Pasquale Del Vecchio

Intellectual capital in the age of Big Data: establishing a research agenda

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on intellectual capital (IC) in light of the emerging paradigm of Big Data. Through a literature review, this paper provides momentum for researchers and scholars to explore the emerging trends and implications of the Big Data movement in the field of IC.,A literature review highlights novel and emerging issues in IC and Big Data research, focussing on: IC for organisational value, the staged evolution of IC research, and Big Data research from the technological to the managerial paradigm. It is expected that identifying these contributions will help establish future research directions.,A conceptual multi-level framework demonstrates how Big Data validates the need to shift the focus of IC research from organisations to ecosystems. The framework is organised into four sections: “why” – the managerial reasons for incorporating Big Data into IC; “what” – the Big Data typologies that enhance IC practice; “who” – the stakeholders involved in and impacted by Big Data IC value creation; and “how” – the Big Data processes suitable for IC management.,The paper provides many avenues for future research in this emerging area of investigation. The key research questions posed aim to advance the contribution of Big Data to research on IC approaches.,The paper outlines the socio-economic value of Big Data generated by and about organisational ecosystems. It identifies opportunities for existing companies to renew their value propositions through Big Data, and discusses new tools for managing Big Data to support disclosing IC value drivers and creating new intangible assets.,This paper investigates the effects and implications Big Data offers for IC management, in support of the fourth stage of IC research. Additionally, it provides an original interpretation of IC research through the lens of Big Data.

Activating entrepreneurial learning processes for transforming university students’ idea into entrepreneurial practices

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how collaborative entrepreneurial learning (EL) processes between entrepreneurs and university students can enhance the entrepreneurial practices in the context of knowledge-intensive enterprises. These learning processes represent a valuable source for entrepreneurship development in incumbent enterprises in the forms of innovative products, services, processes or organizational renewal. Design/methodology/approach An extreme case study is the project “Mimprendo” (www.mimprendo.it), an initiative promoted by the Italian Conference of the University Colleges and the Italian Association of Young Entrepreneurs in collaboration with Italian universities. This is analyzed in the period 2009-2015, during which seven editions were developed. Findings A framework is presented based on collaborative EL processes to perform relevant entrepreneurial projects in knowledge-intensive enterprises. The framework provides a coherent and systematic approach to generate, select and implement entrepreneurial practices in incumbent companies starting from a project competition involving creative students and innovative entrepreneurs. EL processes in the community composed of entrepreneurs, experts and university students are grouped into the entrepreneurial phases of inspiration, exploration, exploitation, acceleration and growth, and include the learning processes of “intuition and sensing,” “contamination,” “experiential and contextual learning,” “experimenting and acting” and finally “thinking and reflecting.” Research limitations/implications Implications for research can be identified according to many perspectives to deepen the centrality of the learning process in the research on knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship. Practical implications The framework results to be a promising approach to diffuse an entrepreneurial culture both in incumbent enterprises and in university students through a synergic collaboration among industry, university and institution. Practical implications could be derived for enterprise, students and educators involved in the design of innovative learning initiatives to sustain the development of an entrepreneurial mind-set. Originality/value The framework contributes to extending an emerging research area exploring entrepreneurship as a never-ending dynamic learning process. The involvement of brilliant university students in activating EL process with entrepreneurs in incumbent enterprises represents a novel aspect in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation.

Creating value from Social Big Data: Implications for Smart Tourism Destinations

Abstract 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.

Big data for open innovation in SMEs and large corporations: Trends, opportunities, and challenges

The notion of ‘Big Data’ has recently been attracting an increasing degree of attention from scholars and practitioners in an attempt to identify how it may be leveraged to create innovative solutions and business opportunities. Specifically, Big Data may come from a variety of sources, especially sources outside the usual boundaries of organizations, and it represents an interesting and emerging opportunity for sustaining and enhancing the effectiveness of the so-called open innovation paradigm. However, to the best of our knowledge, no prior works have provided a broad overview of the use of Big Data for open innovation strategies. We aim to fill this gap. In particular, we have focused our investigation on two types of companies: small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and big corporations, reviewing the major academic works published so far and analysing the main industrial applications on this topic. As a result, we provide a relevant list of the main trends, opportunities, and challenges faced by SMEs and large corporations when dealing with Big Data for open innovation strategies.

