Gian Luca Gregori’s research while affiliated with Marche Polytechnic University and other places

This study investigates the association between the Energy Trilemma Index (ETI) (which measures secure, affordable, and sustainable energy) and a country's level of education from a sustainable innovativeness perspective. We analyze if school life expectancy (SLE) and the students' predispositions towards STEM degrees (science, technology, engineering or mathematics) can stimulate the creation of sustainable and resilient energy systems. We perform a regression analysis based on data from 118 countries, and we employ both an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and a robust-to-outliers MM-estimator. The statistical investigation reveals that the higher the school life expectancy, the higher the ETI. By contrast, we find no significant association between the ETI and the percentage of STEM graduates. So what matters in energy sustainability is the number of persons who decide to continue tertiary studies rather than their attitudes towards studying scientific subjects. This research paper contributes to the literature on renewable energy, circular economy (CE), sustainable innovation, and knowledge management by demonstrating how education can aid in implementing energy systems that adhere to the triple bottom-line approach (society, economy, and environment). Thus, sustainable and resilient energy systems can be spurred by not only environmental and economic variables but also social ones. Therefore, the traditional approach of the CE for achieving sustainable development should be substituted by alternative CE approaches that consider social variables. From the managerial standpoint, a high SLE can foster resilient energy systems through the creation of ad hoc policies, the birth of new companies connected to the renewable energy sector, and new organizational forms of energy management handled directly by citizens.

Studies on longevity firms and innovation are limited. This study aims to discover if and how the longevity family firms are able to communicate innovation and able to communicate innovation concerning their being traditional. Our evidence individuated as longevity family firms adopt an integrative approach to innovation and the family remains more attached to tradition with a different role in the firms communication.

A corporate social performance model is dependent on strategies involving the processes of social responsiveness. From this perspective, this article observes that the voluntary disclosure of corporate social performances (CSP‐D) is a proactive behavior based on “responsiveness” because it corresponds to the ability to reduce the gap between disclosed content and the perception of the content by stakeholders. The study examines the voluntary disclosure actions undertaken through social media by 60 T&T companies to communicate to their stakeholders how they contribute to reducing environmental negative externalities, plastic pollution in particular. Then, a co‐word analysis is carried out, adopting social network maps to highlight and compare the cognitive paths that characterize disclosure and reaction. The findings suggest that when the cognitive pathways of stakeholders tend to converge towards the behavior disclosed by companies, their expectations are met and this enhances CSP‐D effectiveness. Finally, social media are suitable for generating this alignment, reducing the legitimacy gap and building a good reputation.

Retailers need to manage a series of complex decisions relating to numerous products. To reduce this complexity, they have introduced category management practices, which consider groups of similar products (categories) that can be managed separately as single business units (SBUs). Although the concept that the store offer should be organised as a category mix and that this strategy allows for better overall store management is already consolidated, retailers still struggle to adopt an approach to the store performance measurement starting from a category level perspective. Nowadays, the available methods for measuring categories’ performance are quite limited. The current trend sees the measurement of category performance mainly based on sell-out data that are ill-equipped to fully address category management issues. Retailers should broaden their field of analysis not only by focusing on the product/sales perspective but also by including other methodologies such as shopper behaviour analysis. In this regard, the use of technology offers the retail sector new perspectives for those analysis. Therefore, we intend to contribute to the ongoing debate on the retail analytics topic by presenting a shopper behaviour analytics system for category management performance monitoring. More in detail, we could derive a new key performance indicator, category conversion power (CCP), aimed at analysing and comparing the single categories organised within the store. The research is based on a unique dataset obtained from a real-time locating system (RTLS), which allowed us to collect behavioural data togheter with sell-out data (from POS scanner). We argue that retailers could exploit this new analytical method to gain more understanding at the category level and therefore make data-driven decisions aimed at improving performance at the store level.

Purpose The paper focusses on festivals taking place in coastal regions whose central element is seafood. The purpose is to analyse the role of seafood festivals as potential tourist attractions for local development. The decision to focus on coastal areas is based on a perceived knowledge gap regarding the interactions between different sectors of the sea economy. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative exploratory case studies of seafood festivals in Italy and Sweden have been performed using an analytical model. The participatory observation methodology contributed to a better understanding of the phenomenon. Findings The analysis shows the close relationship between seafood and tourism, and although it takes variable forms, food is a fundamental lever for maritime and coastal tourism and local development. Findings suggest that local food events can help strengthening gastronomic identities, despite there is a different articulation between tradition and marketing in the two countries. Research limitations/implications Since this paper represents an exploratory study of five seafood festivals, research needs to be extended and replicated before any findings can be generalized. However, the model is flexible enough to be tested in different food events. Practical implications Food events represent a key instrument for the integration of territorial policies in which tourism and food products might be used as strategic instruments for the development of coastal areas. Originality/value This paper is a first attempt to analyse and compare seafood events, contributing to filling the gap in event literature referring to coastal areas. The model introduced can be used to determine the articulation of tradition-marketing in different food events.

