Vincenzo Maggioni

Managerial practices and operative directions of knowledge management within inter-firm networks: a global view

Purpose – The purpose of this special issue s to cover a substantial range of approach to knowledge management penetrating inquiry that goes beyond intra-organizational learning processes to include inter-organizational perspectives. Design/methodology/approach – As pointed out by the literature on various aspects of the knowledge processes within and between organizations, the work has been organized coherently with two “strains” of topics: the first one focused on managerial practices and operative directions of knowledge management, the other one pointed out on applications of knowledge management to inter-firm networks. Qualitative as well quantitative papers have been welcomed. Findings – Opening up the idea of pluralism as a driving force in the knowledge economy pushes the organizations in a permanent cumulative process of adaptation and re-creation through innovative means of social interaction in global environments. Research limitations/implications – The dynamic nature of the field is reflected...

Relazioni sistemiche tra imprenditorialità interna e gemmazione d’impresa: una ricerca empirica sulla natura cognitiva delle nuove imprese

The management of knowledge is increasingly considered as a main source of competitive advantage for corporations. It is argued that companies enjoy a competitive advantage if they know how to expand, disseminate and exploit organizational knowledge internally. Moreover, to achieve those goals the executive body is required to encourage knowledge sharing, flexibility, and adaptation to change, by spreading the entrepreneurial learning throughout all the levels of the organization. Although this attitude has positive results as it favours a better circulation of know-how within the company, on the other hand it may also generate upsetting behaviours leading to hostile spin off processes, as a result of the employees’ stratification of tacit knowledge and of cognitive maps. Then, this study assumes and empirically tests the possible relationships between firm specific knowledge stratification and corporate spin offs. By the way, spin off is assumed to be an adequate instrument for the spontaneous or induced transfer outside the parent company of tacit behavioural models, apparently similar to organizational routines, but as a matter of fact much more complex and refined: the cognitive scripts.

A model for the diffusion of knowledge sharing technologies inside private transport companies

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate, inside the private sector of transport, a model for the diffusion of knowledge-sharing technologies with non-uniform internal influence that has been developed by Easingwood et al. (1983). Design/methodology/approach – The authors performed an empirical evaluation of the performances of the model by Easingwood et al. (1983) by analyzing data gathered from almost 230 taxi drivers joining two of the biggest taxi brokers operating in the Southern Italian city of Naples. Findings – Such an analysis reveals that the model by Easingwood et al. (1983) provides an excellent agreement with the empirical data and allows to obtain interesting predictions on the future evolution of the sector performances in terms of increasing use of knowledge-sharing technologies within the taxi drivers’ community of practice (CoP). Research limitations/implications – In particular, the authors show that a unique solution always exists, which is defined on the whole (positive) set of times ...

Managing adaptive orientation systems for museum visitors from an IoT perspective

Starting from the premises that IoT applications can be used in museums as an aid to visiting systems, the aim of this research is to see how recommendation systems can be developed to provide advanced services to museum visitors.,The research methodology employs a qualitative exploratory multi-case study: the method used has consisted in crossing the information currently known on the most advanced communication technologies (ICT) with the requirements of enhancing museum services, in order to determine the possible trajectories of applying the former to the latter,The implementation of recommender system outlines the main implications and effects of an advanced market-driven digital orientation, as the system’s users are the starting point for innovation and the creation of value. For a museum, it will be possible to access to an additional system of knowledge alongside that of its scientific staff. This process has profound implications in the way in which a museum presents itself and how it is perceived by its visitors and, in a wider sense, by the potential demand.,Our paper consists in an exploratory effort to introduce an analytical framework for an evolved adaptive museum orientation system; the empirical investigation can be structured in the inductive-predictive view of assessing this promising debate further.,Implementing the IoT blueprint entails introducing a plethora of new products, services and business models, opening new routes to guide and direct cultural events. Now, more than ever, sustainable development involves an intrinsic balancing act between the pluralism of data and that of customer needs, which is achieved through the elaboration of digital data.

Scientific Formulas and Cognitive Economics, beyond in Vitro Entrepreneurship:

Cognitive economics is the fruit of intense ‘trans-epistemic’ communication involving heterogeneous disciplinary areas: its most tangible application can be found in the dialogues between science and enterprise and in the relationship between cognition and entrepreneurship. The hypothesis of classical economics is that the academic inventor or corporate scientist operates under conditions of substantial rationality during the process of knowledge transfer from research to enterprise. The reality, however, is that their actions owe much to spontaneity and unpredictability, deriving from their personal knowledge set and from the opportunities for dynamic learning and for relationships with other individuals offered by laboratory life. The cognitive matrix of academic spin-offs is therefore complex and, if there is to be effective connection with people and innovative organizations capable of enhancing their prospects of success, the old vision that is confined to one-dimensional aspects of the entrepreneurial phenomenon must be rejected. There is thus a need for an integrated study which simultaneously takes into account the particular context, the business model and the individual mechanisms of sharing and transferring knowledge.

Spontaneous processes of reproduction of family-based entrepreneurship: an empirical research on the cognitive nature of the spin-offs

Spin-offs refer to the creation of new firms by employees breaking off from existing firms to give birth to companies of their own. However, this phenomenon has not been predominantly observed in the context of family businesses. Employment in the family firm creates an expectation that family members will act in a manner supportive to the family business: when an employee leaves to become an entrepreneur, parent companies also have to consider whether a spin-off could eventually become a competitor. In this view, when a spin-off process occurs, the parent company could ‘gain’ a new stakeholder. Cognitive scripts that enable codified knowledge to be transferred to a spin-off may grant the new firm a substantial advantage over the parent company. Therefore, it is assumed that such a stakeholder serves purposes similar to those of the parent company, however assuming a hostile attitude towards the latter. The plausibility of this hypothesis is subsequently tested through multivariate statistical techniques.

Una rimeditazione dei rapporti tra profitto e valore alla ricerca di una consonanza intersistemica

Studies on business management, by considering profit and value not necessarily overlapping or path dependent, argue that corporate governance dignifies itself by acting for the sake of the surrounding community rather than for the one of the individual in an environment of increasing complexity. It’s then emerging, for the modern entrepreneur, the necessity to be somewhat oriented to the business ethics and to the corporate social responsibility, by overcoming a mere utilitarian point of view of the management and by hailing a valorisation of business principles inspired to the solidarity, to the fairness and to the equity. Thus less considering goals like the efficiency and the profit whilst aiming at an ethic tendency for each systemic business relationship. Of course, the corporate social responsibility should overcome firm’s boundaries by interacting with a wider crowd of individuals. Consequently, ethic managerial behaviours will result exalted inside corporations which are able to reconcile an “efficiency-driven” management with a more “ecologic” and socially responsible approach of the management towards their stakeholders and business environment. That kind of firms does not estrange itself from the ordinary rules of the market, but it reads the classic patterns of the cost effectiveness and efficiency by orienting them towards the spreading of value among all the stakeholders.