Marketing innovative service solutions with inter-organizational service networks: opportunities and threats

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Innovation Labs for Digital Transformation Strategies and Business Model Innovation in the Digital Age: a Focus on Tourism and Cultural Sector

The research proposes the Innovation Labs as a valuable management initiative to support tourism and cultural organisations in developing Digital Innovation Capacity, fostering Digital Transformation (DT) and Business Model Innovation (BMI). Innovation Labs are innovation management models aimed at fostering creative and critical thinking, driving the organisation in finding the best ways to generate knowledge and digital culture, introduce technologies, digitise operations, and implement digital strategies for continuous and sustainable innovation paths (Santarsiero et al., 2019; 2020). The need for investigating and identifying possible solutions, and governance models, in terms of management initiatives that follow emergent innovation trends, and support tourism and cultural organisations in embracing digital innovation journeys, is having a growing interest, both in scholars and practitioners, especially after the pandemic Covid-19. Tourism and cultural organisations, pursuant their attitude to be a labour-intensive production sector, in which the competitive advantage depends on the differentiation of the tourism product and the humanisation of the offered experiences, resulted as one of the sectors that most repudiate DT, conceiving it as a process that would lead to standardisation and loss of appeal to the end customer. However, nowadays, due to the emerging challenges in the Digital Age that are also affecting the tourism and cultural sector, the need for embracing digital journeys favouring DT and BMI should be considered mandatory to guarantee competitiveness and the gain of a sustainable competitive advantage. The rapid development of digital technologies and solutions, and their democratisation, induced changes in consumers’ and users’ habits and behaviours, resulting in the need for developing new products, services and methods of use based on emerging market needs. In the same way, organisations are asked to become resilient, proactive and able to evolve in the same way the competitive landscape does. After Covid-19, besides, the needs for digital innovation journeys and digital revolutions are even more accentuated, confirming that the pandemic has acted as an accelerator of DT dynamics. The competitiveness and attractiveness of organisations and destinations will therefore depend on the digital innovative capacity and ability of operators and destination managers to rethink the tourist offer according to the new emerging trends and context dynamics. Although the need for embracing digital innovation journeys is crucial, it is not an easy process to manage and exploit. Organisations, indeed, experience several difficulties and innovation barriers. In SMEs, in particular, which represent a typical configuration of tourism and cultural organisations, resistance to innovation, and insufficient skills, finance, culture, attitudes, and often also the time to devote to innovation due to overburden of bureaucratic aspects and various routines, are particularly accentuated. It follows these organisations require forms of support to face these needs and develop an innovative capacity, fostering DT and BMI to improve offers, competitiveness, efficiency, as well as customisation and customer relationships. Despite the relevance of these topics, however, the search for solutions and ways to support tourism and cultural organisations in embracing digital innovation journeys has not structurally explored yet. On this vein, the research aims to explore and investigate, in the field of innovation management, models and approaches to face DT and BMI challenges and opportunities, and thus to investigate the emerging phenomenon of Innovation Labs to understand their management model and assess their suitability for tourism and cultural organisations. In the theoretical section, the study presents a systematic literature review of Innovation Labs to provide a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon and identify critical patterns according to two main dimensions of analysis: space & infrastructure, and strategy & management. Furthermore, the study utilises a multiple-case study approach to better enrich the insights gathered from the literature, and to propose an Innovation Lab’s working definition and a management framework. The working definition takes into account all the emerging aspects, the new principles and paradigms that are governing the field of innovation management and that become essential for the organisations competing in this scenario. The framework describes key phases and relevant issues for effective management of Innovation Labs as catalysts of DT and BMI. Then, the research applies the proposed framework through an Action Research (AR) project involving an organisation operating in the tourism sector, to assess its efficacy in fostering tourism and cultural organisations’ digital innovation journeys. The research contributes to enrich knowledge and build theory in the field of Innovation Labs and tourism innovation management. In particular, the study led to developing theories on the contributions of Innovation Labs in fostering DT and BMI in tourism organisations. A further framework explaining the business model’s dimensions on which DT processes impact thanks to these initiatives has been proposed. Lastly, the analysis of the AR project compared Innovation Labs’ management framework with change management frameworks to detect alignments and to highlight insights to support researchers in considering the model as a tool to support innovation dynamics in times of crisis. This research also has relevant practical implications since it provides managers and practitioners with an overview of the dimensions to be considered while designing and managing an Innovation Lab to develop digital innovation capacity and foster DT and BMI. Expressly, managers and practitioners are provided with a framework supporting them designing and exploiting management initiatives aimed at embracing digital innovation journeys to generate marketable digital solutions, improve performance and develop a mindset continuous learning and innovation. The study also reveals some limitations that may address future research. Further empirical, also quantitative, investigations could be developed to extend the sample and to allow a comprehensive validation of the Innovation Lab’s management framework, focusing the research also on the evaluation of Innovation Labs’ activities

Increasing Access to Food: A Comprehensive Report on Food Supply Options

Access to food is one of the most important aspects of a healthy, sustainable community. Grocery stores and other suppliers can serve as an economic anchor to provide social benefits to communities. Unfortunately, many communities do not have convenient and/or affordable access to grocery items, particularly fresh produce. As part of Virginia Commonwealth University\u27s Fall 2019 graduate course on Urban Commercial Revitalization, class members researched 13 retail and other food access options, which are described in this report. Each chapter covers a food access option and provides basic information that will be useful to individuals, organizations, or government agencies that wish to attract and/or develop grocery operations in their communities

