Luisa Errichiello

Open Service Innovation in Smart Cities: A Framework for Exploring Innovation Networks in the Development of New City Services

The paper presents a multi-dimensional framework for exploring the drivers, structure and dynamics of public-private service innovation networks in the smart city context and their innovation outcomes at the project, network and city levels. The framework provides a conceptual contribution to the increasingly relevant issue of open innovation in smart cities by leveraging the interpretive potential of the open service innovation perspective, namely the concept of Public Private Innovation Networks in Services (ServPPINs), to advance the understanding of complex interactive structures and processes involved in the development of new services for smart users.

Tourism Innovation-Oriented Public-Private Partnerships for Smart Destination Development

Abstract The chapter aims at advancing existing knowledge on innovation-oriented public-private partnerships for developing smart tourism services at destination level. Recent research has emphasized to the importance of collaborative arrangements involving public sector organizations and private companies for the development of new or improved ICT-enabled tourism services towards the smart transformation of destinations. However, knowledge on public-private partnerships specifically set up for realizing smart innovations is still scarce. This chapter develops a framework for understanding the nature and functioning of this type of partnerships at destination level by integrating literature on tourism partnerships, smart tourism, and innovation in services with a case study of a successful partnership in the Italian destination of Siracusa.

Organizational Control in the Context of Remote Work Arrangements: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract Purpose To provide a conceptual framework for understanding the role of organizational control in the context of remote work arrangements. Methodology/approach The framework has been developed drawing on two distinct research streams. Existing frameworks on remote work arrangements enabled to identify relevant dimensions to include in our framework, namely drivers of adoption and outcomes of implementation. They also evidenced the importance of opening up the remote work implementation process addressing crucial management issues, notably organizational control. On the basis of extant organizational research we deconstructed the complexity of organizational control in its constituent elements and identified mechanisms of control enactment over time. Findings The framework links the dynamics of change in organizational control initiated by the adoption of remote work arrangements with its antecedents (drivers of adoption and characteristics of the remote work model) and implementation outcomes at individual, group and organizational level. It opens the implementation stage focusing on the dynamics of organizational control and clarifies its role when the organization decides to adopt remote working. Originality/value The framework assumes that organizational control is not a static entity but a process of mutual constitution between structures of controls and actions enacted over time by both managers and employees (remote workers and on-site colleagues). It shows the value of a process perspective that emphasizes time mechanisms underlying changes in organizational control of remote work. Moreover, it constitutes a valuable reference guide to interpret in an integrated way existing research on the issue and identify inconsistencies in empirical findings, relevant gaps and opportunities for future research.

A Project-Based Perspective on Complex Product Development

In this chapter we review the literature on complex product development focusing on a project-based perspective. We start from showing the specific nature of complex product development processes, and acknowledge the need for relying on external sources of innovation and evaluating its organizational implications. We then focus on the challenges of leveraging such dispersed knowledge, pointing to the specific problems brought by the crucial role of “learning by doing” in complex product innovation processes. The chapter highlights the necessity of shifting the focus of attention from firms’ knowledge boundaries to the project knowledge boundaries, so as to gain a more fine-grained analysis of some important phenomena that happen “around” the formal boundary of the firm and cope with knowledge development problems. In the conclusion we hint at the necessity to investigate in more depth how using development projects as unit of analysis can contribute to offering new ways of performing organizational ambidexterity.

Behavioral Decision-Making and Network Dynamics: A Political Perspective

The blurring of organizational boundaries and the adoption of networks as a prominent form of governance have largely contributed to reinforcing interdependence between internal and external organizational networks as well as between formal and informal ties. This chapter tries to broaden existing theoretical models in order to explain the behavioral decision-making process of the firm and how it is shaped by the complex and interactive dynamics of these networks. The theoretical perspective employed in the chapter suggests that a firm’s behavior is influenced by organizational politics. Although this actually does not constitute a fresh perspective within organizational and management studies, in this chapter it is revamped and widened in light of the mentioned changes within and across firms’ organizational boundaries. The starting point of our discussion is March’s seminal work (March in Journal of Politics 24(4):662–678, 1962) and his model of “the business firm as a political coalition”. Subsequently, drawing also on later organizational politics literature we show the limits and opportunities of adopting such an imagery not only for the traditional business firm but also for the contemporary network organization: through it we can improve our understanding of how organizational boundaries are defined today, why company leaders choose the strategies they choose, and how and why those strategies are (or are not) implemented. In order to explain patterns of organizational behavior in a world of blurred-but existent firm boundaries we finally draw on a more recent sociological literature on social movements that also highlights for “patterns of mobilization distinct from both lines of formal authority and the personal ties of informal organization” (Clemens, Where Do We Stand? Common Mechanisms in Organizations and Social Movements Research, in Davis G, McAdam D, Scott WR, Zald M (eds) Social movements and organization theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 356, 2005). Indeed, such a literature recognized the central role of networks, their evolutionary dynamics, and interactions between the internal and the external and between the formal and the informal.