Alberto Francesconi

IS and Organization for Online Corporate Reputation Management

According to the Resource Based View, corporate reputation is seen as a core resource and a major factor in gaining competitive advantage. Thanks to the development of Web-based technologies, stakeholders can easily spread their own perspective about an organization, its products, services, brands, members, and so forth, affecting its corporate reputation. This work examines the Web side of corporate reputation conceptualized as ‘online corporate reputation’ and the exploitation of IT (Online Reputation Management Systems) to support the related management practices. Based on the experience developed by an Italian leading e-service provider, the authors highlight a promising field of practice and research from IS management and organizational perspectives.

Solar System. A New Way to Model Online Communities for Open Innovation

Online communities are becoming an important way to support innovation through an open approach. Knowledge shared in online communities can be explored and exploited through adequate absorptive capacities. The chapter explores which factors allow an assessment of a firm’s absorptive capacity to exploit an online community as a source of innovation.

E-Marketplaces for Professional e-Services: Trust, Reputation and Performance

Currently, Professional Service Firms (PSFs) are becoming more and more important in a ‘knowledge-worker based’ society. This trend is supported by the development and diffusion of web-based technologies, encouraging firms to outsource a wider variety of business functions, especially those not included in the company’s core competencies. Many web-based platforms offering services for contractor management in the field of professional e-services emerged in these years. Reputation mechanisms are arising as key components for them because they help to build trust and to favour cooperation among loosely connected and geographically dispersed economic agents. In this work, we aim at exploring the relationship between online reputation of professionals (individuals, groups or PSFs, in brief PSFs) and their performance. We exploit one of the most widely used Web platforms for professional e-services and contractor management in the world, Elance. We try to reduce the research gap due to the fact that few previous works focused on e-marketplaces where rated and tested PSFs offer their e-services.

Learning to design cultural districts and learning from designing them

ABSTRACT Cultural districts are becoming an important field of study to promote a growing number of initiatives for local development. Despite substantial research in this field, knowledge gaps remain, especially with regard to initiatives at supra-urban level. Many policy-makers, funding agencies, local administrators and managers still face important design issues. This paper contributes to the developing body of theory on cultural districts in two ways. Firstly, focusing on concepts from complexity theory, it expands the debate on the conception of cultural districts as complex adaptive systems. Secondly, it highlights the dysfunctional tensions that can arise from conflicting ways of conceiving organizations, organizing and designing among ‘promoters’ and designers. We have been involved for three years in a large project aimed at designing a wide supra-urban cultural district in Italy, financed by a major banking foundation. Adopting an organizational perspective and through participative action research, we develop an explorative case study. Our core argument is that a linear, predictable and deterministic approach to analysis and design presents many limitations for such complex projects, offering learning opportunities from the design experience.

The Territory as a Reference Key

Within a recursive dialogue between deduction and induction, Francesconi proposes a preliminary framework for advanced cultural districtualisation in which the territory is seen as a reference key for analysis and design. Territory is conceived as a bundle of resources (tangible and intangible, including the landscape) which represent potential for its socio-economic development through adequate competencies. Of particular interest for the development of advanced cultural districts, which are complex adaptive systems, are the relationships between social structures and agency. Francesconi aims to highlight the duality of the advanced cultural district, which is seen either as a means to and/or a result of the actions of districtualisation, in a recursive relationship between agency and structure.

A Strategic and Organizational Perspective for Understanding the Evolution of Online Reputation Management Systems

Online Corporate Reputation is a strategic but quickly damageable resource for firms and requires a fast detection of possible threats as well as proactive interventions. Through a longitudinal case-study, our aim is to depict the evolution of Online Reputation Management Systems, i.e. IS for online CR management, as an interplay among developments of technology, organizational needs and strategic postures. Some research propositions for future works are proposed as well as some methods and good practices for online CR management.

The Challenge for Territorial Development

Francesconi provides an interpretative framework for the understanding of key dimensions behind the initiation of a cultural district as a challenge for territorial development. He starts from some successful international case studies. Ten he focuses on a comparison of six cultural districts in Italy, also emphasising the ‘Italian understanding’ of cultural districtualisation. He further explores the issues raised by the early phase of development of one of these (the Valtellina case) to highlight the tension between the process of ‘designing in action’ and formal planning. Subsequently, he analyses the Tuscan Mining Geopark- an example of best practice in managing cultural heritage, recognised in Europe and by UNESCO- that shows a more mature stage of development and ofers interesting insights about the process of ‘iterative designing’.

From Straight Lines to Spirals

Francesconi proposes a model of analysis and design(ing) of an (advanced) cultural district, where the socio-economic value of the cultural initiatives in a territory is linked to the systemic interdependencies and to the multiple relationships among actors, activities, resources and competencies. The goal is twofold: on the one hand, to take into account empirical experiences and recent trends in organisational theory for analysis and designing, avoiding the extreme determinism which is ofen implicit in traditional ‘linear and sequential’ approaches (‘straight lines’). On the other hand, Francesconi aims to ofer a compass to whomever has to act concretely in situations of high organisational complexity, emphasising the importance of circularity, feedback and learning during the design process and bringing to mind the idea of iteration (‘spirals’).

Industrial, Cultural and Advanced Cultural Districts

Francesconi ofers a summary of the literature on industrial districts, cultural districts and advanced cultural districts aimed at local development. He briefy recalls the birth of the concept of district in the industrial feld. Ten, he ofers a deeper refection on the similarities and diferences between the industrial district and its culture-driven counterpart, the cultural district. Lastly, Francesconi analyses diferent typologies of cultural districts, from more traditional to more advanced forms, according to some critical factors: the integration of heterogeneous idiosyncratic cultural resources, the degree of integration of industrial and cultural industries, the geographic extension, the diferent criteria for designing the boundaries, the role of public and private actors.

Intersecting Technical Knowledge, Marketing Experience and Customer Activities to Innovate

Firms are constantly looking for more effective ways to improve their products and services. Recent studies have outlined the benefits of opening the innovation process to external knowledge sources. The creative and innovation locus can lie also outside the firm, in places where technical knowledge, marketing experience and customer activities intersect. The Web 2.0 and the online communities, favoring the communication and the collaboration among firms and their customers, become an important way to support the creativity and the development of innovative ideas through social interactions. We have selected a case study of a multinational firm that exploits an online community and other social platforms to improve its practice of innovation.