Cinzia Battistella

University of Siena | UNISI

The Port System Authority of the Eastern Adriatic Sea—Ports of Trieste and Monfalcone—is an intermodal (rail and road) and international hub linking land-sea transportation within a dense network of European markets. This organization represents a non-economic public body with administrative, budgetary, and financial autonomy, subject to the superv...

Companies are increasingly committed to pursuing social goals with the development of Social Innovation (SI), but they need to adopt adequate mechanisms to effectively manage, promote and sustain it in the long term. This paper aims to explore how businesses leverage Open Innovation (OI) practices to tackle social challenges in collaboration with S...

Given the limited R&D investments, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need to orchestrate their innovation capabilities and remove technological bottlenecks properly. To enhance their possibilities and results from collaborative activities, they can refer to intermediaries that foster knowledge and technology transfer (TT) in an inter-organisation...

Building on the relevance that sustainable digital platforms and sustainable business models are assuming in both academia and business practice, this paper explores the theme of sustainable business model of digital platforms and, through a literature review, supplies a first classification of digital platforms based on their value proposition.

Purpose Adopting lean principles can unleash several opportunities for firms seeking to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their product development (PD) process. This study aims to investigate the implementation paths of lean tools in the innovation process of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach A set...

Purpose Diverse cultures may make people behave differently and this, in turn, can impact project management. While the relationship between culture and project success has been widely explored, there is a need of addressing the gap in the relationship between culture and project management performance outcomes, that is, the performance in implemen...

This paper aims to investigate how stakeholder groups engaged by the company contribute to the value flow of business models for sustainability. The research aims to expand the knowledge on business models for sustainability by highlighting the most important contributions of stakeholders that are relevant from a value flow and sustainable developm...

Internet has increased the companies’ propensity to offer products/services free of charge through web-based platforms. This choice challenges the logic of traditional business models aimed at increasing the value captured by the firm. In order to analyse the impact of the free of charge offering on the enterprises’ web-based business models, we de...

Recent decades have witnessed increased number of studies focusing on digitalization and related capabilities. Across disciplines digitalization capability is viewed as a sources of sustained competiveness. Nonetheless, several issues related to conceptualizing digitalization capabilities remain ambivalent. The present study, uses co-citation analy...

The aim of this study is to provide new insights into the social innovation (SI) development process in the context of social start‐ups. A multiple case study identifies the issues and mechanisms for social start‐ups to develop a social need into a potentially scalable innovation and to validate and scale it up, while avoiding a possible failure. R...

This study aims to review the state of the art on the topic of business models for sustainability. The paper screens 1744 peer‐reviewed papers with no temporal limitation and undertakes three stages of literature review analysis of a final set of 134 papers with a combination of systematic, bibliometric and multivariate techniques. The first output...

The aim of this paper is to clarify the state-of-the-art of literature about Servitization and Product Service System, by conducting a comprehensive and all-around selection and analysis of contributions from different streams of research. These topics attracted a growing amount of research effort for a long period of time, therefore it is importan...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to extend the knowledge on sustainable organisational learning (OL) in sustainable companies. Design/methodology/approach Sustainability is examined from an OL perspective and was based on Edward’s integral cycle of learning. An in-depth analysis of the literature was carried out, and a list of OL characteristi...

Purpose This paper aims to study the extent of the transformation of European manufacturing companies towards the factory of the future (FoF) and related concepts, e.g. Industry 4.0 and digitalisation. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative survey design was used to investigate the areas, patterns and elements for implementing FoF. A total of 9...

For many companies, the servitization of business grounded on Product Service Systems is proving to be a winning value proposition based as it is on a distinctive mix of economically, socially and environmentally sustainable solutions aimed at satisfying customer’s needs. This research investigates the conjoint effect of three potential sources of...

This chapter analyses the topic of servitization and PSS with a particular attention to the main strategic issues involved. It has the aim of presenting and explaining some new strategies in developing servitization, linked to recent or renewed business trends and models.

This chapter introduces three keystones of the competitive advantage given by the servitization strategy: sustainability, sharing economy/collaborative consumption and circular economy.

The chapter deals with the importance of an effective translation of strategy (analysed in Chap. 4) into operations strategy and operations management.

The chapter presents and discusses the PSS as a whole business model, adopting the theoretical frameworks of Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010) and Business Model Innovation Process (Adrodegari et al. 2018) to analyse it. Illustrative cases are presented to exemplify PSS implementation in different contexts, to highlight different...

This chapter deepens the concepts of servitization and product service system, presenting main insights emerging from both academic studies and practitioners’ experiences.

