A Design Thinking Approach for Museum Institutions

In these recent years, museum institutions are facing challenges such as deepening diversity among audiences and within the workforce, shifting authority and keeping pace with the creation of a digital offering to be provided in the new shared economy. Additionally, museums cannot just deliver knowledge as information anymore. They are forced to seek to be relevant and meaningful for the audiences and the society. Thus, a visitor-centered approach needs to be developed. The design thinking framework can help museum professionals to face the challenges they handle in today’s world. Indeed, this approach is focused on people and not on a specific product or service. The goal is to understand the needs of customers, their wishes and, based on this information, find the best solution to respond to the type of problem identified or the strategy to be developed. For this reason, the ratio of this discipline provides that people are stimulated to find alternative, creative, and innovative solutions designed and built on the reality of the facts and not dictated by instinct. The aim of this chapter is to investigate the characteristics of the design thinking approach and to analyze if this framework is suitable for museum institutions

The Impact of Exogenous Shocks on Business Models and Business Relationships: An Empirical Analysis of the Italian Music Industry

Purpose: Scholars have been increasingly interested in understanding business models. However, little attention has been paid to how business models change in reaction to exogenous circumstances and how business relationships alter be-cause of business model changes. This paper investigates how the business model paradigm of the Italian music industry altered in response to two major exogenous influences that impacted the sector: the digital revolution and the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: As the purpose of this study is to investigate phenomena in a real-world setting, qualitative research methodology has been selected as the most appropriate one. It was decided to conduct sixteen semi-structured interviews with professionals active in the Italian music business, selected through a combination of snowball and convenience sampling. Findings: The empirical findings indicate that the digital revolution and COVID-19 pushed Italian music companies to revise their business models by either reducing or adding the number of linkages to the existing ones. This was done in order for the companies to remain competitive in an environment that is constantly changing and to outcompete rivals. Originality/value: Few studies have evaluated how business relationships alter in response to the many business models emerging in the music industry due to external causes. This research is one of the first to examine music companies’ reactions to exogenous events such as crises or disruptive advances that affect the competitive landscap

Blockchain acceptance and adoption in the tourism industry

Tourism has always been characterized by extensive innovativeness (from theme parks and cultural&gourmet tours till a deeper service integration). Today, digital solutions represent an opportunity to expand and innovate the range of services offered. Focusing on blockchain as an emerging technological solution, the paper investigates how expert and practitioners perceive the potentialities and limitations of its adoption in tourism.To capture the attitudes expressed in the field, we analyze the ongoing discussions on a major social network: Twitter.Through a social network analysis of the flow of tweetsconducted overthree months, we map the current perceptions towards blockchain. Specifically, we contribute to the literature on technology acceptance and adoption by intercepting the current perceptions in the tourism industry.This paper shows how experts and practitioners are envisioning the possibilities that blockchain shape future services in the tourism sector. Our study is based on an extensive literature review and a social network analysis of a Twitter-database. This allows us to investigate the current sentiment towards blockchain, and also to envision future directions of a promising and yet under analyzed technology

Burden of disease, healthcare pathways and costs of cardiovascular high-risk patients with type 2 diabetes: a real world analysis:

Objective: To estimate the burden of disease and to describe healthcare pathways and costs of type-2diabetes (DMT2) patients at high cardiovascular risk (HRCV). Methods: A real-world analysis was performed by using a subset of the AR-CO database, containing administrative health data of >4.3 million of inhabitants. A cohort of adult patients with DMT2 and HRCV was selected in 2013, and followed for 1 year. Through this period, information on antidiabetic and cardiovascular therapies, other co-treatments, hospitalisations, and outpatient services, was collected and analysed. The costs associated with each variable were assessed to estimate the integrated health care expenditure. Results: Overall, 7,167 patients with DMT2 and HRCV were identified, corresponding to 3.1% of all diabetic patients and 0.2% of adult population. During the 1-year follow-up, 90.1% of the cohort received at least a prescription of an antidiabetic drug, 98.0% of a cardiovascular medication and 95.9% used at least an outpatient service. 44.5% had an admission during the follow-up period, especially for cardiovascular events. The integrated cost analysis showed that the overall average cost for each subject was € 13,567. Hospitalisations generated 86.8% of this expenditure, followed by drugs (7.7%) and by outpatient services (5.5%). Conclusions: Although patients with DMT2 and HRCV represent a small percentage of the overall population with diabetes, they generate very high costs for National Healthcare System. These costs are mainly due to the hospitalisations, especially for cardiovascular events. New therapeutic strategies involving these patients should allow reduction of hospital admission, resulting in savings for National Healthcare System

Local and transboundary transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus sequence type 398 through pig trading

Livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus sequence type (ST) 398 (LA-MRSA ST398) is a genetic lineage for which pigs are regarded as the main reservoir. An increasing prevalence of LA-MRSA ST398 has been reported in areas with high livestock density throughout Europe. In this study, we have investigated the drivers contributing to the introduction and spread of LA-MRSA ST398 along the pig farming system in Southern Italy. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of LA-MRSA ST398 isolates collected in 2018 from pigs (n=53) and employees (n=14) from 10 farms in the Calabria region were comparatively analysed with previously published WGS data from Italian ST398 isolates (n=45), an international ST398 reference collection (n=89) and isolates from Danish pigs farms (n=283), which are the main suppliers of pigs imported to Italy. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) were used to infer isolates relatedness and, together with data from animal trading, factors contributing to LA-MRSA ST398 dissemination were identified. The analyses support the existence of two concurrent pathways for the spread of LA-MRSA ST398 in Southern Italy: i) multiple introductions of LA-MRSA ST398 through the import of colonized pigs from other European countries including Denmark and France and; ii) the spread of distinct clones dependent on local trading of pigs between farms. Phylogenetically related Italian and Danish LA-MRSA ST398 isolates shared extensive similarities including carriage of antimicrobial resistance genes. Our findings highlight the potential risk of transboundary transmission of antimicrobial-resistant bacterial clones with a high zoonotic potential when importing pigs from countries with high LA-MRSA prevalence