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Purpose – The paper focuses on the profile of chefs, whose job is considered as one of the most challenging professions as it involves scientific mastery, as well as creativity, and innovation. Design – Based on a sample of 264 individuals (both starred Italian chefs listed on Michelin Red Guide and students from six Italian culinary high schools), the study assesses which factors affect chefs’ innovative performance. Findings – Results show that success in haute cuisine depends on several factors, which involve chef’s creativity, culinary innovation process, and the restaurant service offering (restaurantscape). The differences between chefs in training and top chefs in terms of creativity are underlined. The study offers suggestions on chefs’ innovative process and provides a better understanding of how success in the chef profession is influenced by both individual features and environmental/social characteristics. Furthermore, results indicate which capabilities chefs in training should possess in order to succeed and, in turn, which capabilities should be developed by professional high schools of cooking in order to stimulate innovativeness in their educational programs. Originality of the research – This research contributes to the literature by suggesting which key factors promote creativity and innovation and a continuous flow of innovative ideas in haute cuisine.

PurposeThe study jointly investigates sustainability and authenticity concepts in the food context during the COVID-19 outbreak with a fourfold objective: (1) understanding whether sustainability and authenticity are equivalent concepts in consumers' perceptions; (2) advancing knowledge on the role played by them about food frauds' perception; (3) investigating whether these concepts are considered as “risk relievers” by consumers, (4) comparing the concepts to understand which one has a greater weight on the consumer's perception.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts a Combination of a Uniform and a shifted Binomial distribution (CUB models) on data gathered in Spain between June and August 2020 through an online questionnaire.FindingsThe findings reveal that: (1) consumers perceive sustainability and authenticity as different concepts in the food context and (2) as two important indicators of fraud protection of a product for consumers; (3) besides, authenticity is seen as a “risk reliever” in buying a food product, as well as sustainability, (4) although results underline high uncertainty in the latter case.Originality/valueBy considering that the COVID-19 outbreak seriously threatens food safety, security and nutrition, this research elucidates the relevant role of food sustainability and authenticity concepts as “risk relievers” in terms of food frauds and negative issues related to COVID-19.

The paper investigates which types of capabilities open innovation digital platforms develop for supporting co-creation in open innovation processes, by enabling the shift from knowledge ecosystems to capabilities ecosystems. By examining the literature on the open innovation digital platforms, the paper develops a theoretical framework and advances propositions by underlining the specific required dynamic capabilities—sensing, seizing, scanning, integrating, and transformative—needed to facilitate and support the interactive coupled open innovation processes essential for firm co-creation activities. Research propositions are provided to address scholars toward new research paths on digital platforms, open innovation, and dynamic capabilities. Implications for practitioners involved in open innovation processes by using digital platforms are provided in the conclusion.

The aim of the study is to explore the links that firms from low and medium technology (LMT) industries establish with universities for innovative purposes. Even though knowledge transfer from university to industry has generally increased over time, it has mostly been directed at firms in high-tech industries (HT) due to the belief that firms from LMT industries often lack the absorptive capacity necessary to take advantage of external knowledge. In the case of LMT industries, university-industry knowledge transfer has received less attention from management and innovation studies, and understanding the specific conditions where universities may contribute to the innovative effort of LMT firms largely remains unexplored. With the aim of contributing to this debate, the paper focuses on the wine sector, generally considered an LMT industry. Firstly, the study assesses to which type of innovation promoted by winemakers do universities effectively contribute. Secondly, the study examines under what conditions universities assume a relevant role in the innovative activity of LMT firms. To test our hypotheses, the study uses primary data collected through a survey targeting Italian wine SMEs and runs a set of econometric evaluations. Findings show that universities represent a relevant source of knowledge mainly for organizational and commercial innovation, but not for product innovation. For these purposes, university knowledge related to social sciences has a more relevant input for firms than does knowledge with higher scientific and technological content.

