 91%, but all 18 patients treated with ‘GRT-guided’ regimens reached SVR (100%), despite heterogeneity in treatment duration, use of PI and ribavirin, versus 68/72 patients (94.4%) receiving ‘AASLD/EASL recommended, not GRT-guided’ regimens. SVR was strongly reduced (77.4%) among the 31 patients who received a ‘not recommended, not GRT-guided regimen’ (p

This paper deals with food ingredients market. It describes some international characteristics and trends focusing on the importance of innovation to assure continuity to the business preserving the respect of environment. Particularly the social responsibility of the market companies may produce improvements in B2C, but also in B2B channels. An entrepreneurial vision is presented as a necessary link with theoretical backgrounds. An empirical analysis is also introduced to validate some conclusions.

Despite the sector or the company’s size, the choice of the strategies is worth; it is about a set of different aspects included by firms into their own strategic and operating procedures. The general aim of this study is to analyse how Italian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are tackling the challenges by adopting more responsible and sustainable strategies and tools in order to create social and economic value and to compete successfully. Moreover, the paper is focused on setting up a rulebook for family business SMEs in which are specified suggestions about overcoming the crisis and achieving the success.