For better or worse, digital technologies are reshaping everything, from customer behaviors and expectations to organizational and manufacturing systems, business models, markets, and ultimately society. To understand this overarching transformation, this paper extends the previous literature which has focused mostly on the organizational level by developing a multi-level research agenda for digital transformation (DT). In this regard, we propose an extended definition of DT as "a socioeconomic change across individuals, organizations, ecosystems, and societies that are shaped by the adoption and utilization of digital technologies." We suggest four lenses to interpret the DT phenomenon: individuals (utilizing and adopting digital technologies), organizations (strategizing and coordinating both internal and external transformation), ecosystems (harnessing digital technologies in governance and co-producing value propositions), and geopolitical frameworks (regulating the environments in which individuals and organizations are embedded). Based on these lenses, we build a multi-level research agenda at the intersection between the bright and dark sides of DT and introduce the PIAI framework, which captures a process of perception, interpretation, and action that ultimately leads to possible impact. The PIAI framework identifies a critical research agenda consisting of a non-exhaustive list of topics that can assist researchers to deepen their understanding of the DT phenomenon and provide guidance to managers and policymakers when making strategic decisions that seek to shape and guide the DT.

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, a huge number of firms had to stop their activities due to the lockdown situation that has been decided in most countries. However, to contribute to the many emergencies caused by the pandemic through purpose‐led actions, many of those firms have reacted with innovative projects and changes in their manufacturing activities. In this paper, we address why and how these efforts have been implemented and how the situation of these firms evolved after the peak of the health crisis. Drawing on the literature about the purpose and R&D/innovation management concerning health emergency, we develop a conceptual framework to understand how different types of purpose‐led actions (i.e., short term and/or long term) and different R&D management strategies (i.e., exploitation or exploration of R&D, innovation, and manufacturing competencies) can characterize firms’ rapid response for the benefit of the community in the fight against COVID‐19, for example through the provision of medical equipment or other products and services. We validate the framework using the cases of 21 Italian firms which have taken very fast actions during the peak of the COVID‐19 emergency.

In the last years, universities have assumed a prominent role in the science and technology-based economic development. The concept of entrepreneurial university, a key concept in the triple helix model developed by Etzkowitz, identifies the evolution of the university role with the addition to the traditional missions of university (education and research) of a third mission that is to contribute to the economic development through the transfer of research results from the laboratory to the economic system. The objective of the research is to analyze how universities are implementing this new mission and investigate factors affecting their entrepreneurial orientation. More specifically, our paper aims to investigate the existence of a relationship among the entrepreneurial orientation of university and some factors representing the internal and external context in which the university is involved.

Purpose This paper combines the literature on knowledge transfer and that on organizational behavior to analyze how perceived empowerment and perceived engagement affect knowledge transfer offices’ (KTOs’) performance, measured in terms of the number of license agreements. Design/methodology/approach The authors measured the cognitions which constitute perceived empowerment and perceived engagement through a survey sent to Italian KTOs’ professionals. The authors performed “fuzzy set qualitative analysis” to investigate if this cognition, together or in isolation, may influence KTOs’ management performance, measured by the number of license agreements. Findings The results highlight the role of individual cognitions in influencing KTOs’ performance. Furthermore, an important finding from the analysis of the main configurations is that the co-presence of perceived engagement and perceived empowerment leads to more license agreements only in the presence of specific individual cognitions. More precisely, the level of organizational citizenship behavior, the degree to which an individual influences results at work (degree of impact) and the value of a work goal (degree of meaning) are the cognitions which lead to a higher number of license agreements. Originality/value Despite the growing interest in the investigation of the determinants of KTOs’ performance, a relevant research gap still concerns the explanation of KTOs’ performance considering individual cognitions such as attitudes, norms, perceived behavioral control and intentions. This study looks at the combined effect of the individual cognition of perceived engagement and perceived empowerment on KTOs’ performances.

Academic spin-offs, i.e., new venture projects backed by one or more researchers, are attracting increasing attention by researchers and policy makers as an effective way to increase the rate of technology transfer from Public Research Organizations (PROs) to the business environment. With the aim of supporting technology transfer processes, in the last years, many universities have carry out specific policies and a wide range of programs addressed to the development of academic entrepreneurship. Among these, the organization of a start-up competition is rather popular. But, how effective do such activities result, in particular the start-up competitions, in supporting academic researchers toward entrepreneurship? Are these kinds of initiatives able to raise the level of the reputation of academic entrepreneurial projects? If so, would such social capital have any real impact on the entrepreneurial development of academic spin-off? Is this social capital able to improve the spin-off’s ability to gain access to and acquire an initial stock of resources? Our exploratory research, following the emerging paradigm of the Quadruple-Helix Model, takes into consideration the mediating role of Media players in building visibility and reputation of nascent entrepreneurial projects from academia. The study that we performed is based on the results of web citations of business projects that won at least one prize awarded by an academic start-up competition. We consider the 2013 edition of the Italian universities business plan competitions (PNI), and we tried to measure the visibility and the reputation effect experienced by winners of local and national steps of the business plan competition. Implications of the study might be that investing in start-up competition is a useful mechanism to gain in visibility and might be useful as an ignition mechanism to start a positive entrepreneurship discourse about academic spin-offs among stakeholders that control access to valuable resources for them

No abstract

PurposeThis study investigates the role of “soft” factors of total quality management – in terms of empowerment and engagement of employees – in facilitating or hindering organizational performance of the university technology transfer offices.Design/methodology/approachThe authors developed an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), multiple regression model to test if empowerment and engagement affect organizational performance of the university technology transfer offices.FindingsThe authors found that “soft” factors of total quality management – in terms of empowerment and engagement – facilitate the improvement of organizational performance in university technology transfer offices.Practical implicationsThe authors’ analysis shows that soft total quality management practices create the conditions for improving organizational performance. This study provides practical implications by showing that, in the evaluation of the technology transfer office, not only the “hard” variables (e.g. number of employees and employee experience) but also the “soft” one (e.g. empowerment and engagement) matter. Therefore, university technology transfer managers or university technology transfer delegates should take actions to promote not only empowering employees but also create a climate conducive to employees' engagement in the university technology transfer offices.Originality/valueWith regards to the differences in organizational performances of university technology transfer offices, several studies have focused their attention on technology transfer professionals in technology transfer offices, but only a few of them have examined the “soft side” of total quality management. Thus, this study examines the organizational goals of technology transfer offices through “soft” factors of total quality management in terms of empowerment and engagement employees.

PurposeThis study focuses on the role of individuals in the innovation management process, by concentrating on leaders and associated behaviors. Specifically, Entrepreneurial Leadership (EL) represent one of the most important fields of innovation management that has become increasingly multifaceted and interdisciplinary with its evolution. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine a newly emerging research trend with a new lens that is “neuroscience”.Design/methodology/approachThis paper finds an evidence-based roadmap by reviewing the literature with a quantitative Bibliometric Analysis (BA) employing Co-Citation (Co-C) and bibliographic coupling analysis (BcA) to find linkages between the leadership and entrepreneurship literature and the neuroscience literature.FindingsThis study identifies five promising groups of research areas such as the organizational approach, the biological approach, the cognitive approach, the emotional approach and it identify five future research topics such as dynamic skills in innovation exploitation process, the human aspect of leadership, the building process of leadership, the biological perspective of leadership and the application of neuroscience in the ecosystem. Moreover, we find an evidence-based roadmap for stimulating focused EL within the broad topic of innovation management research, to move the field forward.Originality/valueAlthough the past few years have observed the necessity of review studies on the subsets of biological factors, no reviews have sought to bring those different subsets together into a broader biological perspective. This study provides important indications on the interdisciplinary developments between the neuroscience aspects and EL, as a new emerging paradigm within the broad field of innovation management.