Originality/value: The chapter contributes to theoretical literature thanks to its propositions: enforcing the four most important key factors while encouraging profitable use of IC resource policy-makers and new entrepreneurs who can assist in the growth and expansion of innovative startups.

It is stressed in the literature that territorial certification critically influences tourist destination competitiveness; however, it remains unclear as to how they influence local Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) value creation. The research contributes to the literature by testing the relationship between territorial certifications and SMEs value creation. Based on literature review, a research model and hypotheses has been developed. The study used a quantitative analysis based on a sample composed of 1148 SMEs from 128 cities (members of the Cittaslow Association) in 15 European countries. The results highlight the direct relationship between territorial certification and SME performance in terms of both annual sales growth and positive financial performance. However, findings show that the impact of territorial certification on local SMEs enables more rapid results in terms of financial performance as opposed to annual sales growth. The implications for management and local government, considerations for future research, and the limitations of the study are also provided.

The paper investigates the emerging practice of social crowdfunding. It focuses on both the role played by crowdfunding platforms and the activities that these platforms perform in enhancing and facilitating the diffusion of social and cultural projects through donations. Crowdfunding platforms empower the financing of projects by soliciting small investments from a large base of potential backers over the Internet and creating a dynamic funding network. However, crowdfunding platforms should also create greater legitimacy for social enterprises by promoting early societal interaction and participation. To explore the context of social crowdfunding, the paper examines the case of the Italian social crowdfunding platform – Meridonare – by using both primary and secondary data sources. Findings reveal that, beyond acting as a standard crowdfunding platform, Meridonare eases interactions and relationships among different stakeholders. The emerging set of relationships gives rise to a Social Crowdfunding Business Ecosystem (SCBE), with the crowdfunding platform acting as a hub to enact knowledge sharing and service provision to a plethora of different actors.

This is the accepted version without figures of the paper "Knowledge co-creation in Open Innovation Digital Platforms: processes, tools and services" published as final paper in "Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 34 No. 7, pp. 1434-1447. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-09-2018-0276" Citation: Abbate, T., Codini, A.P. and Aquilani, B. (2019), "Knowledge co-creation in Open Innovation Digital Platforms: processes, tools and services", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 34 No. 7, pp. 1434-1447. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-09-2018-0276 Abstract Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand how Open Innovation Digital Platforms (OIDPs) can facilitate and support knowledge co-creation in Open Innovation (OI) processes. Specifically, it intends to investigate the contribution of OIDPs oriented to successfully implement all the phases of interactive coupled OI processes. Design/methodology/approach: The paper carries out an exploratory qualitative analysis, adopting the single case study method. The case here investigated is Open Innovation Platform Regione Lombardia (OIPRL). Findings: The case study sheds light on how OIPRL supports knowledge co-creation through its processes, tools and services as a co-creator intermediary. In its launch stage, the platform simply aimed at giving firms a tool to “find partners” and financial resources to achieve innovative projects. Now, however, the platform has developed into an engagement platform for knowledge co-creation. Research limitations/implications: One limitation lies in the particular perspective used to perform the case study: the perspective of the digital platform itself. Future research should focus on the individuals engaged in the platform to better investigate the processes, tools and services used to implement the Open Innovation approach. Practical implications: The paper suggests ways in which OIDPs could be used by firms for effective exploration, acquisition, integration and development of valuable knowledge. Originality/value: The study conceptualizes the role of OIDPs in shaping knowledge co-creation, assuming that the platforms act as Open Innovation Intermediaries. Specifically, OIDPs can be observed to function as “co-creator intermediaries” that define, develop and implement dedicated processes, specific tools and appropriate services for supporting knowledge co-creation activities. &nbsp

What different configurations of Business Model (BM) exist in an IoT platform that aims at developing smart cities? To address this research question, we build on BM literature and argue that BM configurations have general characteristics beyond the unique traits of individual firms. We empirically investigate 21 projects for smart cities that participate to a European funded Accelerator using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Our findings reveal the most frequent patters of association among value propositions and BM's building blocks. In so doing, we contribute to explain and analyze the diversity among cases as well as BM's causal complexity.