Toward an open network business approach

The aim of this paper is to propose a dynamic integrated approach, based on modularity concept and on the business ecosystem approach, that exploit different eBusiness services for SMEs under an open business network platform. The adoption of this approach enables firms to collaborate locally for delivering the best product/service to the customers as well as globally by accessing international markets, interrelate directly with the customers, create relationships and collaborate with worldwide actors. The paper will be structured as following: We will start by offering an overview of the state of the art of eBusiness platforms among SME of food and tourism firms and then we discuss the main drawbacks that characterize them. The digital business ecosystem approach and the modularity concept will be described as the theoretical ground in which our proposed integrated model is rooted. Finally, the proposed model along with a discussion of the main value creation potentialities it might create for SMEs will be presented.

The Emergence of a New Managerial Mindset

The last two centuries have been marked by many significant paradigm shifts, related to changes in concepts and their interpretations.

Toward a sectoral system of innovation for local wine sector

This paper analyses the innovativeness and competitiveness of the wine sector in a specific local area through the perspective of the sectoral system of innovation. The aim of this paper is to analyse, using a case study approach, the main factors that affect the competition of wine business and the strategic guidelines for enhancing the competitiveness of local wines productions on the global markets. In the first part of the paper, we present the main literature review regarding the most important features and dynamics of the wine business environment and the sectoral systems of innovation framework. In the second part the methodology implied in this research as well as the results of the case studies are presented. Finally, we discuss the implications of sectoral systems of innovation for the novelty and competitiveness of the wine business.

Challenges for Instilling Entrepreneurial Mindset in Scientists and Engineers: What Works in European Universities?

The development of entrepreneurial mindsets in graduated students with science and engineering backgrounds represents an emerging priority for the higher education systems. However, this dimension is still in infancy, especially in Europe. Aimed to contribute at this debate, the study provides evidences on how European universities are approaching this goal. Based on a cross-case analysis of 22 post-graduated programs, the study explores the emerging trends and the “invariance” traits adopted to develop high qualified human capital with an entrepreneurial mindset. Implications for theory and practice include the most pressing challenges for universities involved in their transitions towards an entrepreneurial configuration.

To what extent the practice on living labs match with the theoretical framework? The case of VINCENTE Living Lab for the creation of technology entrepreneurship

On the basis of a synthetic review of the literature about the Living Labs phenomenon, the article investigates to what extent the theoretical approach finds a coherent application in the reality. Focusing on 15 Italian living labs associated to the ENoLL, the study addresses a comparative analysis based on a set of features extracted from the literature. In providing a significant overview of the Italian experience in terms of Living Labs, the study focuses on their implications for the development of entrepreneurial competencies by leveraging on user centrality and public-private networking. Starting from this analysis, the case of VINCENTE Living Lab is presented, by highlighting the technology entrepreneurship dimension that represents the core process for the intelligent growth in the knowledge economy scenarios.

The Technology-Driven Entrepreneurship in the Knowledge Economy

Characterized by growing knowledge, turbulence and uncertainty, the current socio-economic scenario is largely recognized as an entrepreneurial economy. Technology-driven entrepreneurship arises as a strategic process and attitude for the competitiveness and survival of individuals, organizations and territories. Due to the nature of technologies as enablers for conception, execution and renewal of an entrepreneurial process, entrepreneurship of today is a knowledge-intensive and technology-driven process, different from the traditional entrepreneurship that is driven by the market. It is the knowledge-intensive nature of entrepreneurship to highlight learning as the key process accompanying the technology-driven entrepreneur. Embedded into a complex network of relationships, also identified as innovation ecosystems that are a favourable locus for disseminating and nurturing technology entrepreneurship, technology-driven entrepreneur is becoming a configurable learning actor, source and beneficiary of knowledge creation, diffusion and absorption, operated by a broad network of actors.