This chapter focuses on the key role played by customers in product service system. As evidenced at the end of Chap. 1, customers and their needs are the starting point of a PSS-based proposal, and this is also a focal point for the value proposition at the core of servitization and related business models. Furthermore, in PSS, there is no longer t...

The book describes state-of-the-art product service systems, and provides a framework to categorize the knowledge surrounding these systems. It discusses the evolution and spread of the servitization model across industries, and explores its current and most relevant applications in industry. Further, the book highlights the model’s strategic value...

Despite the high number of active small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in all sectors, current studies have barely developed investigations on the sustainability of their business models so far. The aim of this study was thus to bridge the gap between sustainable business models of SMEs in the service industry, to uncover the challenges that SMEs fa...

Recently, concepts and principles from the Complexity Theory (or, generally speaking, the complexity sciences) have been applied as a perspective for capturing the influence of the context, interaction, and adaption in the innovation processes, such as the ones enabled in the business incubators. The purpose of this paper is to implement a frame of...

The present contribution proposes a decision support paradigm that elucidates factors ensuing from Product-Service System implementations and that might be neglected due to assessment difficulties. These aspects emerge when companies are exposed to new business model scenarios underlying servitized propositions. The outcomes represent the backbone...

Sustainable and long‐lasting companies necessarily position themselves at the edge of chaos and evolve their business models in order to maintain a mix of efficiency and creativity. Organizations dealing with complexity necessarily position themselves at the edge of chaos, always swaying between order and disorder. Two opposite cycles (“sharing cyc...

Distributed Manufacturing Systems (DMS) and collaborative, decentralized production networks are enablers to establish sustainable and high-competitive value chains. To support the diffusion of DMS, the systematic development of new business models for DMS should be considered in an early stage of forming such value chains. This paper introduces an...

The great impact played by Product/Service-Systems (PSS) on industry and academia can be motivated by the need for modernizing business models, carrying out internal companies’ reconfiguration, enhancing environmental sustainability. Despite the large number of objectives pursued by PSS, sparks of criticism have recently emerged, as well as the res...

Purpose This work provides new insights into possible managerial choices and development directions for practising Open Innovation in companies. It aims to explore the different practices, actors and tools adopted for opening up the innovation process, in particular by SMEs that are still facing difficulties in its implementation. Design/methodol...

This book illustrates how to anticipate the future using more than the traditional predictive models (forecasting) based on the forward projection of past experiences, and moving into more advanced methods of anticipation logic (foresight) to build probable scenarios based on weak signals, emerging trends, coexisting presents and potential paths of...

Focusing on strategic agility and business model concepts, the present paper proposes a framework for recognising common strategies, activities and paths to business model reconfiguration developed through the activation of a set of micro-capabilities. We argue that successful companies nurture specific capabilities in order to act proactively and...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the context of open innovation offered by accelerators can affect the successful growth of start-ups. The authors explore accelerators practices and tools in sustaining start-ups and increasing survival probability in their innovation process, with the aim of addressing the following research...

This paper sets out to contribute to a critical theory debate through the presentation and use of a framework for the categorisation of literature linked to Product Service System (PSS). Moving from the analysis of literature we provide a conceptual structure depicting the current situation of literature dealing with the analysis of economic impact...

This paper proposes an in-depth analysis of online communities of practice that support the innovative development of web applications. The analysis is aimed at understanding the preeminent characteristics of communities of practice that can favour the process of innovation (conceptualisation and realization of a web application) and if these chara...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose and discuss a new regional foresight methodology. Design/methodology/approach The first part describes the methodology and the organizational process adopted for implementing foresight at the regional level and highlights the criticalities. The research methodology is based on a case study. The case...

Purpose – Managing organizations in complex environments is a major challenge. Complexity is not only due to the external environment (market and/or technological turbulence) but also to the internal configuration and specificities. A recent stream of studies in organizational literature suggested that organizations should develop and deploy specif...

The goal of this introductory article to the Special Issue on Corporate Foresight is to provide an overview of the state of the art, major challenges and to identify development trajectories. We define corporate foresight as a practice that permits an organization to lay the foundation for a future competitive advantage. Historically we distinguish...

For small medium enterprises, customization of roadmapping is required. Although the phases of its process are solid and shared in the literature, the sub-phases and specific activities to be undertaken are only mentioned and do not provide sufficient guidance for implementation. The paper proposes a new methodology for the implementation of techno...

This paper aims to provide, through a literature analysis, a solid theoretical foundation that allows identifying the critical factors for technology/knowledge transfer. The literature review allowed to summarize the main contributions collected, to identify the main critical factors for technology/knowledge transfer and to frame them in a simple f...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology to assess the experiential learning processes of learning lean in an innovative learning environment: the lean model factories. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review on learning and lean management literatures was carried out to design the methodology. Then, a case study m...

