Translating Organizational Change into Entrepreneurial Identity—A Study of Energy Transition in a Large State-Owned Enterprise

This paper presents a proximal study of energy transition in a large state-owned enterprise. Organizational change is the prerequisite for energy transition in a company that has historically understood its own identity in the remunerative oil gas industry. The methodology of the research is a qualitative on-field study of the implementation of the transition strategy inside the company. For this purpose, the research uses primarily first-hand reports collected within the organization in the years 2018–2020. The paper explores the dynamic process of change to reveal the tensions, conflicting identities, and strategies of implementation needed to start the energy transition, shedding light on the formation of a new corporate identity that traces back to the entrepreneurial inception of the company. The role of communication between the different levels of the company was crucial. The management found in the corporate history a moderator of organizational change that led to a renewed entrepreneurial identity. This paper brings evidence that a re-interpretation of the corporate identity is a condition that eases the process of organizational change. The results of the study will provide the theory with a practical case in order to better understand the transitions of state-owned enterprises in their effort to promote organizational change and drive sustainable innovations

The development of the space industry in Italy: from state ownership to the entrepreneurial state, 1969-2017

This article shows the evolution of the aerospace sector in Italy using archival sources which have not yet been fully explored. The sector experienced a shift from the state ownership model to a demand-side industrial policy. The historical case of how Alenia Spazio evolved into an innovative firm thanks to the Italian Space Agency’s demand-driven industrial policy contributes to the article’s argument that a proper mix of government-business networks and technology-led institutional arrangements spared the Italian space sector from the country’s general economic decline during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The analysis sheds light on the role of technology, institutions, and economic integration in the evolution of the space sector and the Italian form of capitalism at the end of the past century

The social value of Earth observation: A new evaluation framework for public high-tech infrastructures

This paper addresses the main challenges of evaluating the socio-economic impact of high-tech infrastructures, using Earth observation (EO) as an example. EO is a critical domain of the space economy, providing valuable insights into planet Earth's natural and societal aspects. As national agencies invest in high-tech infrastructures like EO, there is a growing need for evaluate their socio-economic returns (not to be confused with their financial returns). However, there is no clear consensus on how to assess such social impact. Building on a new field of studies of social cost–benefit analysis of research infrastructures and the socio-economic impact of investment in the space economy, we propose a new evaluation framework that considers the various stakeholders along the EO value chain. This approach can be adapted to evaluate the socio-economic returns of other high-tech public infrastructures, such as telescopes, particle accelerators, genomic platforms, synchrotron light sources, supercomputers and cloud infrastructures

A systematic review of agent-based modelling in the circular economy: Insights towards a general model

Circular Economy (CE) is a popular topic for governments and businesses around the world; yet, only a few comprehensive and economy-wide frameworks exist, and the consequences of the CE on economic systems stay unclear. With this systematic review, we put under scrutiny the existing contributions to Circular Economy (CE) that apply the Agent-based modelling methodology. There is an open gap in the CE literature regarding the use of ABM. The research question that guides this systematic review concerns the potential benefit of ABM for CE and how to use this methodology in the context of CE. We put in evidence three thematic areas, two agents and one process, namely producers, i.e. firms and industrial systems, consumers, i.e. households and waste disposal, and the diffusion of innovation. We infer that the former three thematic strands of literature can be further synthetized together to form a general model of the Circular Economy. This development is crucial to properly evaluate how the agent's heterogeneity affects the diffusion and the consequences of the adoption of CE practices on the economy. Research has widely applied ABM simulations to consider the impact of heterogeneity amongst individuals and their behavioural interactions on the evolution of complex systems, yet very little did it systematically about CE. Our results complement those of Computable General Equilibrium models. The review provides an interpretative framework, suggests valuable future research directions within the new comprehensive thematic area, and contributes to the theoretical and managerial discussion on agent-based modelling in the circular economy

In search of the spin-out entrepreneur

A spin-out happens when an employee quits a company to start a new venture; however, theories do not agree on whether the ‘spin-out entrepreneur’ will start the company in the same or in a different industry. We investigated a sample of 250 entrepreneurs and 120 spin-out companies to understand what led an entrepreneur or a group of founders to enter a new industry. Our results contribute to theory, suggesting that spin-out entrepreneurs usually move to different and innovative industries owing to recombination of knowledge in founding teams. Our evidence supports the positive effect of different experiences within the team

