Search

Circular Economy is gaining momentum as a new economic paradigm able to couple economic development and environmental preservation. It reconceptualises the traditional take-make-waste production chain closing the loop to reduce a consumption of virgin raw materials and waste production and pollution. At the territorial level, cities are especially involved in the shifting from the linear to the circular paradigm, supporting the transition towards a circular economy. In defining their circular strategies, cities should consider the tourism sector and define ad hoc policies and tools to facilitate the transition towards circular tourism. Circular tourism is an emerging topic; at present, few scientific papers are available addressing this topic. Even fewer papers are available in the scientific literature about the circular city tourism, that is, the implementation of circular tourism in cities as part of a larger circular urban strategy. The present paper investigates the evolution of the circular tourism topic, considering the implementation of circular tourism local strategies at the urban level. Crossing scientific papers from three research fields – circular economy, circular city, and circular tourism –, the paper defines a framework for analysing urban policies for circular tourism integrated in larger circular city strategies.

Recently, a new paradigm has emerged—the resilient city. It is an evolutionary concept rooted in recent—but more consolidated—city visions, such as a smart city or a sustainable city, from which it inherits the interweaving of different dimensions. This paper investigates the factors behind effective resilience reporting, as well as how a city should draw up an urban resilience strategy report to be accountable to its citizens. We first highlighted the main factors to design and implement reporting for the achievement of strategic resilience goals, by combining research on a resilient city and accountability practices. These factors could be organized following two different perspectives: political and sociotechnical. Then, we applied our framework to four pioneering municipalities selected as paradigmatic case studies. A qualitative content analysis applied to the city resilience reports has provided depth to our framework. We found that the “weak factor” is the ability to embed the resilience strategy in rooted connections and transform itself into an ecosystem that crosscuts different sectoral urban processes. Our exploratory research claims could be used for future research in this field, as cities are becoming increasingly complex systems, where the quality of life and well-being of a larger population depends.

Cultural assets can be seen as a particular type of commons as they belong to a group or society that inherits them from past generations, maintains them in the present and preserves them for the b...

Smart city has been a recent trend in the urban strategy, aiming at improving the quality of life in cities and reducing our ecological footprint with the use of innovative technologies, especially in energy systems, local mobility, and e-government. Recently, due to the declaration of climate change emergency, citizens expect their local governments to be able to plan not only smart cities but also resilient cities that can withstand shocks and face them adequately. Smart transformation and resilience appear to be converging strategies. They require technology, innovation, and good governance to create sustainable cities delivering a better quality of life and environmental protection. However, these two strategies do not converge independently and must be consciously merged to produce the desired results. This paper investigates the evolution from smart to resilient cities. The study findings showed that a comprehensive strategic plan is necessary to achieve this objective. Using an interventionist approach to the R2Cities project developed by the city of Genoa, this paper aims to show the evolutionary path toward smart and resilient cities.

PurposeThe paper aims to propose an integrated reporting (IR) framework rooted in Freeman’s stakeholder theory (ST). The proposed framework modifies the international integrated reporting framework (IIRF) and aims to overcome criticisms related to its focus on investors and the abandonment of sustainability.Design/methodology/approachThe paper develops a modified IIRF based on an in-depth analysis of the IR and ST literature. The framework was then applied to a non-profit health-care organisation to verify its theoretical assumptions.FindingsThe modified IIRF was conceived as a ready-to-use tool. By applying it to a business case, it was validated with respect to whether and how it could help achieve better and more stakeholder-oriented reporting. The findings enabled us to validate the use of the tool not only for reporting but also for the self-assessment of organisations with respect to embedding ST.Research limitations/implicationsThe modified IIRF was implemented only in one case, and further implementations are needed to comprehensively identify its strengths and weaknesses, both in for-profit and non-profit organisations.Practical implicationsThe revised IIRF represents an updated tool for reporting and disclosing the value created by an organisation for itself and for its stakeholders including the external entities affected by the impacts engendered by the organisation. In this way, the IIRF can give visibility to all value created and the value creation process, including sustainability matters. This allows integrated thinking processes to be incorporated accordingly, supporting better management.Originality/valueThis paper suggests three adjustments to improve the IIRF’s ability to incorporate ST as a theoretical foundation. The adjusted IIRF is a ready to-use-tool specifically highlighting what value or values an organisation delivers (its outcomes), for whom (its stakeholders) and how (its specific business processes) within a business model effectively connecting them. From this point of view, it fits the rising stream about the evolution of the sustainability reporting fostered jointly by the international integrated reporting council and sustainability accounting standard board, and by the European Union.