In today's markets, innovation has been identified as a key driver of firms' competitive advantage and innovation capabilities and as a key explanatory variable for differences between firms in behavior and outcomes. Although the literature has explored innovation capabilities, typically from a firm-level perspective, little is known about how firms' innovation capabilities originate in lower-level entities and processes, namely in the microfoundations of innovation capabilities. To bridge this gap, the present research adopts a microfoundations perspective to propose a conceptual model that investigates whether and how individual characteristics for innovation (individual attention to detail, creativity, and openness) and individual-level knowledge sharing behaviors (individual motivation, control, ability, and engagement) affect firm-level strategic innovation capabilities. Drawing on data from 287 R&D employees and general managers operating within 11 firms/research centers belonging to a cross-border R&D partnership, the results of structural equation modeling (SEM) show the crucial role played by individual motivation in effective and frequent sharing of knowledge and by individual engagement in knowledge sharing activities. This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge on innovation capabilities and knowledge management and provides interesting insights for marketers.

This study profiles cruise passengers based on their perceived satisfaction with their experience. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and K-means Cluster Analysis were applied to a sample of 419 cru...

Purpose The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationships between distribution strategies and the level of innovation propensity in the winemaking industry. It intends to identify the existence of patterns around the way wineries innovate and the way distribution channels are used. These determinants can support or constrain wineries’ behaviors in their strategic choices related to distribution channels. Design/methodology/approach The sample comprised 191 Italian small- to medium-sized enterprises in the wine industry. First, a two-step cluster analysis was used to identify patterns in the level of innovation propensity and differences in distribution channel strategies. Second, the research question was tested using multinomial logit regression. Findings Five clusters of innovation propensity were identified, varying from “no propensity to innovate” to “propensity for radical innovation”, and three clusters of distribution channel strategies were found. A significant negative relationship between innovation propensity and distribution channel strategies was revealed. This means that the greater the propensity to innovate, the smaller the need for a wholesale distribution option. Research limitations/implications As with most research, there are limitations to this study. First, the sample is from only one country. A second limitation is the sample size (191 Italian firms). A sample including large firms can be used to further validate the findings. Linked to the sample, another possible limitation is that all respondents were small- and medium-sized enterprises from a single industry. Practical implications This study contributes to the current innovation research by showing the existence of a negative relationship between innovation propensity and the choice of distribution channel in the wine industry. This knowledge is precious to entrepreneurs and managers in the wine sector, allowing them to better consider not only the type of strategies related to distribution channels but also the importance of building the firm’s propensity to innovate into the strategic decision-making process. Furthermore, the paper provides an opportunity for practitioners to reflect upon the fact that changing the distribution channel is more than just changing the outlet for their product; it might also require a revision in their innovation propensity to better facilitate the process. Social implications There are also social implications, in particular providing an advantage for consumers. The major advantage is based on the fact that consumers are now aware that the level of innovation propensity in a wine industry is directly linked to the type of distribution channel adopted. Therefore, wines with low-innovation propensity are most likely found to adopt wholesale distribution strategy, while the more innovative wineries adopt the wine expert and direct distribution channels. Originality/value For the first time, a cluster analysis approach was used to review different typologies of Italian wineries based on their propensity toward to innovation and subsequent distribution strategies. This study further explains the direct relationship between innovation propensity and the strategic choice toward between long or short distribution channels.

