Valentina Della Corte

Brand and Image: The Strategic Factors in Destination Marketing

The field of analysis of the paper is the destination and its management and marketing. Particularly, the specific focus is on some strategic factors of destination marketing with reference to quality, identity, image and brand as a leverage for promotion and, above all, for destination development in stakeholders’ collaboration perspective. Starting from the analysis of the main literature on the topic and with an overview of the theoretical framework, the empirical part investigates the practices of destination marketing, spotting some strategic leverages. The case of Amalfi Coast is analysed, in order to verify if the factors considered in the theoretical part can be real catalysts of destination promotion and development.

Innovation in tradition-based firms: dynamic knowledge for international competitiveness

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a model of innovation and internationalization for small- and medium enterprises (SMEs) and at testing it on tradition-based firms. These are SMEs whose productions reflect their territorys cultural identity. They are often micro-firms and weak in global markets. Since these firms characterize the European and Italian offer, the scientific challenge is to verify whether there are possible strategic paths, mainly based on interfirm collaboration and dynamic knowledge, that can help them getting higher levels of competitiveness. More specifically, the proposed model aims at understanding if it is possible to overcome these firms’ weaknesses through collaboration in networking perspective. Design/methodology/approach – Methodology uses theoretical backgrounds in order to define hypotheses. The main approach starts from contributions on RBT and dynamic capabilities and their possible linkages in the internationalization perspective. Thus, considering the aims...

Smart, open, user innovation and competitive advantage: a model for museums and heritage sites

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to analyze the meanings and the contents of innovation and its role in museums and heritage sites’ management to create higher levels of competitiveness. Through a complex framework, we investigate the key role of innovation in determining the competitive advantage. We propose a theoretical model to study smart and open innovation in cultural services, with specific reference to museums and heritage sites, building up an ‘innovation indicator’, in order to measure the nature and the intensity of innovation as well as to identify how it can be leveraged to sustain a business-oriented approach and to get competitive advantage. This latter is conceived in strategic terms, using a resource-based theory approach: competitive advantage is therefore considered with respect to both economic and social performance, market and competitive positioning. We apply our index on a group of innovative selected cases of museums and heritage sites using nonlinear principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering. Empirical results show that smart innovation seems to be a necessary path to achieve competitive parity but it is not sufficient for competitive advantage.

Resource integration management in networks’ value creation. The case of high quality hotels

Competitive dynamics in tourism make a very strong case for company cooperation strategies for local development. Our analysis begins with a literature review on networking and quality management in tourism. We then propose an innovative theoretical framework, representing a decision-making support tool based on a critical framework connected with both resource-based theory and service dominant logic (SDL). By means of this model, we investigate regional tourist development logics based on the Product Club, towards an integrated hospitality excellence offering. The paper also describes our empirical research planning, which will be further developed.

Employer Branding Management as a Strategic and Organizational Control Tool

The issue of employer branding has always had an intrinsic interdisciplinary content, since it builds a bridge for cross-fertilization between different disciplines (strategic marketing, strategic management, and human resources management). This paper presents employer branding as an approach based on effective strategic organizationalresources and a precise employer branding management process. In this paper, the target is to define a possible frame in order to interpret employer branding techniques as control and regulation mechanisms. Control in organizations has long been a topic of interest for researchers and practitioners, alike who generally recognize that control mechanisms are needed to ensure that organizations may achieve their goals. It has been carried out a field work on the Italian Aeronautical Meta district, that generates annual revenues equal to EUR 8.7 billion and employees 36,300 people, of whom approximately 10% are employed in the space sector. Through this field work, the intention aim is to understand if and how employer branding may create, enforce, and set up internal and shared meaning and values. In particular, stemming from the empirical research’s evidences, this paper tries to conceptualize employer branding as a factor to persuade and influence the way that organizational actors enact in a socially constructed context. In this effort, the aim is to understand how managers may affect meanings, values, goals, and opinions through an effective action on employer branding that can play a crucial role in affecting sense-making processes, meanings, interpretations of the symbolic environment. The paper therefore opens up to new horizons, since it embraces a new application for employer branding, considering it as a modern control system and proposing an innovative approach in managerial control, founded on organizational identity as a key concept in an organizational citizenship’s perspective.

Innovation in Cultural Districts: The Cases of Naples and Washington

During the years, academics and practitioners have given great attention to the role played by cultural heritage and arts in revitalizing and regenerating central and peripheral areas of contemporary cities.

The Role and Implications of Values-based Leadership

ABSTRACT This paper aims at analysing conceptually spiritual leadership in the organizational field. First, we identify if a relation between spirituality and leadership can exist and then if and how this influences employer/employees reciprocal behaviour. In the early years, the focus has changed, trying to deepen the differences between religion and spirituality and emphasizing the last one as a source of success for leaders. We focused on the understanding of the effects that spirituality has on the system of values and the role of values and emotions in determining a successful leader. Finally, we emphasize the role of values-based leadership capabilities within strategic management, aiming at highlighting the importance of a shared system of values in leading employees.

Innovation in the Service Industry: A Focus On The Telecommunication Sector

Theories on innovation have been developed within the huge field of contributions on innovation in the manufacturing industry (Audretsch, 1995; Becker, Dietz, 2004). Looking at the service industry, there is a lack of contributions on the role of innovation in enhancing firms’ offer.A significant contribution on innovation in the service industry refers to Barras (1986) and his “reverse product cycle”, sheding light on the technological dimension of innovation. Further studies on the theme open the boundaries of the research, identifying other fields of study on innovation in the service industry. Within them, the marketing and the relationship with the customers gain increasing attention from the scholars.The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of innovation in favoring the creation of a closer relationship between the firm and its customers through the use of the web and its tools, considering the importance they are gaining in the last years. We focus on the telecommunication sector, studying firms’ initiatives in identifying web tools that are able to support this process.

Service Innovation through Networking and Value Co-Creation. Some Empirical Evidence from Hotel Industry

The purpose of this research is to study deeply innovation in service through networking strategies. In tourism sector, it is extremely interesting to study collaborative relationships even among competitors, in a general scheme of value strategy co-planning, typical of coopetition. We propose a theoretical model which deepens its roots on resource-based theory (RBT) with a service-dominant logic (SDL) perspective. In this direction, “relational view” and coopetition logic (game theory) are considered in value co-creation, applied to service innovation in hotel high quality management. This provides a fresh theoretical platform to examine aspects of entrepreneurship and improve theorising. Our theoretical framework can represent a possible tool in terms of strategic decisions’ support systems. This framework can be adopted to evaluate networking initiatives’ efficacy both in service innovation and in value-co-creation, with a set of advantages for the single firm as well as for the whole system (destination). The originality of this paper concerns its capacity of considering the issue of service innovation in a network perspective that involves RBT, SDL and coopetition.

EMPLOYEES’ VALUE CREATION AND VALUE CAPTURE. THE CASE OF AIRLINE INDUSTRY

The aim of this research paper is twofold: first, to verify whether and to what extent employees’ productivity influences firm’s value creation and performance; secondly, if and to what extent employees appropriate part of firm’s value. We focus empirically on a selected sample of firms in airline industry, in order to check if personnel’s productivity creates value, thus contributing to firm performance and sustainable competitive advantage. The reason why we chose this industry is because in this sector operations are critical factors in firm performance.