By tradition or intellectual necessity, universities pursue a main objective: increasing and transferring knowledge that is internationally relevant for the whole of mankind. But new powerful socioeconomic forces are demanding universities to be engaged in regional economic development and their knowledge to be relevant in terms of local employment, university spin-offs and growth. These two objectives are traditionally considered as not complementary or even mutually exclusive. Through a case study regarding the Dutch University of Twente, this article shows that local economic relevance and international excellence are not incompatible objectives: they were not at the University of Twente; they can be reached even in a new born and poor endowed university, located in a peripheral, depressed and not industrialized countryside. This article argues that a strong entrepreneurial vision and the adoption of a different concept of knowledge may be the key for other small and peripheral European universities, in order to reach both local economic relevance and international excellence. The article will contribute and enrich the regional studies debate, introducing to it some higher education policy issues and ideas.

Purpose Academic research on management consulting or having management consultancy as the main research field is huge as the sector is a strategic one for management innovation, but a systematic and updated literature review is missing. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive systematic review of scholarly peer reviewed journals looking at the ambivalent roles of consultants in driving management innovation as well as management fashions. Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review has been performed. Findings This paper provides a systematization of existing literature, where the state of the art is assessed and future research paths are highlighted. Originality/value The proposed research fills the gap concerning a review of literature on this topic and provides an analysis of 50 years of scholarly research, highlighting both the bright and dark sides of management consulting.

The article aims to interpret and compare recent governance shifts in higher education across several countries, both at the central government level and at the institutional or 'corporate' level. In order to do that it reviews the most significant literature about alternative theoretical models of governance in higher education and uses these models to interpret changing governance across several nations. It suggests the existence of a general tendency towards a 'new managerialism' governance model in Western Europe. In order to explain this tendency special attention is paid to countries in the forefront of governance innovation. The traditional continental European model is a term of comparison.

There is a wide literature about business incubators (BIs), especially about successful cases in high tech and knowledge intensive industries. Despite that, there is neither a viable integrative theory of effective business incubation nor clear guidelines about the preconditions for establishing BIs and their management. Such theory and guidelines are urgently needed because there is increasing evidence in the literature that, despite many successful cases and public policies supporting business incubation, most of BIs are not successful at all and serious doubts have emerged about the general effectiveness of business incubation and the advisability of investing public money in it. Based on a systematic literature review of the poor and scattered theoretical knowledge of effective business incubation, general principles are proposed to decide when a BI should be established and what it should do to be effective. The research is limited to non-profit BIs whose main goal is regional economic development as they represent the overwhelming majority of operating BIs.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate high-involvement and short-term supply\ud relationships, known as agile supply partnerships (ASPs), and explores the conditions that support the\ud development of such inter-organizational relationships.\ud Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative exploratory research design was followed, based on\ud in-depth case studies of Italian fashion footwear manufacturers and their relationships with key suppliers.\ud Findings – ASPs appear to be most relevant in supply material categories which have a high impact\ud on the appearance or functionality of the product. Conversely, in supply categories with a low impact,\ud long-term partnerships are preferred. Four main characteristics of ASPs are identified: they are part of\ud a portfolio of relationships to balance the rigidities of long-term strategic partnerships; they have\ud project-like features; they are developed from a network of pre-qualified suppliers; they are recurring\ud and intermittent rather than continuous or isolated one-off short-term partnerships.\ud Research limitations/implications – The research has been carried out in the context of an Italian\ud footwear district. Further research is required to evaluate the validity of the propositions in other\ud sectors and geographies.\ud Practical implications – The research can help decision makers in the fashion industry, and\ud potentially other sectors affected by high turbulence, to identify when ASPs are most appropriate and\ud what characteristics they should have.\ud Originality/value – This research contributes to the literature on agility by empirically evaluating\ud the apparent paradox related to the specific characteristics of supply relationships required to foster an\ud agile strategy and by clarifying the conditions under which fashion companies develop ASPs

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"This paper explores the strategic orientation of Italian universities with a special focus on their vision and mission statements. It has been possible to collect data for 89 universities, by means of a survey sent by e-mail to all 95 Italian universities and by visiting all their websites. [...] Results are mixed and show that one sub-group of Italian universities is very pro-active and innovative in its strategic planning; another sub-group interprets strategic planning as nothing more than a legal compliance" (p.1)

Purpose This study aims to assess the effect of peer evaluations on team-level effort, productivity, motivation and overall team performance. Design/methodology/approach This study explores the impact of a peer evaluation system on 895 multicultural and transnational global virtual teams (GVTs) composed of 5,852 university students from 130 different countries. The study uses a quasi-experiment in which the group project is implemented under two conditions over two sequential iterations. In the first condition, team members do not receive peer evaluation feedback during the project. In the second condition, participants completed detailed peer evaluations of their team members and received feedback weekly for eight consecutive weeks. Findings Results suggest that when peer evaluations are used in GVTs during the project, teams show: higher levels of group effort; lower levels of average productivity and motivation; and no clear evidence of improved team performance. Results cast doubts on the benefits of peer evaluation within GVTs as the practice fails to reach its main objective of improving team performance and generates some negative internal dynamics. Practical implications The major implication of the study for managers and educators using GVTs is that the use of peer evaluations during the course of a project does not appear to improve objective team performance and reduces team motivation and perception of productivity despite increases in teams’ perceptions of effort and performance. Originality/value This study contributes to the scanty literature regarding the impact of peer evaluation systems on group-level dynamics and performance outcomes.