This study focuses on creativity and innovation in the gastronomy sector, where both concepts have become increasingly relevant determinants of success, business performance and longer-term survival. Specifically, it investigates the key factors that effectively stimulate the actions and behaviours leading to a continuous flow of novel and useful ideas that can be turned into innovations. To achieve this, an inductive methodology was used, based on the study of a single but significant case, using the semi-structured in-depth interview. The results show that new ideas are mainly generated directly by the chef; hence individual features play a leading role, together with endless experimentation. They furthermore underline that the innovation process is mainly influenced by a trial-and-error approach, which is possible only if the chef has a genuine entrepreneurial spirit. These results hold several relevant theoretical and practical implications.

The paper investigates the relationship between the culinary innovation process (divided in two stages: idea generation and idea transformation) and the role of creativity protection. The aim is to understand how chefs protect their creativity and their innovation outcomes. The analysis is based on a sample of 132 Italian Michelin-starred chefs. The study sheds light on creativity and innovation domains in the hospitality environment where organizations have to continuously innovate in order to maintain a defensible competitive position. It identifies five “barriers against imitation” by competitors: “listening to clients’ needs”; “chef’s own creativity”, “systematic approach to creativity”; “knowledge based feasibility”; “accumulated professional skills”. The paper represents an initial effort to examine creativity protection concepts in the gastronomy sector, which are still unexplored. It contributes to a better understanding of how to protect the intellectual property in a sector where the applicability of law-based intellectual property systems is very low.

The chapter aims at analyzing the more recent studies on co-creation considering both marketing and management literature, contextualizing them within the new scenario firms have to afford today. In doing this both market and consumer changes are studied. The chapter, after an introduction to the subject matter explaining why it is so important to focus on this unexplored management issue, presents a review on the three streams of literature used to build the framework, namely Consumer Culture Theory, Service-Dominant Logic and Value Co-creation. It then focuses on contrasting the different approaches regarding markets and consumers and studying their differences and common traits. The chapter ends with some limitations and hints to future research, as well as some theoretical and managerial implications presented in the concluding section.

Certain cultural barriers, such as insufficient openness, aversion to risk-taking, organizational inertia and specific syndromes could inhibit successful Open Innovation processes. However, how Open Innovation Intermediaries help in overcoming obstacles to successfully achieve Open Innovation processes, has not yet been analysed in depth. This paper aims to fill this gap, relying on extant contributions of Open Innovation processes, Open Innovation Intermediary features and types. Based on the distinction between outside-in, inside-out and coupled Open Innovation processes, the theoretical framework developed here identifies specific cultural barriers affecting each process and suggests which intermediary types could be more suited to sustain firms undergoing these processes. The framework supports firms opening up their internal R&D activities to choose the intermediary type most suitable for adaption to an appropriate culture, as well as overcoming any possible cultural barriers.

Social entrepreneurship and social innovation are attracting increasing attention from policy makers, practitioners, as well as academics. They represent different ways of thinking and addressing social issues often overlooked by public/private organizations and also provide a viable means of responding to multiple social, economic and environmental crises. With this in mind, this chapter leads to a better understanding of social entrepreneurship and social innovation in the non-profit sector, using one specific case followed by a more generalized discussion. The case of “Banca Prossima” illustrates engagement in social problems and trying to find and apply new solutions that simultaneously meet a social need while also leading to new or improved capabilities and relationships and a better use of assets and resources.

This paper aims to explore consumer attitudes toward using smart shopping cart, considering country of origin, gender, age, and intentions to use smart shopping carts while purchasing. Moreover, it investigates the influence of extracted factors on consumers' attitudes toward using smart shopping carts and the users' levels of digital competence. The data was collected through survey questionnaires using a purposive sample of 313 Croatian and Italian respondents. To this end, we applied statistical methodologies such as binary logistic regression, factor analysis, and analysis of variance. We found that, compared with Croatians, Italian respondents have a more positive attitude toward using smart shopping carts, regardless of age or gender. Moreover, we found that consumers are influenced by two major factors: functional and convenience. Consumers who purchase for functionality reasons will have preferences associated with faster product selection and speeding up the purchasing process without fearing that they lack the necessary expertise. If functionality has the tendency to increase, respondents will not lack ICT knowledge when purchasing with the smart cart.

From a market orientation perspective, this study intends to examine how small high-tech firms generate, disseminate and integrate information on customers’ needs, competitors’ activities and market forces within their organizational boundaries in order to define and to implement effective strategies. We perform an explorative qualitative analysis based on Italian and Spanish academic spin-off firms. We find that the activities of generation, dissemination and integration of market information are crucial to develop technological innovations and to obtain positive performance, even if these activities require the definition and development of a sophisticated marketing information system, as well as the availability of economic resources and specialized competences, often more limited in these small firms.

This paper examines the services provided by Open Innovation Intermediaries (OIIs) through their web-based platforms, in order to understand how OIIs can effectively support innovation seekers in their innovation processes. Relying on the existing literature exploring the roles and functions of web-based OII platforms, we carried out an exploratory and comparative qualitative study to identify the services available, to classify them by the various phases of the innovation processes in which they can be beneficial, and to link them to general roles and functions. Our analysis of the services provided by OII platforms sheds light on the dynamics of innovation seekers’ choices, and gives meaningful insights that can help improve this information and these services, so that OIIs can improve their offer in terms of complementary resources and knowledge for the innovation processes., Este artículo examina los servicios ofrecidos por los Intermediaros de Información (Open Innovation Intermediaries, OIIs) a través de sus páginas web para entender cómo los OIIs pueden apoyar de forma efectiva a los innovadores en los procesos de innovación. Valiéndonos de bibliografía anterior sobre los papeles y funciones de las plataformas web de OII, hemos realizado un estudio exploratorio y comparativo cualitativo para identificar los servicios disponibles, clasicicarlos según las fases de los procesos de innovación que pueden beneficiarse de ellos, y relacionarlos con papeles y funciones generales. Nuestro análisis de los servicios ofrecidos por las plataformas de OII aclara las dinámicas de los innovadores, y ofrece datos significativos que puede ayudar a mejorar esta información y estos servicios, de manera que los OIIs puedan mejorar su oferta en términos de recursos complementarios y conocimiento de los procesos de innovación.

Cloud computing is rapidly evolving due to social and cultural influences that are changing the necessary Cloud services. Indeed, an increasing number of application and service providers use Cloud computing to adapt their products to customer needs, by addressing the requirements arisen by the customer Quality of Experience (QoE, QoX or simply QX) evaluation. QoE is a fast emerging multidisciplinary field based on social psychology, cognitive science, management, and engineering science, focused on understanding overall human quality requirements. In order to help Digital Business architects to understand how Cloud computing can help them to increase their business, we present a scientometric analysis of Cloud computing and QoE. Analyzing the current state of the art, we provide some guidelines to Digital Business companies for addressing the issues related to QoE that have to be taken into account in order to maximize their business.

This Research Note analyses the contribution of Cittaslow (slow city) to the governance of tourism destinations by promoting the "slowness" perspective and the concept of sustainable development at the local level. This movement strongly encourages policy-makers to orient its various efforts essentially to define and implement policies, activities and initiatives for sustaining economic development, social well-being and environmental sustainability. In this way, it stimulates the improvement of quality of life for inhabitants and tourists of the involved destinations. Based on a qualitative analysis focused on "Cittaslow Association", this study concentrates on opportunities and challenges for certified destinations as well as the linkages between practices defined by the Cittaslow Association and sustainable development. From a theoretical point of view, the Research Note contributes to destination development literature, offering significant highlights on the governance of tourism destinations. From a managerial point of view, it supports policy-makers underlining the main opportunities and challenges for a tourism destination in being certified as Cittaslow.