This paper considers the use of neural networks—namely self-organizing maps (SOMs)—to analyze and cluster firms' financial performance. Applying SOMs to financial statement data is a consolidated practice; however, in this paper SOMs are used to overcome several limitations encountered in previous works on financial reporting indicators such as the small number of companies in the sample, the limited number of ratios, the homogeneity of the economic sector, and the lack of explanation and further analysis of the SOM outputs. This study uses a large financial dataset related to more than 3,000 companies belonging to every economic sector; it demonstrates that SOMs can effectively process a large dataset of heterogeneous data. Moreover, the SOM results are supported by detailed explanations of the research methodology applied, and further traditional financial analysis addresses the black box nature of the SOMs and can help professionals in the understanding and use of SOMs.

PurposeThe aim of our research is to give empirical and theoretical solutions to some criticalities of the original International Integrated Reporting Framework (IIRF). Indeed, it takes as value creation only the increase of the capitals triggered by business activities, overlooking the fulfilment of the institutional mission that is the actual value creation lever.Design/methodology/approachThe present paper introduces a case study aimed at implementing the IIRF in an Italian non-profit healthcare organisation. The research is based on theory building from cases, action research and interventionist approach. IIRF was adopted because of its claimed ability to support the communication process to stakeholders and the control of value creation. However, IIRF shows several weaknesses.FindingsAn adjusted version of IIRF is suggested, highlighting the role played by IC in the organisational business model and in the value creation process. The adjusted seems able to foster awareness of the role IC in value creation in healthcare organisations.Research limitations/implicationsIn this paper no one of the singles pieces of the adjusted framework is innovative by itself, but jointly they give raise to an innovative solution, able to address the disclosing and managerial needs of the examined organisation. The single case study permits to us to test the weaknesses of the IIRF claimed in the literature, to suggest some adjustments to the original framework and to validate their effectiveness. Thanks to the single case study we then built theoretical constructs developing theory inductively; now the suggested framework can be further tested and validated in other organisations.Originality/valueThe paper introduces an innovative approach to IC reporting and disclosure in healthcare organisations. This is relevant not only for external communication but also for internal aims supporting managers in decision and actions.

PurposeThis paper concerns the pivotal role that entrepreneurial universities can play in developing knowledge transfer and translation processes tailored to the cultural ecosystem.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines IncubiAmo Cultura, an innovative project that aims to mentor potential entrepreneurs and offer incubation and acceleration for cultural start-ups. The research methodology is based on action research and theory building from cases. An interventionist approach has been adopted, as one of the authors is also the founder of the ongoing project.FindingsThe in-depth collection of first-hand information on this pilot project has allowed the authors to formulate an analytical reflection and generate the design of a knowledge translation model driven by an entrepreneurial university that manifests itself through the creation of cultural and creative start-ups.Research limitations/implicationsThis article offers an original contribution to scholarship by offering a conceptual model for knowledge translation in cultural ecosystems. Common values (i.e. social, cultural, ethical and aesthetic ones) emerge as the basis on which to build open innovation and knowledge circulation.Practical implicationsFor local policymakers, this study provides a clue to understand the need for both an integrated vision of knowledge translation and policies that aim to make an impact at the cultural ecosystem level. For entrepreneurial university governance, our investigation offers suggestions on the design and implementation of knowledge translation processes that fit with the specificity of the cultural ecosystem. For practitioners in the cultural field, a change of mindset is required to combine resources, energies and knowledge.Originality/valueThis work fills several gaps in the literature, as research generally concerns knowledge transfer from entrepreneurial universities to the market with regard to high-tech sectors. In contrast, the cultural sector is often neglected, despite its importance in the renewal and development of a territory.