The aim of this paper is to explore the possibilities offered by agent-base modelling techniques in evaluating the impact of alternative sets of innovation policies on the system where these are implemented and on its actors. The policies selected for this exercise are inspired by the Regional Government's policy document - the Programme for Rural...

VALS has the aims of establishing sustainable methods and processes to build knowledge partnerships between Higher Education and companies to collaborate on resolving authentic business problems through open innovation mediated by the use of Open Source Software. Open Source solutions provide the means whereby educational institutions, students, bu...

The aim of this paper is to explore the possibilities offered by agent-base modelling techniques in evaluating the impact of alternative sets of innovation policies on the system where these are implemented and on its actors. The policies selected for this exercise are inspired by the Regional Government's policy document — the Programme for Rural...

The present paper focuses on the organisation of Corporate Foresight (CF): how the companies design their organisation to anticipate future trends and detect weak signals. The research focuses on a multiple case-study in the telecommunication industry. The paper highlights the organisational variables that characterise a CF organisation (organisati...

Given that open innovation web-based platforms (OIPs) allow for the collaboration of individuals and companies, this paper focuses on exploring the motivations for participating and collaborating in OIPs. Extant studies are conflicting, especially with respect to the importance of the monetary reward as a motivation. Moreover, literature supports o...

The paper proposes a multi-attribute combinatorial auction-based mechanism, called open contract mechanism (OCM), which allows an organization or an individual (seeker) to dynamically and simultaneously bargain the features of distinct innovation contracts with other organizations and individuals (solvers), in general collective innovation environm...

The evaluation of the impact of innovation policies on economic systems has been at the centre of the research policy debates for several decades. In this essay, the research team concentrates its effort on the development of a methodological approach to policy evaluation that is gaining popularity in theoretical studies and has proved to be equall...

The present paper focuses on the organization for Corporate Foresight (CF): how the companies design their organization to anticipate future trends and detect weak signals. The research focuses on a multiple case-study in the telecommunication industry. Through a comparison of eight international companies that perform CF with different performance...

This work aims at exploring the possibilities offered by agent-base modelling techniques in evaluating the outreaching effects of innovation policy measures. This aim is accomplished by modelling and simulating the organisations' and systems' reactions to the introduction of alternative set innovation policy strategies in the Agro-food sector of th...

Purpose In the stream of works studying complexity from an organizational viewpoint, literature is focused mainly on describing new organizational forms (holonic organization, circular organization, virtual corporation, …) and on conceptual works identifying new managerial principles to manage emergence (job enrichment, de‐regulation, …). But liter...

The authors gratefully acknowledge the suggestions and comments of reviewers and of Professors Armand Hatchuel and Guido Nassimbeni. The authors would also like to thank, among all the interviewees, Dr Furio Suggi Liverani, R&D manager at illycaffè. Preliminary ideas and findings of this work were successfully presented, receiving an honourable men...

The scope of this chapter is the analysis of business ecosystems as reticular structures interacting one with each other. The aim is to propose a methodology for analyzing and modeling the ecosystems and to illustrate its application via a field study conducted in Telecom Italia Future Centre, and in particular the Digital Imaging Ecosystem. The me...

This work aims at exploring the possibilities offered by agent-base modelling techniques in explaining the mechanisms underlying the outreaching effects of policy measures and a platform in support of policy evaluation. This aim is accomplished by modelling and simulating the organisations’ and systems’ reactions through the implementation of alter...

Introduction. The paper deals with the topic of increasing integration of individuals and companies in innovation processes by means of Web-based software platforms. We consider why people participate and contribute in platforms and the characteristics of the platforms and the possible managerial actions (i.e., the drivers for motivations) to enhan...

Recently, a large number of new innovative enterprises engaged in different competitive markets by promoting innovation both in products and in services through open innovation web-based platforms, which allow for the collaboration of individual users and companies and for so-called crowdsourcing. A key issue concerns the identification of the most...

The paper proposes a method for analysing, modelling and foresighting the business ecosystems as network structures interacting one with each other. The methodology's name is “methodology of business ecosystem network analysis” (MOBENA). The paper shows how it is possible to systematically study the structure and fluxes of a business ecosystem. The...

The study of one's own business future is a distinctive element of a business strategy. Innovative companies are aware of weak signals coming from the periphery and of trends in their industry, and they monitor the coherence between weak signals and trends (the external perspective) and strategic direction (the internal perspective).The literature...

The chapter deals with the topic of increasing integration of (external) individuals and companies in (originally internal) innovation processes by means of open innovation web-based platforms (OIPs). A very important issue concerns how to stimulate the users’ participation and the knowledge-sharing inside OIPs. The literature focused on motivation...