Eco-efficient and sustainable settlement experimentation in Mediterranean housing

Eco-efficient and sustainable settlement experimentation in Mediterranean housing Settlement experimentation in Europe is currently characterised by the attempt to promote energy efficient and environmentally sustainable housing in an evolutionary, organic and integrated sense; this approach could become a guiding tool for the transformation of the built environment, the latter consisting in the development and construction of a urban environment that shows sensibility towards ecological-environmental issues and social ones. The focal points of such research experiences are housing projects built in Northern and Central European countries; the latter being very interesting projects that have become models for the rest of EU countries, showing what can be obtained in the contemporary experimentation field. In respect to these study cases, now all we need is to find ways to transfer the acquired knowhow in Mediterranean countries and therefore to adapt the new sustainable strategies to the Mediterranean climate. In this framework the paper wishes to offer an exploration on a research case study, carried out in central Italy, about the development of Mediterranean sustainable development

Mechanisms to engage an online community in crowdsourcing: insights from an idea contest in training

Knowledge sharing is particularly important for co-creating, discussing, or acquiring innovative ideas. Crowdsourcing, as an enabler of open innovation, has raised the question about the kind of organising forms and/or managerial interventions it may require or underpin. However, there is little consensus in management studies on how to best design a crowdsourcing initiative (contest) with regard to the mechanisms to engage an online community. In this paper, starting from an exploratory case study on the project “Stati Generali della Formazione e del Lavoro” (General Assembly on Training and Work)—a crowdsourcing experience designed for a large community of professional trainers, planned and managed by University of Milano-Bicocca and AIF Academy (Associazione Italiana Formatori), a broad representative association of Italian trainers—we study the factors influencing the decision of the participants (a.k.a., solvers) to become involved (and to what extent) in a contest. The study could contribute to the debate on crowdsourcing by both underlining important governance factors involved and providing empirical evidence of the link between management strategies and crowdsourcing success