Smart city can be seen as a glocal phenomenon, as it is characterised by both global and local aspects. Smart cities are a global phenomenon because they spread all over the world and emerge with similar features and interdependencies at the global level. In the meantime, smart cities are a local phenomenon, because each city is unique, has different problems and should address them with specific solutions. The aim of this work is to better understand smart cities as a glocal phenomenon, considering their universal features together with the local aspects influencing their implementation. Through a research based on a Qualitative Data Analysis, the present work suggests a novel way to examine the smart city, to support a better understanding of this glocal trend promising enormous benefits for citizens and growing revenues in all five continents, but not equally distributed. In particular, the paper analyses and compares Italy and China to verify that smart city is a glocal urban strategy, depending both from global, standard drivers and local contingencies. The methodology and results can be generalised to other cities and countries.

Smart cities (SCs) are a recent but emerging phenomenon, aiming at using high technology and especially information and communications technology (ICT) to implement better living conditions in large metropolises, to involve citizens in city government, and to support sustainable economic development and city attractiveness. The final goal is to improve the quality of city life for all stakeholders. Until now, SCs have been developing as bottom-up projects, bringing together smart initiatives driven by public bodies, enterprises, citizens, and not-for-profit organizations. However, to build a long-term smart strategy capable of producing better returns from investments and deciding priorities regarding each city, a comprehensive SC governance framework is needed. The aim of this paper is to collect empirical evidences regarding government structures implemented in SCs and to outline a framework for the roles of local governments, nongovernmental agencies, and administrative officials. The survey shows that no consolidated standards or best practices for governing SCs are implemented in the examined cities; however, each city applies its own governance framework. Moreover, the study reveals some interesting experiences that may be useful for involving citizens and civil society in SC governance.

This article studies a vehicle routing problem with environmental constraints that are motivated by the requirements for sustainable urban transport. The empirical research presents a fleet planning problem that takes into consideration both minimum cost vehicle routes and minimum pollution. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming model and experimentally validated using data collected from a real situation: a grocery company delivering goods ordered via e-channels to customers spread in the urban and metropolitan area of Genoa smart city. The proposed model is a variant of the vehicle routing problem tailored to include environmental issues and street limitations. Its novelty regards also the use of real data instances provided by the B2C grocery company. Managerial implications are the choice of both the routes and the number and type of vehicles. Results show that commercial distribution strategies achieve better results in term of both business and environmental performance, provided the smart mobility goals and constraints are included into the distribution model from the beginning.

Network, Smart, and Open are three keywords that nowadays guide information systems (ISs) research. We discuss the relevance that these three topics, concerning technological and organizational innovations (i.e. cloud, smart technologies and networking), play for the development of accounting and management information systems. The aim is to investigate how these innovations could influence ISs, with a particular focus on accounting and management information systems, enhancing their information potentialities and their ability to support decision making processes, and improving accounting methodologies; performance measurement systems; data management; information systems architecture, external and internal reporting.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore and discuss, in the context of Smart Cities (SC), the relations between three concepts: Intellectual Capital (IC), Innovation Process (IP) and Sustainability (S). It is important to note that, in this context, the concept of IC refers to Smart Cities Intellectual Capital (SCIC), which is characterised by four components (Human Capital, Process Capital, Renewal Capital, Clients Capital), also used for Nations IC. The Innovation analysis considers two models: the first one expresses the dependencies and limits of innovation, resulting from physical limitations such as city area and city population; and the second one is the N-Tuple of Helices model. The concept of Smart City will be modelled as a living being capable of rational behaviour, knowledge production, and intellectual activity.

