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PurposeIn the current economic scenario characterized by turbulence, innovation is a requisite for company's growth. The innovation activities are implemented through the realization of innovative project. This paper aims to prospect the promising opportunities coming from the application of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to project risk management for organizational innovation, where a large amount of data supports the decision-making process within the companies and the organizations.Design/methodology/approachMoving from a structured literature review (SLR), a final sample of 42 papers has been analyzed through a descriptive, content and bibliographic analysis. Moreover, metrics for measuring the impact of the citation index approach and the CPY (Citations per year) have been defined. The descriptive and cluster analysis has been realized with VOSviewer, a tool for constructing and visualizing bibliometric networks and clusters.FindingsProspective future developments and forthcoming challenges of ML applications for managing risks in projects have been identified in the following research context: software development projects; construction industry projects; climate and environmental issues and Health and Safety projects. Insights about the impact of ML for improving organizational innovation through the project risks management are defined.Research limitations/implicationsThe study have some limitations regarding the choice of keywords and as well the database chosen for selecting the final sample. Another limitation regards the number of the analyzed papers.Originality/valueThe analysis demonstrated how much the use of ML techniques for project risk management is still new and has many unexplored areas, given the increasing trend in annual scientific publications. This evidence represents an opportunities for supporting the organizational innovation in companies engaged into complex projects whose risk management become strategic.

In the last decade, the process of digital transformation has affected all economic activities and has offered new opportunities in health care requiring the adoption of new approaches and ICT tools to redesign processes and policies for the sector, allowing the diffusion of e-health, that is, health practices supported by technological tools. Digital technologies, such as electronic health records, telemedicine, and artificial intelligence, are the technological pillars on which a new health model can be structured over the next few years. The objective of this article is to analyze the impact of digital technologies in e-health through a system dynamic (SD) approach applied to intensive care units to determine how these technologies interact and which outputs they return within complex systems. The findings demonstrate how SD can be used to simulate the effects of e-health technologies' adoption as a policy-making tool, overcoming the main barriers to the development of sustainable health care. The implications and limitations of the study are also provided.

PurposeThe paper provides a contribution of systematisation to the literature on the blue economy and aquaculture as challenging issues for achieving sustainable growth and a circular economy. The growing scientific interest in recent years and the increased attention in political agendas make the blue economy and aquaculture as promising fields for scientific investigation. The latter has been confirmed during a particular period too as the pandemic times. To identify those areas of specialisation emerging from the intersection of such topics, the paper embraces a systematic literature review for inspiring future research.Design/methodology/approachThe study covers a period of 20 years by including 85 papers extracted from the Scopus database. Through the adoption of VOSviewer, the investigation explores the main descriptive statistics, while content analysis has been embraced to identify thematic areas.FindingsThe main results of this study are about statistics (i.e. publication trends, geographic distribution, most frequent keywords and most influential authors, etc.). Three main thematic areas have been identified in this study: SDGs and policies for sustainable development, food and energy, business models and managerial issues.Practical implicationsPractical implications arise both for firms and policymakers. About the firsts, interesting insights can be derived in terms of business model innovation, collaborative approaches and technological exploration. About policymakers, inspiration in terms of renewal of strategic guidelines, creation of enabling contextual conditions and evidences for new regulations can be noted.Originality/valueElements of original contributions can be identified in the adoption of an SLR to verify the advancement of the debate till the recent pandemic.

PurposeThis paper aims to advance the international marketing debate by presenting the results of a structured literature review (SLR) focusing on Big Data implementation in customer relationship management (CRM) strategizing. It outlines past and present literature and frames a future research agenda.Design/methodology/approachThe research analyzes papers published in journals from 2013 to 2020, deriving significant insights about Big Data applications in CRM. A sample of 48 articles indexed at Scopus was preliminarily submitted for bibliometric analysis. Finally, 46 papers were analyzed with content and a bibliometric analysis to identify areas of thematic specializations.FindingsThe paper presents a conceptual multilevel framework demonstrating areas of specialization emerging from the literature. The framework is built around four coordinated sequences of actions relevant to “why,” “what,” “who” and “how” Big Data is implemented in CRM strategies, thus supporting the conception and implementation of an internationalization marketing strategy.Research limitations/implicationsImplications for the development of the future research agenda on international marketing arise from the comprehension of Big Data in CRM strategy.Originality/valueThe paper provides a comprehensive SLR of the articles dealing with models and processes of Big Data for CRM from an international marketing perspective. Despite these issues' relevance and the increasing literature focused on them, research in this area is still fragmented and underexplored, requiring more systematic and holistic studies.

Purpose The wide development of digital platforms permitted the birth of new financing modalities, namely, crowdfunding, where the crowd of individuals and investors can supply the necessary financial resources for venture creation and growth. While the extant literature has focused on analyzing the dynamics and features of crowdfunding campaigns, few studies have focused on understanding how crowd investors decide which ventures to invest in and which factors influence their decision-making process. Due to this gap, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors influencing the choice to invest in an equity crowdfunding campaign, by defining a set of indicators useful to evaluate the risk of the campaign. Design/methodology/approach An empirical research study of Italian equity crowdfunding campaigns has been conducted to identify quantitative indicators useful for evaluating the risk in a crowdfunding campaign. Findings Findings demonstrate that the risk indicators proposed to represent important gauges that investors can usefully consider ex ante to assess the degree of riskiness of the investment in the equity crowdfunding campaign. Research limitations/implications The limitations of the study regarding the size of the sample that is small due to the necessity to extract enough information in pre and post-equity campaigns. Also, the lack of historical data is another limitation. Originality/value The originality of the studies relies on the proposal of quantitative indicators for the evaluation of the risk in equity crowdfunding campaigns for “crowd” investors to reduce information asymmetries.

Il tema della trasformazione digitale rappresenta oggi un nuovo paradigma indispensabile per la competitività delle imprese e per l'innovazione. Il volume presenta un'analisi dei cambiamenti avvenuti nel settore del Turismo, quale settore ampiamente interessato da questa trasformazione, offrendo interessanti spunti di riflessione sulle sfide e le opportunità derivanti dalle tecnologie digitali. Per cogliere pienamente le opportunità che la trasformazione digitale offre, è necessario un processo di "distruzione creativa" sia a livello culturale che sociale, una rivoluzione, questa, ben più complicata della "semplice" trasformazione tecnologica. Il libro è il risultato del percorso di ricerca e innovazione condotta dal Laboratorio di Ingegneria Economico-Gestionale dell'Università del Salento nell'ambito del progetto NEST "Networking for Smart Tourism", una iniziativa progettuale di carattere transfrontaliero finanziata nell'ambito del programma Europeo Interreg IPA Italia-Albania-Montenegro 2014-2020 e finalizzata a identificare tecnologie, modelli e strategie per la creazione e la crescita di una destinazione turistica smart nell'area adriatico-ionica.

PurposeThe paper aims to contribute to the Circular Economy debate from the Entrepreneurship Education perspective. Despite scholars' growing interest in both these research streams, scarce consideration is given to the comprehension of their mutual implications and meaning.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a cross-case analysis. It compares 16 higher education programmes launched by Universities in Europe aimed to create competences and skills for Circular Economy in students with different profiles. The analysis provides a critical view of the emerging trends for the entrepreneurship education skills and competencies needed for the emerging circular entrepreneurship paradigm.FindingsThe paper discusses the main trends of Entrepreneurship Education focused on Circular Economy debate at the European level: rationale and learning objectives (why); contents (what), target students and stakeholders (who) and the learning processes (how). Four thematic areas are identified as common patterns: circular economy business model, green supply chain management, technology entrepreneurship and innovation and public policies and institutional frameworks.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper sheds new light on a still under-researched area, suggesting several implications and avenues for future research in Circular Economy and Entrepreneurship Education. Limitations regard the need to analyse education programmes from a larger geographical area, to take into consideration interesting experiences in the rest of the world and to also collect quantitative data.Practical implicationsPractical implications arise for the development of learning initiatives for the Circular Economy: learning objectives and new thematic areas focused on circular, sustainable and innovative rethinking of the process for creating value in the incumbent companies; exploring meaning and benefits of collaborative approaches and participation in the circular economy innovation ecosystem and developing advanced models for soft-skills development in terms of leadership, motivational and creative skills.Originality/valueThe debate on CE can also be rooted in the paradigm of entrepreneurship as a core process to advance knowledge on valuable and sustainable innovation.

Highlights • COVID-19 emergency forced the Italian Universities to reorganize teaching in entrepreneurship education. • Digital technologies can support the development of entrepreneurial mindset. • Building an entrepreneurship education curriculum through distance learning technologies is critical. • Digital technologies can enhance successfully education ‘about’ entrepreneurship. • Digital technologies present some critical issue when used in educating students ‘for’ entrepreneurship. • CLab@Salento offered a favourable environment to experiment the use of digital tools for the creation of entrepreneurial mindset using a blended learning approach., The COVID-19 crisis has forced universities worldwide to seek urgent solutions to reconfigure traditional education programs for distance learning. The transformation process faces a number of complexities deriving from both institutional and contextual factors. It may generate threats and as well as opportunities to enhance the education system and prepare for potential future emergencies. In this article, we adopted a combined research approach to describe the experience of the Contamination Lab of the University of Salento (CLab@Salento), an entrepreneurship education program focused on innovative and technology-based entrepreneurship for university students. Moving from the analysis of the main challenges the pandemic generated for the institution, students and faculty, we illustrate the process of redesigning the entrepreneurial learning program by leveraging digital technologies. We show a new approach to entrepreneurial storytelling, pitching and business planning and development through digital technologies. We also report the outcomes of a student survey to highlight the strengths of the redesigned program and some weaknesses, especially associated with digital technologies’ limitations in education, which represent areas for future improvement. The study contributes at theory level with a new discussion on digital-supported entrepreneurship education. At practitioner level, it offers insights on redesigning traditional university programs to effectively address emergencies.

PurposeThe paper aims to contributes on the debates about University Idea Incubation by investigating the role and the engagement of different University's stakeholders in the process of opportunity recognition in an entrepreneurship education program targeted at students with an interdisciplinary background.Design/methodology/approachThrough a longitudinal case study methodology, the Contamination Lab at University of Salento (Lecce, Italy), the learning approaches and the knowledge process to create an entrepreneurial awareness, mindset and capability in students with different educational background are presented.FindingsThe findings demonstrates the crucial role of stakeholders' engagement for business idea presentation, open innovation challenge, contamination workshop on specialized topics, enterprise projects are important vehicle for effective students' business ideas and innovative projects development in a multidisciplinary environment. The close interaction among students, academia, companies and institutions creates a favourable environment that enables opportunity identification, idea generation through a deep contamination of knowledge, skills and experiences.Research limitations/implicationsLimitations include the need to generalise the results even if this limitation is typical of the case study methodology. Other research is necessary for an in-depth analysis in deep of the other Contamination Lab in Italy and to derive the “invariance traits” of this environment according to the features of the local entrepreneurial ecosystems.Practical implicationsImplications for practices include recommendations for designing innovative programs where the interactions between University-Institutions-Industry are realized.Originality/valueA conceptual framework is proposed by defining all the entrepreneurial knowledge process and knowledge creation within the Contamination Lab, highlighting the contribution of the stakeholders in each phase and learning initiative of the program.

This article discusses how travel and tourism organizations, the hardest-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, have used the technology tools to deal with COVID challenges. Specifically, through a bibliometric literature review of relevant research papers on the topic of tourism and COVID-19, we provide evidence of how COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption and diffusion of various technologies by different stakeholders in the tourism value chain, and we show how these technologies have been used to deal with the challenges posed by COVID-19 pandemic. The review evidences the main research areas and allows to define future directions. Thus, we conclude this article by discussing how COVID-19 offers a unique opportunity for rethinking and renovating the tourism offer through technology.

This paper contributes to the debate on knowledge spillover in the university-based entrepreneurial ecosystem, with the aim to investigate its role for the development of an entrepreneurial mindset in students. Starting from the literature stream on entrepreneurial university and knowledge spillover entrepreneurship, the paper analyses the process of intentional and unintentional knowledge flows among students, industries, and institutions. Through a case study, the Contamination Lab (CLab@Salento) at the University of Salento in Italy, the paper describes the learning processes activated within an educational programme to create an entrepreneurial mindset in students and analyses the different knowledge flows among the stakeholders populating the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Findings demonstrated the crucial role of CLab@Salento for intentional and unintentional knowledge spillovers, where knowledge contamination processes such as business idea presentation, open innovation challenge, contamination workshop, enterprise projects, business game, and students@abroad are important vehicles for effective knowledge transfer in an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

PurposeThis paper provides a structured literature review (SLR) about the effects of social media technologies on entrepreneurship activities and processes, to identify relationships, connectivity and interdependencies. The paper offers an outline of the past and the present literature and frames a future research agenda.Design/methodology/approachThe structured literature review has been conducted on 159 journal papers extracted from Scopus, initially submitted to a bibliometric analysis. A final list of 69 papers published in a variety of academic journals specialized in the field of entrepreneurship, information science and business management has been analyzed through a content and bibliometric analysis.FindingsFindings show that literature is really scant, and four research streams have been identified: Social media for entrepreneurial learning and self-employment; social media as tools for entrepreneurial marketing; social media as sources of entrepreneurial opportunities and finally, social media as enablers of networking and entrepreneurial ecosystems.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations of the study regard the need for more holistic studies, considering both the technological and the social aspects.Practical implicationsThe findings demonstrate the actuality of the research focus and the need of a deep exploration about the role of social media for the different forms of entrepreneurship process. This evidence calls for a holistic and integrated framework.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper resides in a novel SLR with reference to the recent role of social media for entrepreneurship. Despite the increasing literature, the debate in such field is still fragmented and under-researched, offering a promising research field.

PurposeEntrepreneurship Education (EE) is increasing throughout the world. In 2012, the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) financed Contamination Labs (CLabs), which are laboratories that are aimed at developing entrepreneurial mindsets in all university students. This study analyses the entrepreneurial learning process mechanisms adopted in these CLabs.Design/methodology/approachAn ethnographic case study was performed in two Italian CLabs from October 2017 to December 2019.FindingsFindings demonstrate that the CLabs in Italy are promising Entrepreneurship Education Centres which create programmes to develop an entrepreneurial mindset in students with different educational backgrounds and levels. Interdisciplinarity in the composition of the student teams, virtuous contamination of knowledge and experience between the students and the stakeholders from the entrepreneurial ecosystem are the key pillars to foster an entrepreneurial mindset in all the students.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations of this work regard the need to expand the analysis to all the other CLabs created in Italian universities.Practical implicationsThe findings provide indications that may be used to guide a university faculty in the design and management of Entrepreneurship Education Centres in collaboration with entrepreneurs, corporations, student clubs, incubators and representatives of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Moreover, the results point out a need to develop interdisciplinary entrepreneurial programmes.Originality/valueThe originality resides in the analysis of a novel type of Entrepreneurship Education Centre in Italian Universities created as the result of an ad-hoc Italian policy.

Recently, social big data are attracting increasingly the attention of tourism scientific community and decision makers, as a source of data that carries incredible insights and knowledge for innovation and value creation of the sector. Although it is widely debated about the opportunities of social big data, their practical utilisation for value creation is still in a very early phase. A suitable understanding of data and its usefulness is the essential keystone toward taking advantage. This paper aims to provide a conceptual framework as basis for guiding tourism operators and destination mangers to properly deal with social big data and create value for a sustainable smart tourism destination by extracting insights and knowledge that would help them to obtain greater intimacy from customers and to adapt to market changes.

This paper aims to contribute to the debate on Open Innovation in the age of Big Data by shedding new light on the role that social networks can play as enabling platforms for tourists&rsquo, involvement and sources for the creation and management of valuable knowledge assets. The huge amount of data generated on social media by tourists related to their travel experiences can be a valid source of open innovation. To achieve this aim, this paper presents evidence of a digital tourism experience, through a longitudinal case study of a destination in Apulia, a Southern European region. The findings of the study demonstrate how social Big Data could open up innovation processes that could be of support in defining sustainable tourism experiences in a destination.

This paper aims to demonstrate how the huge amount of Social Big Data available from tourists can nurture the value creation process for a Smart Tourism Destination. Applying a multiple-case study analysis, the paper explores a set of regional tourist experiences related to a Southern European region and destination, to derive patterns and opportunities of value creation generated by Big Data in tourism. Findings present and discuss evidence in terms of improving decision-making, creating marketing strategies with more personalized offerings, transparency and trust in dialogue with customers and stakeholders, and emergence of new business models. Finally, implications are presented for researchers and practitioners interested in the managerial exploitation of Big Data in the context of information-intensive industries and mainly in Tourism.

It is widely recognized that entrepreneurs are key drivers of economic development, and as such, nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset in young people has become a key priority for innovation. Entrepreneurship education (EE) has emerged as a key instrument to enhance entrepreneurial orientation. A growing number of curricula and programs devoted to entrepreneurship are registered in all levels and fields of education. Likewise, the tourism education sector recently has started to offer entrepreneurship education through dedicated modules or courses. However, despite the growing attention and relevance of EE in tourism, to our best knowledge, this field of research remains under-investigated. This paper aims to contribute to closing this gap by analyzing, though a web-based content analysis, the situation of European university initiatives that have begun including modules and contents related to entrepreneurship in their tourism educational programs. In particular, the paper seeks to analyse how the main components related to EE are being structured in these tourism education programs and offer advice on what might constitute an effective tourism entrepreneurship education path.

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

Creating an entrepreneurial mindset among the members of a society (public sector, private sectors, academia, etc.) is seen as a critical process in coping with uncertainty and complexity, but also as a mechanism for creating and thriving on these (Gibb 2005). This scenario translates into a need to equip individuals not only with an entrepreneurial mindset but also with the capability to design organisations of all kinds—public, private and NGO—to support effective entrepreneurial behaviour (Gibb 2005). Students at all levels of education, young entrepreneurs and those starting up businesses need to be equipped with an entrepreneurial mindset, defined by five constituent elements: (1) the capacity to think creatively, strategically, analytically and reflectively; (2) confidence in one’s abilities; (3) the ability to collaborate; (4) well-developed communication skills; and (5) an understanding of the current business context (Pollard and Wilson 2014).

A major challenge for Local Governments today is represented by the introduction of new networked service delivery models able to coordinate a number of different local actors for responding effectively to increasing community's expectations. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are instrumental here. Though, the implementation of ICTs in Local Government Agencies (LGA) is a challenge too. That's why effective new services delivery models and successful adoption of enabling ICTs within the LGA goes hand-in-hand. Following these considerations, this paper aims at illustrating a case of ICT-based solutions adoption into a Local Government Agency in charge of tourism promotion. More specifically the e-business case methodology crafted and used for this purpose will be shown. In doing so, the role of the e-business case will be advocated both as a tool to accompany Local Government Agencies into the process of introducing and using ICTs, both as a starting point for a wider strategy aimed at modernizing local communities though ICTs. © 2010 ACM.