Innovative business plan: Equiworld

This business plan project was developed under the author’s objective of offering equestrians an innovative, complete and compelling platform to enhance their practice of horse riding in every aspect of this sport. This project truly is an innovation as, despite an unprecedented growth of online platforms and eLearning since the Covid-19 pandemic, no complete online platform dedicated to Equestrian exists, leaving a gap in the market. Currently, there are only a limited number of platforms aiming to enhance horse riding practice, all with a restricted scope of action: the practice, the theory, or the commerce but never everything at once. Although, the market of horse-riding is worth interest as it is the third French sports federation, and the first sports federation for women. The author identified three key areas where the platform could be used: learning, social interactions, and e-commerce. The success of Equiworld relies on the extensive comprehension of the market, the consumers, and the concepts and stakes of such a project. To ensure that point, the author reviewed academic literature, studied the horse-riding market in France, did some in-depth customer research and a rich benchmark. This resulted in developing a full strategy for Equiworld which is expected to be very successful. Ultimately, this project is part of the MSc in Marketing and aims to serve as a guide to the implementation of this company.Este projecto de plano de negócios foi desenvolvido com o objectivo do autor de oferecer aos equestres uma plataforma inovadora, completa e convincente para melhorar a sua prática de equitação em todos os aspectos deste desporto. Este projecto é verdadeiramente uma inovação pois, apesar de um crescimento sem precedentes das plataformas online e eLearning desde a pandemia de Covid-19, não existe nenhuma plataforma online completa dedicada à equitação, deixando uma lacuna no mercado. Actualmente existe apenas um número limitado de plataformas com o objectivo de melhorar a prática equestre, todas com um âmbito de acção restrito: a prática, a teoria, ou o comércio, mas nunca tudo de uma só vez. Embora o mercado da equitação seja digno de interesse, uma vez que é a terceira federação desportiva francesa, e a primeira federação desportiva para mulheres. O autor identificou três áreas-chave onde a plataforma poderia ser utilizada: aprendizagem, interacções sociais, e comércio electrónico. O sucesso do Equiworld assenta na compreensão extensiva do mercado, dos consumidores, dos conceitos e das apostas de um tal projecto. Para garantir este ponto, o autor reviu a literatura académica, estudou o mercado de equitação em França, fez uma pesquisa aprofundada dos clientes e uma rica referência. Isto resultou no desenvolvimento de uma estratégia completa para o Equiworld, que se espera seja muito bem sucedida. Em última análise, este projecto faz parte do MSc em Marketing e pretende servir de guia para a implementação desta empresa

Revisiting co-creation : necessary success factors for crowdsourcing ideas in a consumer business setting

Companies in the business-to-consumer sector are constantly searching for innovative ways to improve their processes and offerings. Traditionally, corporations have already been implementing new ideas and product developments internally, but in recent years the concept of co-creation has been gaining increasingly attention as a new method for innovation. Co-creation, in the form of crowdsourcing ideas and integrating stakeholders in the corporate development processes, not only promises to strengthen the relationship between the firm and consumers, but also to help enhance product value, foster innovation and improve product-market fit. Convincing in theory, in the practical business setting co-creation has often proven not a trivial task. However, existing literature has not sufficiently addressed these challenges yet. The paper at hand aims to make a contribution to closing this research gap, revisiting the concept of co-creation with a specific focus on identifying the issues of and success factors needed for the successful crowdsourcing of ideas in a consumer business setting. For this purpose, successful co-creation strategies of major global brands, including Oreo, DHL and LEGO, with a view of characterizing relevant elements driving the effectiveness of their co-innovation approaches, shall be analyzed. These cases will then be contrasted to an empirical case project of a co-creation campaign of a medium sized enterprise in order to highlight both effective and non-effective approaches to co-creation. As a result, some of the key challenges and main points of difficulty in particular for smaller companies in context of co-creation initiatives will be identified

CPA Vision, Focus on the Horizon: Pathfinder Profiles

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_guides/2866/thumbnail.jp

Software development in startup companies: A systematic mapping study

Context: Software startups are newly created companies with no operating history and fast in producing cutting-edge technologies. These companies develop software under highly uncertain conditions, tackling fast-growing markets under severe lack of resources. Therefore, software startups present an unique combination of characteristics which pose several challenges to software development activities. Objective: This study aims to structure and analyze the literature on software development in startup companies, determining thereby the potential for technology transfer and identifying software development work practices reported by practitioners and researchers. Method: We conducted a systematic mapping study, developing a classification schema, ranking the selected primary studies according their rigor and relevance, and analyzing reported software development work practices in startups. Results: A total of 43 primary studies were identified and mapped, synthesizing the available evidence on software development in startups. Only 16 studies are entirely dedicated to software development in startups, of which 10 result in a weak contribution (advice and implications (6); lesson learned (3); tool (1)). Nineteen studies focus on managerial and organizational factors. Moreover, only 9 studies exhibit high scientific rigor and relevance. From the reviewed primary studies, 213 software engineering work practices were extracted, categorized and analyzed. Conclusion: This mapping study provides the first systematic exploration of the state-of-art on software startup research. The existing body of knowledge is limited to a few high quality studies. Furthermore, the results indicate that software engineering work practices are chosen opportunistically, adapted and configured to provide value under the constrains imposed by the startup context