In this work, we explore the application of machine learning models (MLM) to the analysis of firms’ performance. To such aim, we consider a bunch of financial indicators on firms operating in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, with attention to enterprises providing ICT related-services. The rationale is to highlight the potential of MLM to exploit the complexity of financial data, and to offer a handy way to visualize the related information. In fact, instead of performing classical analysis, we discuss how to apply to those indicators Self-Organizing Maps-SOMs—that are well suited to manage high dimensional and complex datasets to extract their relevant features. It emerges that SOMs are useful in clustering companies depending on multi-dimensional criteria and in analysing hidden relations in companies’ performances.

The scientific literature converges in indicating better life conditions for citizens as the smart city’s main goal. To achieve this goal, cities leverage different technologies and especially ICT to modify urban infrastructures, public and private services and governance activities. However, smart programs often target the use and experimentation of innovative technologies, whilst citizens are considered as the passive addressees of technological programs. To verify whether smart projects really pursue citizens’ well-being, an extensive empirical survey has been conducted. The research investigates 366 European smart city projects and extracts 42 ICT-enabled projects explicitly focusing on citizens. The analysis sheds light on the complex goal of citizens’ well-being improvement in smart cities and on the most promising ICT solutions to impact urban life conditions. A special focus regards the use of IoT in smart projects addressing the citizens’ well-being.

During the latest years, smart city projects have been more and more popular and widespread all over the world. The continuous increasing of city’s population and the complexity of city management drive local governments towards the strong use of technologies to support a higher quality of urban spaces and a better offering of public services. The fascination of smart cities, able to link high technology, green environment and well-being for citizens, interests all the municipalities, independently on their dimensions, geographical area or culture. However, the concept of smart city is far from to be unambiguous. Several experiences all over the world show that cities define themselves as smart, but the meaning attributed to this word is different each time. Smart city concept has been growing from empirical experience, therefore a systemic theoretical study about this phenomenon still lacks. In this paper, the author aims to propose a comprehensive and verified definition of smart city, based on both a deep literature investigation about smart city studies and a large survey of smart city projects in the international panorama. The goal of this work is not only to provide a clear framework about this interesting and current topic, but also to support local governments and public administrations in effective smart city implementation, able to create public value and well being for citizens and environmental sustainability in the urban space.Â

Information System integration is one of the most important challenges in post merger activities. The role of Information System in supporting business processes, products, customer relationships and the daily work of employees in the target company is central. For this reason, the IS rdesign in post-merger activities is both a threat and an opportunity: a threat, because to fail the IS integration could mean the failure of the merger; an opportunity, because to redesign the IS could help to better align it with the new strategic goals of the post-merger company and to gain better performance. However, merged companies generally aims especially at operational goals regarding IS integration, such as cost savings and risk reduction. They overlook the opportunity to align the target IS with M&A strategic aims. In this paper, the author studies the opportunity deriving from a M&A operation, to align IS with corporate strategies; theoretical considerations are supported by empirical evidence in a business case, regarding the most important Italian M&A in the banking sector. The paper suggests a set of business practices and assessment instruments to support management choices in post -merger IS integration and alignment.

To implement a smart city is a complex task, involving different aspects and several actors. During the latest years, many cities all over the world have been started to design and implement their own smart strategy, involving a large set of different players. As a smart city is especially based on the use of innovative technologies in the urban area, three main actors are involved in its implementation: local government, research institutions and technology vendors. Local government drive the smart city planning and rule the general aspects; research institution offer their competences in studying and experimenting innovative technologies and solutions; vendors produce and sell technological platforms and infrastructures for the smart city realization. A linking role is played by consulting companies, offering direction services in complex projects. This chapter analyzes the most cited scientific and professional publications to verify the different point of view issued by these different smart city actors and compare their smart city definition.