Purpose Through the human resources (HR) and knowledge management (KM) perspective as human-centric processes, the aim of this study is to explore how companies’ engagement in diversity (DIV), inclusion (INC) and people empowerment (PEMP) policies influences companies’ organizational performance, to support organizations in the shift to the Industry 5.0 framework. Design/methodology/approach Combining the HR management and the KM-driven organizational culture, a conceptual model is proposed for explaining companies’ higher organizational performance. Proposed hypotheses are tested with reference to a set of listed international companies traced by Refinitiv on a five-year time horizon (2016–2020) through 24,196 firm-year observations. Findings This research shows that companies engaged in DIV policies, INC practices and PEMP through education have higher profitability and are more valued by capital markets’ investors. Originality/value This paper draws attention to the need to overcome the reductionist view of HR and rethink KM architecture to cope with the growing challenge of HR integration according to the Industry 5.0 paradigm.

The integration of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies within society is pivotal for resolving many challenges that the world and its population are facing presently—global pandemics, ageing populations, and climate change. However, academics and practitioners still struggle to fully understand I4.0 outcomes outside of the manufacturing domain, thereby unravelling their potential for society at large. In this scenario, Society 5.0 (S5.0) is arising as a new paradigm that places humans at the centre of innovation. To foster the effective integration of technology into society and to better understand how to design S5.0 configurations and solutions, the authors developed a conceptual model applying the Design Thinking (DT) approach to the Quintuple Helix (QH) innovation framework. The proposed QH–DT model was found to be suitable for allowing the knowledge flow among the actors involved in the design and implementation of the S5.0 solution. The model was then explained through its application in a healthcare project—the SMARTAGE. By adopting an action research methodology, the results explain how it becomes possible to build complex human-centric healthcare solutions.

The purpose of this study is to investigate new forms of marketing data-driven knowledge discovery in the vending machine (VM) industry. Data of shopping activities understanding were gathered and analyzed by a system technology based on a RGBD camera. An RGBD camera, already tested in retail environments, is installed in top-view configuration on a VM to gather data that are processed and embedded within a knowledge discovery project. We adopted the knowledge discovery via data analytics framework (KDDA) that was applied to a real-world VM scenario. Real-world case tests, based on more than 17.000 shoppers measured in 4 different locations, were conducted. By using this method it was possible to verify the ability of this approach to generate new forms of marketing data-driven knowledge available on the VM industry. Main novelties are: i) the application of a KDDA project to the VM industry; ii) the use of RGBD data sources for the first time for a KDDA process; iii) the contribution to the practice by supporting retailers to carry out knowledge discovery processes more effectively; iv) the real-world testing process based on 4 locations and more than 17.000 shoppers.

R&D teams' internationalization attracts interests from different research-streams. However, the decision on what type of R&D structure is more convenient to invest in may differ, based on several factors, such as risk-taking propensity and internal resource availability. With an aim to enrich the extant literature and to provide practical insights for managers working in the wine industry, this case study explores the determinants of an Italian family-owned winery that attempts to keep a balance between its internal and external R&D teams' decision, using an integrated theoretical framework based on the transaction costs and the resource-based view theory. The optimal R&D solution based on an accurate costs vs benefits analysis leads the firm to hire highly qualified staff to manage its internal R&D unit, as well as to complement the unit with complementary resource that can be accessed through external R&D knowledge sources.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the food and beverage automatic retail environment by analysing the impact of planograms, conceived as a visual merchandising practice and shopping time – the time spent making a purchase – as part of food consumer purchasing behaviour to further enrich the debate on the ability of companies to absorb customer knowledge. A real-world experiment was conducted using a sample of 27,230 valid observations of consumer purchasing decision-making processes at automatic vending machines (AVMs). Data were collected by a shopper behaviour analytics system that allows for a better understanding of the AVM users' behaviour. Two sets of regressions were run to test the two hypotheses. The experimental results demonstrated that planograms – the planned, systematic organisation of products in an AVM – positively impact food purchases. A planogram acts as a mediator in the relationship between shopping time and purchase, resulting in shorter shopping times and more purchases. This work adds to the customer knowledge literature by focussing on customer behaviour in the food and beverage automated shopping environment. The shopper analytics technology adopted to collect real-time data leads to a better understanding of the purchasing behaviour of AVMs' users and provides new marketing and retail insights into AVMs' performance that retailers can use to improve their marketing strategies.