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We propose the individual-level microfoundations of subsidiary CEOs in emerging markets as antecedents of the strategic agility of multinational enterprises, and subsidiary embeddedness as a key organizational-level moderator of these relationships. Combining quantitative data on subsidiary CEOs operating in India with qualitative interviews with Italian HQ counterparts, our results suggest that subsidiary CEOs’ tenure in emerging markets, along with their overall experience, affects MNE strategic agility positively. Similarly, CEOs’ cognitive characteristics - problem solving and reasoning, and language and communication skills (individual-level microfoundations) - affected strategic agility positively, while subsidiary embeddedness moderated these relationships in different ways, leaving space for fresh managerial and theoretical considerations. © 2021.

This paper investigates how COVID-19 is impacting different accommodation types, and whether travellers' choices regarding accommodation type are affected by the need for physical distance. Study 1 shows that travellers are very reluctant to book shared flats on Airbnb during the pandemic. However, full flats – controlling for price levels - are preferred to hotel rooms. Study 2 clarifies the process behind the increased choice for full flats, i.e., the need for physical distance. In Study 3, we actively manipulate physical distance and show that assuring physical distance will reduce the concerns towards hotel and shared flat options. Apart from enlightening the psychological process behind accommodation choice, the study offers operators actionable suggestions on how to maximise bookings despite the pandemic. © 2021

Innovation and environmental sustainability are key elements in countries' development and essential to ensure their continuing competitiveness in an increasingly globalised market. Similarly, at the regional level, these elements mark the difference between higher/lower growth; as such, the evaluation of innovation processes is very useful to orient innovation policies towards those regions that need additional strategies to develop potential improvements. This study proposes the use, in the first stage, of DEA-Bootstrap and the Malmquist Index to analyse the innovation efficiency level in Spanish and Italian regions during the period 2004-2012. In the second stage, multilevel regression is used to analyse the relationship between efficiency, environmental sustainability and economic development. The results show great differences between the territories of the two countries analysed, confirming the need to establish differentiated policies that encourage the adoption of innovation practices in regions whose efficiency scores have shown a lack of rigour in the use of their resources, i.e. southern Italian and Spanish regions. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the stringency of environmental policies positively affects innovation efficiency, with a positive relationship identified among development, innovation, and environmental sustainability. © 2021 Elsevier Inc.

In order to face the challenges of internationalization and to cope more efficiently with the uncertainty of foreign expansion, firms are called to analyze an increasing amount of real-time semi-structured and unstructured datasets. In this sense, big data analytics (BDA) can become strategic in stimulating the international growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, the specific relationship between BDA and internationalization has been analyzed fragmentarily within the mainstream literature. With the purpose of shedding light on this relationship, the authors drew on resource-based view (RBV) and collected data through a questionnaire directed to CEOs of 266 SMEs, receiving 103 responses. A quantitative analysis based on an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression showed that the relationship between governance of BDA infrastructure and the degree of internationalization (DOI) is not significant, while the direct effect of BDA capabilities as well as the interaction term between BDA infrastructure and BDA capabilities are positive and significant. This suggests that the governance of BDA per se is not enough for enhancing internationalization in SMEs. On the contrary, this article points out the relevance of developing specific BDA capabilities and the existence of a positive interplay between governance of BDA infrastructure and BDA capabilities that can exploit the new knowledge coming from BDA in SME international growth. © 2020, The Author(s).

