78 research outputs found

    Crowdfunding performance, market performance, and the moderating roles of product innovativeness and experts' judgment: Evidence from the movie industry

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    Reward-based crowdfunding (CF) has emerged as a method to solicit funds for innovative projects. Yet, little is still known about the ability of reward-based CF to act as a signal in the eyes of future consumers, and thus boost the future market performance of new products that innovators intend to commercialize using the campaign funds. In addition, scant research has clarified the boundary conditions that can magnify or weaken the efficacy of this CF signal. Given the relevance of reward-based CF for supporting innovation, understanding when the CF campaign performance works as an effective signal is of great interest, especially in business settings characterized by high product quality uncertainty. By using the movie industry as a setting, we contribute to fill this gap. Specifically, we argue that the positive effect of the reward-based CF performance is moderated by two important factors influencing consumers' purchase decisions: the degree of product innovativeness and the expert judgment about the product. Elaborating on the effects of product innovativeness, we posit that this product feature should moderate the positive relationship between CF and subsequent market performances in an inverted U-shaped fashion. Favorable expert recommendations, on the other hand, should weaken the efficacy of the CF performance as a signal. Results from a sample of 1059 new movies (of which 152 released in theaters) confirm these predictions and offer several remarkable implications for innovators

    The effect of spatial variables on the economic and environmental performance of bioenergy production chains

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    The aim of this paper is to understand the impacts of spatial variables on the performance of bioenergy production chains (BPCs). Even though the strong debates continue on the use of first generation biomass for bioenergy production, many countries continue to utilize it as an alternative energy source. Several studies have been carried out on biomass transformation efficiency, on environmental impacts of using crop in biofuel production, and on its negative effects on increasing food prices. However, less attention has been paid to the role played by the spatial variables on the performance measures of BPCs. In this paper, we analyse how three spatial variables, i.e. cultivation area size, land dispersion, and accessibility to cultivation areas, can affect the performance of energy-balanced BPC, which produces its own electric and thermal energy demand. The chain is represented as a network of processes, where all inputs and outputs are geographically referred and analysed in a theoretical case example. We propose an enterprise input–output (EIO) model, which can be used as an accounting tool to compute the main materials and energy flows-related costs and as a planning tool to evaluate the chain performance in different scenarios. Finally, the proposed model is applied to an actual case study, to investigate the opportunity to establish a sunflower-based BPC in Apulia region (Italy) and to assess its performance. Results show that higher land dispersion degree and less area accessibility levels reduce the economic and environmental performance of the BPCs. The construction of the energy-balanced chain reduces the negative environmental impacts caused by fossil energy use in the processes of the BPC. Managerial implications can also be obtained from actual case study about the biodiesel plant location decisions

    Building an outward-oriented social family legacy: rhetorical history in family business foundations

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    Scholars have recently paid growing attention to the transfer of family legacies across generations, but existing work has been mainly focused on an inward-oriented, intra-family, perspective. In this article, we seek to understand how family firms engage in rhetorical history to transfer their social family legacy to external stakeholders, what we call “outward-oriented social legacy.” By carrying out a 12-months field study in three Italian family business foundations, our findings unveil three distinctive narrative practices—founder foreshadowing, emplacing the legacy within the broader community, and weaving family history with macro—history—that contribute to transferring outward-oriented social legacies

    The role of universities in the knowledge management of smart city projects

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    The development of smart cities is becoming more and more based on knowledge management (KM) frameworks. This leads to new managerial challenges, which reflect the complexity of KM governance and processes issues of smart city projects as well as the need to manage knowledge that originates both within and beyond projects' boundaries. However, in-depth research on the development of smart cities from a managerial and KM perspective has remained scant. In detail, although universities are deemed to be responsible for the competitiveness and superiority of knowledge-based ecosystems, like smart city projects, the different roles they play in such projects when dealing with KM governance and processes issues are still understudied. Therefore, by conducting an exploratory case study of 20 smart city projects, this paper aims to scrutinize how universities manage the KM governance issue when internal knowledge is used, the KM governance issue when external knowledge is used, the KM processes issue when internal knowledge is used, and the KM processes issue when external knowledge is used. Results reveal that universities act as knowledge intermediaries, knowledge gatekeepers, knowledge providers, and knowledge evaluators. © 2018 Elsevier Inc

    Origins of Knowledge, Recombinant Search, and Innovation. An Econometric Study at the Interorganizational Level of Analysis

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    Innovative performance is influenced by the origins of the existing knowledge that is combined to generate innovation and by how economic actors search for new knowledge. Focusing on R&D alliances, we investigate the impact exerted on innovative performance at the alliance level by both (a) the geographic and organizational origins of the knowledge resources that allied organizations integrate across their boundaries, and (b) the extent to which allied organizations jointly search for new knowledge across different knowledge domains (i.e., search span). Drawing on a sample of 1,515 R&D alliances we found that, whereas the integration of geographically distant knowledge and of organizationally proximate knowledge in R&D alliances are negatively related to the alliance innovative performance, search span positively moderates either relationships. We conclude that, in order to make the most of broad-span searching, firms participating in R&D alliances should integrate geographically distant but organizationally proximate knowledge. By doing so, firms take advantage of the diversity and novelty that characterizes geographically distant knowledge, while preserving considerable levels of relative absorptive capacity that are needed for them to understand, internalize, and effectively use partners’ knowledge from different domains
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