A smart city is an innovative urban strategy, using high technologies to reduce the city environmental footprint and to improve the citizens’ quality of life. Smart cities use ICT to implement their smart strategies and to collect and deliver information at different users. For this reason, a smart city is somewhat joining different aspects of living in the urban area and link several concepts such as wired city, virtual city, intelligent city, information city, digital city, knowledge city, and so on. This deep use of ICT enhances the role of the smart city in collecting and delivering data, information and knowledge, affecting the daily life and improving its quality thanks to e_services, a deeper involvement of citizens in the city governance and a proactive role thanks to e_democracy and e_participation. In this chapter, the link between smart city and ICT is explored, aiming at outlining the pervasive role of ICT in smart projects, but also at highlighting smart projects using other technologies or no technologies at all and simply based on the citizens’ behaviours or governance style.

A smart city is an urban strategy using technology and promising to improve the quality of life for citizens. However, few practices are known, where cities really measure the impact of smart initiatives on the daily life of their inhabitants. Independent institutions and research centres issue smart city rankings, based on smart projects implementation or technological infrastructures present in cities, but no instruments are applied to really verify if and how much a smart program affects people living in city. This chapter suggests how to develop a Smart City Performance Dashboard to measure and evaluate the capacity of a smart strategy to impact on the quality of life. Based on the most known urban indicators worldwide, this work defines a five-step path for implementing a standard but city-tailored dashboard to both support smart city investments and to evaluate their performance.

During the latest ten years, several cities all over the world have been starting to develop their own smart strategy, aiming at improving the quality of life of citizens and reducing environmental footprint. However, smart city are a jeopardized phenomenon, and smart cities show heterogeneous profiles. Moreover, also the scientific researches lack of a shared definition of smart city; and smart city and digital city are often confused each other owing the large use of ICT in both of them. In this chapter, the smart city concept is analyzed, considering two main aspects: the strategic vision of a smart city and its benefits. A smart city strategic vision is of paramount importance for effectively driving the local policies in implementing smart initiatives pursuing shared goals. Smart city benefits are often declared, but not measured; to better define smart city performance is indispensable for realizing better outcome for citizens and other stakeholders.

Smart city is an emerging topic, showing a concurrent development regarding both the theoretical research and the empirical implementation. Meanwhile academic researchers have been studying the theoretical aspects of a smart city, suggesting definition and models for their understanding, largest cities all over the world have been starting to realize smart projects for realizing a smarter living in urban areas. As the smart city movement is spontaneous, each city pursue its own goals prioritizing smart initiatives of different nature: sometimes the use of ICT prevails, some others green energy production is at the core of smart programs; and so on. This chapter studies two smart city best practices in Europe: Amsterdam and Genoa. Amsterdam has been the first city all over the world implementing a smart city strategy addressing not only one dimension of living, but with a comprehensive scope. Genoa won the highest number of European calls funding smart city projects and the Genoa Smart City Association is aiming to compose an integrated smart projects portfolio addressing all the aspects of the metropolitan life. Both these cities are interesting case studies for supporting further implementation in smart cities.

International audience; Smart city is a recent topic, aiming at improving the quality of life of citizens in urban areas. Born like a bottom-up trend, it is now becoming crucial in urban planning in large cities all over the world. The smart city success depends on the synergic action by the triple helix key actors: public bodies, universities, and private companies. However, not ever these actors share the same smart city vision. This paper aims at individuating similarities and differences in key actors smart city vision, by a large and deep literature review on both scientific papers and practitioner or institutional reports.

The research works published in this book are a selection of the papers submitted at the XI Annual Conference of the Italian Chapter of Association for Information Systems (ItAIS 2014), which was held in Genoa in November, untitled “Digital Innovation and Inclusive Knowledge in Times of Change”. The volume contains 17 research works that were accepted at the conference after a double-blind review, and were mainly presented at the Accounting Information Systems track.

