Exaptive innovation in constraint-based environments: lessons from COVID-19 crisis

Purpose – This paper explores how exaptive innovation process might be considered a useful innovation model in constraint-based environments. Through an in-depth case study, it illustrates clearly the antecedents of exaptation processes, which are particularly relevant in rapidly changing environments requiring new solutions under time and resource constraints. Design/methodology/approach – The authors adopt a single case study approach that is particularly suitable in case of an inductive research design, which is required because of the novelty of the topic. The research is inspired by the use of the snorkeling mask EASYBREATH, commercialized by the giant Decathlon, as a medical device, a respirator to treat patients affected by coronavirus in Italy. The authors organized the evidence according to a novel taxonomy grounded in the literature. Findings – The case study stimulates reflections on the existence of some antecedents to the exaptive innovation process in constraint-based environments: (1) the availability of specific actors in the innovation process; (2) the creation of platforms of interaction between people with different competences, nurtured by collective bottom-up financing systems; (3) the role of the community of makers, in particular, and of the 4th industrial revolution, in general, for creating enabling technologies; (4) multidisciplinary individual background of key actors in the innovation process is crucial to ensure the exaptive path to be in place. Research limitations/implications – This work has some limitations, due to the choice of limiting the analysis to a single case, nevertheless, it offers a first glance on a new technological trajectory available in constraint-based environments. Originality/value – The case study results underline the importance of new digital collaboration platforms as knowledge multipliers, and illuminate on the potential of the fourth manufacturing revolution, which, through new technologies, creates opportunities for distributed forms of innovation that cross long distances

Factors driving the share and growth of Chinese entrepreneurship in Italy

Chinese entrepreneurship may represent an important growth lever for a manufacturing country like Italy. Chinese are both, one of the fast growing ethnic communities in Europe and one of the most entrepreneurial. The development of ethnic enclave further contributes to support the increasing role of migrant entrepreneurship on local development. In the last decade, Chinese community is expanding at regional level and its entrepreneurial attitude is strongly increasing compared to natives in despite of economic crisis. However, since Chinese entrepreneurs are not homogeneously distributed, looking at spatial and industrial dependence is crucial to better understand the Chinese entrepreneurship growth strategies and to suggest policies supporting and exploiting local network externalities potentially influencing the regional development. In this perspective, this study focuses on the role of Chinese community size and its capacity to stimulate entrepreneurial specialisation rather than diversification across industries as well as the industrial specialisation of the local system in driving the share and growth rate of Chinese micro-entrepreneurship

Interpreting the trustworthiness of government mediated by information and communication technology: Lessons from electronic voting in Brazil. Information Technology for Development

Original citation: Avgerou, Chrisanthi, Ganzaroli, Andrea, Poulymenakou, Angeliki and Reinhard, Nicolau (2009) Abstract The electronic voting system of Brazil is understood to be widely trusted by the citizens of the country and international observers. More precisely, it is seen as a trustworthy mechanism of producing elections results that accurately represent the choices of the electorate. In this paper we discuss briefly the concepts of trust and trustworthiness and focus to examine the formation of beliefs regarding the latter. We argue that the belief of trustworthiness is only partly attributable to the perception of the merits of the technical system and its enactment procedures. Significant role in the formation of this belief in the case of the Brazilian electronic elections has played the the reputation of the institutional actors responsible for the elections -the Superior and the Regional Electoral Courts. We therefore conclude that, unlike common assumptions about the potential of e-government in developing countries to restore trust in government institutions which are considered untrustworthy, the production of trust in ICT-mediated government services relies on citizens' perceptions of their trustworthiness

Touristification, smartization, and social sustainability in European regions

Touristification and smartization processes are commonly associated with economic growth strategies. Here we emphasize and demonstrate the need to consider the implication of these processes on social sustainability. Initial results imply that: (1) regions not specialized in tourism are associated with a lower share of population in poverty; and (2) regions’ ‘smartness’ level is negatively associated with the share of poverty. However, in regions highly specialized in tourism, smartization demonstrated an opposite association of increased intra-regional poverty. As residents’ quality of life is becoming a key policy consideration, understanding the effect of these socio-economic processes on socially sustainable growth has timely implications for regional planning, including for post-COVID-19 recovery strategies.This research has been funded by the H2020 programme, SMARTDEST project under grant agreement no. 870753

Quantitative value of aldosterone-renin ratio for detection of aldosterone-producing adenoma: The Aldosterone-Renin Ratio for Primary Aldosteronism (AQUARR) study

Background Current guidelines recommend use of the aldosterone\u2010renin ratio (ARR) for the case detection of primary aldosteronism followed by confirmatory tests to exclude false\u2010positive results from further diagnostic workup. We investigated the hypothesis that this could be unnecessary in patients with a high ARR value if the quantitative information carried by the ARR is taken into due consideration. Methods and Results We interrogated 2 large data sets of prospectively collected patients studied with the same predefined protocol, which included the captopril challenge test. We used an unambiguous diagnosis of aldosterone\u2010producing adenoma as reference index. We also assessed whether the post\u2010captopril ARR and plasma aldosterone concentration fall furnished a diagnostic gain over baseline ARR values. We found that the false\u2010positive rate fell exponentially, and, conversely, the specificity increased with rising ARR values. At receiver operating characteristics curves and diagnostic odds ratio analysis, the high baseline ARR values implied very high positive likelihood ratio and diagnostic odds ratio values. The baseline and post\u2010captopril ARR showed similar diagnostic accuracy (area under the receiver operating characteristics curve) in both the exploratory and validation cohorts, indicating lack of diagnostic gain with this confirmatory test (between\u2010area under the curve difference, 0.005; 95% CI, 120.031 to 0.040; P=0.7 for comparison, and 0.05; 95% CI, 120.061 to 0.064; P=0.051 for comparison, respectively). Conclusions These results indicate that the ARR conveys key quantitative information that, if properly used, can simplify the diagnostic workup, resulting in saving of money and resources. This can offer the chance of diagnosis and ensuing adrenalectomy to a larger number of hypertensive patients, ultimately resulting in better control of blood pressure

Interpreting the trustworthiness of government mediated by information and communication technology: lessons from electronic voting in Brazil

The electronic voting system of Brazil is understood to be widely trusted by the citizens of the country and international observers. More precisely, it is seen as a trustworthy mechanism of producing election results that accurately represent the choices of the electorate. In this article, we discuss briefly the concepts of trust and trustworthiness, and focus to examine the formation of beliefs regarding the latter. We argue that the belief of trustworthiness is only partly attributable to the perception of the merits of the technical system and its enactment procedures. In our case study we found that the institutional actors responsible for the elections—the Superior and the Regional Electoral Courts—have played a key role in the formation of the belief that the electronic elections are trustworthy. We therefore conclude that, unlike common assumptions about the potential of e-government in developing countries to restore trust in government institutions that are considered untrustworthy, the production of trust in government services mediated by information and communication technology relies on citizens' perceptions of their trustworthiness