This paper focuses on a possible improvement of knowledge-based decision support systems for human resource management within Public Administrations, using a co-creation of value’s mechanism, according to the Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) paradigm. In particular, it applies ontology-driven data entry procedures to trigger the cooperation between the Public Administration itself and its employees. Advantages in such sense are evident: constraining the data entry process by means of the term definition ontology improves the quality of gathered data, thus reducing potential mismatching problems and allowing a suitable skill gap analysis among real and ideal workers competence profiles. The procedure foresees the following steps: analyzing organograms and job descriptions; modelling Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes (KSA) for job descriptions; transforming KSAs of job descriptions into a standard-based model with integrations of other characteristics; extracting information from Curricula Vitae according to the selected model; comparing profiles and roles played by the employees. The 'a priori' ontology-driven approach adequately supports the operations that involve both the Public Administration and employees, as for the data storage of job descriptions and curricula vitae. The comparison step is useful to understand if employees perform roles that are coherent with their own professional profiles. The proposed approach has been experimented on a small test case and the results show that its objective evaluation represents an improvement for a decision support system for the re-organization of Italian Public Administrations where, unfortunately often, people are engaged in activities that are not so close to their competences.

Most studies that examine tourism impacts and community attitudes have been carried out from the perspective of the tourism sector as a whole, with very few papers focusing on specific types of tourism and/or analysing tourists' preferences for specific types of tourism segment. This paper discusses some pertinent issues in relation to cruise tourism development and community attitudes in a port of call cruise destination located in the island of Sicily (Southern Italy). Specifically, this study was carried out using a quota random sample of 1500 responses, which is representative of the population of Messina at 1% level. Findings show that residents express an overall positive attitude towards cruise tourism development even if it is not the most preferred when compared to other types of tourism (cultural tourism, sport tourism, and sun and sea tourism). Further, they highlight that significant differences based on socio-economic and demographic characteristics (age, gender, reliance on cruise-related em...

Since Henry Chesbrough’s remark on the importance of opening innovation processes to the cooperation of external entities, like partners, competitors or customers, open innovation (OI) gained momentum. Open innovation approach was started and run by different companies around the world. Meanwhile specific platforms were developed to support these processes, either by intermediaries aimed at helping companies to shift to an open innovation approach, or by firms which decided to adopt this approach trough their own created and managed platforms. Through a descriptive design theory perspective the paper analyzes the features (components) that these web-based platforms offer in respect to the requirements they have to fulfill in order to effectively support the open innovation approach.

Innovation intermediaries are a heterogeneous phenomenon with a relevant role in innovation processes as they are considered facilitators of the match of supply and demand in uncertain contexts. Their tasks are focused on: promoting new solutions that derive by combinations of knowledge; supporting technology development activities and trying to reduce the gap between the business and research communities. In recent years, several studies have analyzed the most important functions of intermediaries, their role in innovation process, but only few studies have focused on the rationale of innovation intermediation. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how innovation intermediaries can contribute to knowledge sharing. The intermediation processes will be compared to explain how innovation intermediaries can contribute to the creation of knowledge and the development of innovation. The paper will consist of three steps. First, a literature review will be carried out to define the intermediaries’ main functions; subsequently, the method for analysing this phenomenon will be described; the third step will discuss findings.

Open Innovation and Services Science are two distinct paradigms that share some principles 0. While some attempts to investigate open innovation according to a service science perspective exist, there is currently a gap with regards to the analysis of intermediaries of open innovation according to a service science perspective and even more regarding to recent trends about smart service system. This paper aims to fill this gap and, to this purpose, we present two interesting and original results. After an analysis of the key features of Open Innovation Intermediaries, we discuss a characterization of these intermediaries as service systems by mapping their features on the ten fundamental concepts of a service system. Next we propose a new model that goes in the direction of the convergence between service and cognitive system (smart service system) and aims at overcoming some traditional issues of the intermediaries. The new model foresees the distribution of Open Innovation Intermediaries features, enhanced with a set of cognitive assistants to the stakeholders within open innovation processes, and proposes the adoption of responsible innovation frameworks as a base to add right and responsibilities to cognitive assistants.