Smart City is a recent topic, but it is spreading very fast, as it is perceived as a winning strategy to cope with some severe urban problems such as traffic, pollution, energy consumption, waste treatment. Smart city ideas are the merge of some other more ancient urban policies such as digital city, green city, knowledge city. A smart city is therefore a complex, long-term vision of a better urban area, aiming at reducing its environmental footprint and at creating better quality of life for citizens. Mobility is one of the most difficult topic to face in metropolitan large areas. It involves both environmental and economic aspects, and needs both high technologies and virtuous people behaviours. Smart mobility is largely permeated by ICT, used in both backward and forward applications, to support the optimization of traffic fluxes, but also to collect citizens’ opinions about likeability in cities or quality of local public transport services. The aim of this paper is to analyse the Smart Mobility initiatives as part of a larger smart city initiative portfolio, and to investigate about the role of ICT in supporting smart mobility actions, influencing their impact on the citizens’ quality of life and on the public value created for the city as a whole.

Smart city is a recent topic, aiming at improving the quality of life of citizens in urban areas. Born like a bottom-up trend, it is now becoming crucial for urban planning in larger cities all over the world. The smart city implementation success depends on the synergic action by the triple helix key actors: public bodies, universities, and private companies. However, not ever these subjects share the same smart city vision. This paper aims at individuating similarities and differences in key actors smart city vision, by a large and deep literature review on both scientific papers and practitioner or institutional reports.

The goal of this paper is using Neural Networks (NN) to analyze business performance and support small territories development policies. The contribution of the work to the existing literature may be basically summarized as follows: we are focusing on the application of an unsupervised neural network (namely: on Self-Organizing Maps—SOM) to discover firms clusters on micro-territories inside city’s boundaries, and to exploit possible development policies at local level. Although since early ’90 of the past century NN have been widely employed to evaluate firms performance, to the best of our knowledge the use of SOM of that specific task is much less documented. Moreover, the main novelty of the paper relies on the attention to data at “microscopic” level: data processing in an infra-city perspective, in fact, has been neglected till now, although recent studies demonstrate that inequalities in economic and well-being conditions of people are higher among neighbourhoods of the same city rather than among different cities or regions. The performance analysis of a large set (7000 environ) of companies settled in Genova, Italy permits to test our research method and to design further applications to a large spectrum of territorial surveys regarding both economic and social well-being conditions.

Smart City is a recent topic, but it is spreading very fast, as it is perceived like a winning strategy to cope with some severe urban problems such as traffic, pollution, energy consumption, waste treatment. Smart City ideas are the merge of some other more ancient urban policies such as digital city, green city, knowledge city. A Smart City is therefore a complex, long-term vision of a better urban area, aiming at reducing its environmental footprint and at creating better quality of life for citizens. Mobility is one of the most difficult topic to face in metropolitan large areas. It involves both environmental and economic aspects, and needs both high technologies and virtuous people behaviours. Smart Mobility is largely permeated by ICT, used in both backward and forward applications, to support the optimization of traffic fluxes, but also to collect citizens’ opinions about liveability in cities or quality of local public transport services. The aim of this paper is to analyse the Smart Mobility initiatives like part of a larger Smart City initiative portfolio, and to investigate about the role of ICT in supporting smart mobility actions, influencing their impact on the citizens’ quality of life and on the public value created for the city as a whole.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how the intellectual capital (IC) approach and concepts could be fruitfully adapted to study the smart city phenomenon from a managerial point of view.Design/methodology/approach– This study is based on a long-term, in-depth ethnographic exploration of the vast global community, which is created around the smart city movement.Findings– The analysis suggests that, in order to effectively analyse a smart city context through the IC lens, the traditional IC framework needs to be extended for: expected outcomes, which should also include sustainability, resilience and quality of life; categories of key resources, which should also include institutional capital and environmental capital; units of analysis, which should also include territorial systems, such as transportation or waste; and key managerial challenges implied. As a final result, a smart city intellectual capital (SC-IC) framework is proposed.Research limitations/implications– Most of the cases analysed in this study are European; further studies are advisable to better investigate non-European smart city contexts.Practical implications– The paper suggests that the knowledge management, project portfolio management and network management approaches are crucial to better support managerial practices in smart city organizations.Originality/value– The SC-IC framework allows for a clear definition of the smart city organization, as a new knowledge-based, project-oriented, network-shaped type of organization. Therefore, the SC-IC framework provides smart city research with a consistent rooting in management studies. Further, this paper contributes to the fourth stage of IC research.