The social value of Earth Observation: A new evaluation framework for public high-tech infrastructures

This paper addresses the main challenges of evaluating the socio-economic impact of high-tech infrastructures, using Earth observation (EO) as an example. EO is a critical domain of the space economy, providing valuable insights into planet Earth's natural and societal aspects. As national agencies invest in high-tech infrastructures like EO, there is a growing need for evaluate their socio-economic returns (not to be confused with their financial returns). However, there is no clear consensus on how to assess such social impact. Building on a new field of studies of social cost–benefit analysis of research infrastructures and the socio-economic impact of investment in the space economy, we propose a new evaluation framework that considers the various stakeholders along the EO value chain. This approach can be adapted to evaluate the socio-economic returns of other high-tech public infrastructures, such as telescopes, particle accelerators, genomic platforms, synchrotron light sources, supercomputers and cloud infrastructures

End-to-end modeling: a new modular and flexible approach

In this paper we present an innovative philosophy to develop the End-to-End model for astronomical observation projects, i.e. the architecture which allows physical modeling of the whole system from the light source to the reduced data. This alternative philosophy foresees the development of the physical model of the different modules, which compose the entire End-to-End system, directly during the project design phase. This approach is strongly characterized by modularity and flexibility; these aspects will be of relevant importance in the next generation astronomical observation projects like E-ELT (European Extremely Large Telescope) because of the high complexity and long-time design and development. With this approach it will be possible to keep the whole system and its different modules efficiently under control during every project phase and to exploit a reliable tool at a system engineering level to evaluate the effects on the final performance both of the main parameters and of different instrument architectures and technologies. This philosophy will be important to allow scientific community to perform in advance simulations and tests on the scientific drivers. This will translate in a continuous feedback to the (system) design process with a resulting improvement in the effectively achievable scientific goals and consistent tool for efficiently planning observation proposals and programs. We present the application case for this End-to-End modeling technique, which is the high resolution spectrograph at the E-ELT (E-ELT HIRES). In particular we present the definition of the system modular architecture, describing the interface parameters of the modules

MMP, the Multi Mini Prism device for ESPRESSO APSU: prototyping and integration

The multi mini prism device is a crucial component of the Espresso Anamorphic Pupil Slicer (APSU). At the end of the slicer, is necessary to differently fold each field to correctly illuminate the echelle and this is made by cylindrical prisms glued onto a silica window. We present the integrated robotic system conceived to reach the required tolerances in term of alignment and integration. It consists in a tip/tilt stage to select the wedge angle, a rotational stage to select the right clock angle, coupled to an x-y stage to position the elements on the window and a z axis to perform the gluing

MITS: the Multi-Imaging Transient Spectrograph for SOXS

The Son Of X-Shooter (SOXS) is a medium resolution spectrograph R~4500 proposed for the ESO 3.6 m NTT. We present the optical design of the UV-VIS arm of SOXS which employs high efficiency ion-etched gratings used in first order (m=1) as the main dispersers. The spectral band is split into four channels which are directed to individual gratings, and imaged simultaneously by a single three-element catadioptric camera. The expected throughput of our design is >60% including contingency. The SOXS collaboration expects first light in early 2021. This paper is one of several papers presented in these proceedings describing the full SOXS instrument

Optical design of the SOXS spectrograph for ESO NTT

An overview of the optical design for the SOXS spectrograph is presented. SOXS (Son Of X-Shooter) is the new wideband, medium resolution (R>4500) spectrograph for the ESO 3.58m NTT telescope expected to start observations in 2021 at La Silla. The spectroscopic capabilities of SOXS are assured by two different arms. The UV-VIS (350-850 nm) arm is based on a novel concept that adopts the use of 4 ion-etched high efficiency transmission gratings. The NIR (800- 2000 nm) arm adopts the '4C' design (Collimator Correction of Camera Chromatism) successfully applied in X-Shooter. Other optical sub-systems are the imaging Acquisition Camera, the Calibration Unit and a pre-slit Common Path. We describe the optical design of the five sub-systems and report their performance in terms of spectral format, throughput and optical quality. This work is part of a series of contributions describing the SOXS design and properties as it is about to face the Final Design Review.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, published in SPIE Proceedings 1070