Purpose: To investigate critical aspects and effectiveness of in vivo dosimetry (IVD) tests obtained by an electronic portal imaging device (EPID) in a multicenter and multisystem context. Materials and methods: Eight centers with three commercial systems—SoftDiso (SD, Best Medical Italy, Chianciano, Italy), Dosimetry Check (DC, Math Resolution, LCC), and PerFRACTION (PF, Sun Nuclear Corporation, SNC, Melbourne, FL)—collected IVD results for a total of 2002 patients and 32,276 tests. Data are summarized for IVD software, radiotherapy technique, and anatomical site. Every center reported the number of patients and tests analyzed, and the percentage of tests outside of the tolerance level (OTL%). OTL% was categorized as being due to incorrect patient setup, incorrect use of immobilization devices, incorrect dose computation, anatomical variations, and unknown causes. Results: The three systems use different approaches and customized alert indices, based on local protocols. For Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT) treatments OTL% mean values were up to 8.9% for SD, 18.0% for DC, and 16.0% for PF. Errors due to “anatomical variations” for head and neck were up to 9.0% for SD and DC and 8.0% for PF systems, while for abdomen and pelvis/prostate treatments were up to 9%, 17.0%, and 9.0% for SD, DC, and PF, respectively. The comparison among techniques gave 3% for Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy, 7.0% (range 4.7–8.9%) for VMAT, 10.4% (range 7.0–12.2%) for Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy, and 13.2% (range 8.8–21.0%) for 3D Conformal Radiation Therapy. Conclusion: The results obtained with different IVD software and among centers were consistent and showed an acceptable homogeneity. EPID IVD was effective in intercepting important errors.

During the past decades cities may have finally shaped the demand for “smart” and sustainable innovations calling for deep stakeholders' integration and engagement within Smart City Projects (SCPs). In this context, Universities are often involved with different tasks, but their stakeholder engagement and integrator role is still unclear. This paper aims to fulfill this gap on the role of Universities in SCPs utilising bottom-up collected quantitative and qualitative data. We found positive trend in University integrator role applying a mixed two-step methodology based on online survey of University students and interviews with decision-making stakeholders involved in SCPs (business, state, entrepreneurs and academia) in Italy and Russia. Our findings suggest significant new insights useful to reapply the mediating role of Universities and to highlight some newly arising opportunities in stakeholder engagement. At the same time, we propose related practical implications in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation defining further directions under the lens of multistakeholder management. © 2018 Elsevier Inc.

The open innovation (OI) literature has focused primarily on OI strategies and external sourcing of knowledge at the organizational level and has paid less attention to the role of subsidiaries in the OI activities of multinational corporations (MNCs). In contrast, International Business (IB) scholars have shown that subsidiaries play an emergent role in MNC innovation activities and have highlighted the relevance of subsidiaries' external and internal linkages. In this paper, we bring together these perspectives by examining OI at the subsidiary level within MNCs and test our hypotheses through an empirical analysis using data from 91 MNC subsidiaries. Our findings show an inverted U-shaped relationship between the openness of subsidiaries to external knowledge sources and innovation performance. Moreover, we find that subsidiaries' internal embeddedness positively moderates the above relationship. Practically, our findings suggest the need for MNC and subsidiary managers to develop mechanisms to manage intra-organizational relations in order to achieve improved innovation performance while leveraging of external knowledge sources at the subsidiary level, thus favoring MNCs' knowledge management (KM) approach. We contribute to different interrelated streams of research by providing compelling evidence to support the assertion that subsidiaries need to balance external and internal openness. © 2020 Elsevier Inc.

In the last decade, the Internet of Things (IoT) has affected the approach of organizations to innovation and how they create and capture value in everyday business activities. This is compounded in the so-called Smart Cities, where the objective of the IoT is to exploit information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support added-value services for citizens, giving companies more opportunities to innovate through the use of the latest technologies. In this context, multinational enterprises (MNEs) are building alliances, starting several projects with public and private city stakeholders aimed at exploring new technologies for cities but also at exploiting new IoT-based devices and services in order to profit from them. This implies that companies need to manage and integrate different types of knowledge to efficiently and effectively support the simultaneous pressure of exploration and exploitation, at a project portfolio level. Using structural equations modeling with data collected from 43 IoT smart city project alliances in Italy, this paper tests and finds evidence that MNEs need to develop knowledge management (KM) capabilities combined with ICT capabilities if they want to obtain greater ambidexterity performance at the project portfolio level. More specifically, we highlight that KM capabilities enhance alliance ambidexterity indirectly through firms’ ICT capabilities, suggesting that MNE managers should design KM tools and develop new ICT skills. Implications for academics, managers and future lines of research are proposed. © 2017 Elsevier Inc.