In this paper, the author defines the roadmap to develop, test and apply a universal Tableau de Bord to measure smart performance in urban space. Smart cities are an emerging urban strategy, but they are moving bottom-up and therefore they lack of a governance framework, able both to support decisions and investments, and to evaluate goal reaching, performance, and economic and social impact of smart city. The Urban Tableau de Bord is a comprehensive framework designed to link quantitative and qualitative indicators to a specific smart city strategy. The roadmap explores the steps to pursue to implement this framework, selecting the most suitable indicators, using urban statistical data already available in the municipal database, designing a software to realize a Smart City Intelligence System and defining the scalability of this system to support also further enlargement of smart city initiatives.

During the latest five years, the label smart city has been spreading all over the world, impacting on urban strategies in both large and small towns. To face the increasing problems of urban areas, local public government, companies, not-for-profit organizations and the citizens themselves embraced the idea of a smarter city, using more technologies, creating better life conditions and safeguarding the environment. However, today the smart city panorama appears very confused. No acknowledged smart city definition exists till now and several cities defining themselves smart completely lack of a strategic vision about their smart future. This first chapter is the introduction of this book collecting several contributes from different academic studies all over Europe. The aim of this work is to offer a large vision about the smart city phenomenon and to compare researches and considerations regarding how to define a smart city, how to design a smart strategy and how to measure if smart actions really are able to create public value for citizens and a better quality of life in urban spaces. This chapter introduces the most important themes regarding the smart city and further deepened in the ten chapters of the book.

The objective of this research is to investigate the relations between Smart city and Digital city concepts and strategies. The author examines the international literature about these topics, comparing smart city and digital city definitions, components and goals. This survey shows that a clear definition of both smart city and digital city still lacks and that these two topics are often overlapped or confused. The same thing happens in empirical implementation of smart and/or digital strategies in cities. The research methodology includes the study and comparison of two important empirical implementations of Smart/Digital strategies in Europe: Amsterdam and Genoa. The results show that smart city and digital city are not the same, even if they are strictly linked each other and sometimes merged in common initiatives. Moreover, this empirical research highlights the key role of players, programs and governance in realizing smart/digital cities really effective for a best quality of life in the urban space.

IT governance is crucial for information systems, as it defines guidelines and policies to be applied to manage and control IT in business. IT governance promotes, encourages, discourages or bans different management behaviors regarding IT, aiming to achieve business goals and requirements and to manage IT risks. However, IT is more and more a service activity. Users, process owners and the business itself demand efficient and effective IT services. Therefore, it is necessary to design and implement a comprehensive IT governance and service framework, able to link the two aspects: both to define “decision rights and accountabilities to encourage desirable behaviors in the use of IT” (Weill, MIS Q Executive 3:1–17, 2004) and to deliver the required IT services. In this chapter, an IT governance and service comprehensive framework is defined, supported by the empirical implementation of this theoretical model in a large industrial company.

Most of the contents of this book is based on a selection of the research works presented at the track entitled ‘Accounting Information Systems’ of the 2012 Annual Conference of the Italian Chapter of AIS (ItAIS), which was held in Rome, Italy, in September 2012. The aim of the track was to sketch a clear picture of the current state of Accounting Information Systems (AIS) research in a broad sense, including design, acceptance and reliance, value added, decision making, interorganizational links, and process improvements. In particular, despite the fact that accounting information systems are often considered the instrument by default for accounting automation the track starts from a wide definition of the accounting information system, as a complex system composed of a mix of strictly interrelated elements (such as data, information, human resources, IT tools, accounting models and procedures), and basically involved in collecting, classifying, elaborating, recording, storing accounting data.

In this work, we sought to better understand the possible role of e-procurement in the evolving strategies of centralization (and decentraliza- tion) of public purchase centres. We conducted an explorative research study in the Italian context, where both centralization and decentralization of e-procurement have been experimented. The analysis of the Italian case highlighted an aspect that has been overlooked in literature so far: the strong and sudden centralization of purchasing caused by e-procurement adoption may present problems, especially in complex contexts with a past tradition of wide-spread de-centralized purchasing powers. The Italian case suggests that a possible solution may be the adoption of a hybrid model, where a centralized structure coordinates a network made of regional semi-centralized e-procurement centres, which, in turn, mediate with local contexts and involve or control the smallest agencies. The main features, strengths and weaknesses of this emerging organizational model for e-procurement agencies are discussed.

The strong integration triggered by the adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERPs) impacts many processes and tasks; the way accounting data are collected, elaborated, communicated and used often changes even dramatically when an ERP system is adopted. This design-oriented paper stems from multi-year didactic experiences in the Italian context, where the Business Economics courses still poorly take into account the emerging educational needs stemming from this scenario: in most Italian universities, in fact, subjects such as accounting, administration, controlling and auditing are taught according to traditional approaches, which tend to see these activities as scarcely integrated with both the operations and the strategic management processes. This paper proposes a framework for innovating the educational strategies for basic and advanced courses related to accounting, administration, controlling and auditing, in order to fill the identified gap between real-world demand and higher education supply in this context.

This paper aims to analyse the evolution of Information Systems strategic models during the latest 10 years, pointing out the passage from a management paradigm to a governance paradigm. The paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, the author compares the two paradigms – IT management and IT governance – finding evidences for this evolution in academic literature, professional standards and business implementation. In the second part, drivers for IT governance implementation and IT governance strategic models are analysed, trying to understand the main reasons for the evolution from the first paradigm to the latter and introducing a typical model for IT governance in business. In the third part, an empirical business case is studied, that is, IT governance strategic model in FIAT Group Automobiles, to support with concrete evidence the theoretical framework introduced in the previous two parts.

The paper addresses the role played by research-based spin-offs (RBSOs) as knowledge dissemination mechanisms, through their position in knowledge networks. For this purpose the paper analyses the formal networks established by Portuguese RBSOs, in the context of publicly funded research, technology and precommercial product development projects, and investigates their configuration along two levels. At organisational level, in order to understand whether RBSOs extend their reach beyond the academic sphere; and if they do, whether they connect to organisations located downstream in the knowledge value chain, and which is their position in networks involving both research organisations and other firms. At spatial level, in order to understand whether RBSOs extend their reach beyond the region where they are created, thus potentially acting as connectors between diverse regions. The analysis starts from the population of RBSOs created in Portugal until 2007 (327 firms) and identifies those that have established formal technological relationships, as part of projects funded by all the relevant programmes launched in the period 1993-2012. As a result, the analysis encompasses 192 collaborative projects and involves 82 spin-offs and 281 partners, of which only 20% are research organisations, the remaining being other firms and a variety of other downstream organisations. The results, although still preliminary, provide some insights into the knowledge networking behaviour of the RBSOs. As expected, research organisations are a central actor in spin-offs’ networks, being the sole partner for some of them. But half of the RBSOs have moved beyond the academic sphere, being frequently a central element in tripartite technological relationships between research and other organisations, and occupying an intermediation position in the network, thus potentially acting as facilitators in knowledge circulation and transformation. Also as expected, RBSOs are predominantly located in the main metropolitan areas and tend to relate with organisations similarly located. But while geographical proximity emerges as important in the choice of partners, in about half of the cases, RBSOs knowledge networks have extended beyond regional boundaries. Given their central position in the network, this suggests a role as connectors across regions that will be explored in subsequent research. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion