Globalization Vs. Territorial Markets: Selling Typical Products On The Internet

Technology, and most of all Internet, is considered the most important tool for the ongoing economic globalization process, allowing the commercialization of standardized products on a large international scale (Levitt, 1983).  Internet is also the real opportunity for micro companies to reach foreign markets at affordable costs (Hoffman and Novak, 1996).This paper focuses on the case of sales of gastronomic typical products on the Internet, probably one of the best e-commerce applications. In fact, no any other old goods can suit so naturally to the virtual market as typical products do.  Two are the fundamental characteristics of typical, “made in” products: first of all, they have to be specialty goods, differentiated from their competitors; then they have to be regional goods, that means having deep roots in their original territory. In the second part of the paper it will be interpreted how typical products find in Internet the way to valorize their local and regional diversities on international markets: this way Internet has reversed the famous international management postulate “think global, act local” into a new one: “think local, act global”.  Moreover, a partial empirical research about Italian companies selling gastronomic products on the Internet will be illustrated in order to verify quantitatively and qualitatively the state of art of this virtual business

Brand community integration, participation and commitment: a comparison between consumer-run and company-managed communities

In the past two decades there has been a growth in the rate at which consumers join, companies use, and researchers study brand communities. Given the expansion of brand communities, scholars insistently analyze why individuals join and stay in them. However, no study concurrently examines the links among the members’ integration, participation and commitment to a brand community. Furthermore, research conceive brand communities as homogenous. Whether the feelings and behaviors of members of different kinds of communities, and specifically consumer-run and company-managed brand communities, are comparable is unknown. Using a sample of 2167 consumers of a leading motorcycle brand, this study examines the members’ integration, participation and commitment to consumer-run and company-managed communities. The findings reveal that consumer-run communities stimulate higher levels of integration, participation and commitment than the company-managed communities, but that the mechanisms connecting integration, participation and commitment are invariant across the two types of community

Severe cardiomyopathy in a young patient with complete deficiency of adipose triglyceride lipase due to a novel mutation in PNPLA2 gene

We report the case of a 26 year-old male patient affected by neutral lipid storage myopathy with severe cardiac involvement. Patient parents were first cousins; a brother died at 3 years of age, during surgery. They referred that the child had always walked on toes, but he never presented weakness or difficulties in physical activity, compared to peers. The patient was first evaluated when he was 11 years-old and was reported to walk on toes, with difficulty to walk on heels, and to have mild calves hypertrophy and reduced tendon reflexes. Blood test revealed high values of CK (1657 U/L), while total and free carnitine levels were normal. Electromyography was normal; an effort test revealed excessive increase in lactic acid levels. He underwent a muscle biopsy that showed abnormal lipid storage. He was diagnosed to suffer from a lipid storage myopathy and therapy with riboflavin was started with some benefit to the patient. A neutral lipid storage myopathy was hypothesized and molecular analysis of the PNPLA2 gene revealed a homozygous novel deletion of seven nucleotides in exon 2 (c.41_47delGCTGCGG)

siRNA screen identifies QPCT as a druggable target for Huntington's disease.

Huntington's disease (HD) is a currently incurable neurodegenerative condition caused by an abnormally expanded polyglutamine tract in huntingtin (HTT). We identified new modifiers of mutant HTT toxicity by performing a large-scale 'druggable genome' siRNA screen in human cultured cells, followed by hit validation in Drosophila. We focused on glutaminyl cyclase (QPCT), which had one of the strongest effects on mutant HTT-induced toxicity and aggregation in the cell-based siRNA screen and also rescued these phenotypes in Drosophila. We found that QPCT inhibition induced the levels of the molecular chaperone αB-crystallin and reduced the aggregation of diverse proteins. We generated new QPCT inhibitors using in silico methods followed by in vitro screening, which rescued the HD-related phenotypes in cell, Drosophila and zebrafish HD models. Our data reveal a new HD druggable target affecting mutant HTT aggregation and provide proof of principle for a discovery pipeline from druggable genome screen to drug development

Climate Change and COP26: Are Digital Technologies and Information Management Part of the Problem or the Solution? An Editorial Reflection and Call to Action

The UN COP26 2021 conference on climate change offers the chance for world leaders to take action and make urgent and meaningful commitments to reducing emissions and limit global temperatures to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels by 2050. Whilst the political aspects and subsequent ramifications of these fundamental and critical decisions cannot be underestimated, there exists a technical perspective where digital and IS technology has a role to play in the monitoring of potential solutions, but also an integral element of climate change solutions. We explore these aspects in this editorial article, offering a comprehensive opinion based insight to a multitude of diverse viewpoints that look at the many challenges through a technology lens. It is widely recognized that technology in all its forms, is an important and integral element of the solution, but industry and wider society also view technology as being part of the problem. Increasingly, researchers are referencing the importance of responsible digitalization to eliminate the significant levels of e-waste. The reality is that technology is an integral component of the global efforts to get to net zero, however, its adoption requires pragmatic tradeoffs as we transition from current behaviors to a more climate friendly society

Climate change and COP26: Are digital technologies and information management part of the problem or the solution? An editorial reflection and call to action

The UN COP26 2021 conference on climate change offers the chance for world leaders to take action and make urgent and meaningful commitments to reducing emissions and limit global temperatures to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels by 2050. Whilst the political aspects and subsequent ramifications of these fundamental and critical decisions cannot be underestimated, there exists a technical perspective where digital and IS technology has a role to play in the monitoring of potential solutions, but also an integral element of climate change solutions. We explore these aspects in this editorial article, offering a comprehensive opinion based insight to a multitude of diverse viewpoints that look at the many challenges through a technology lens. It is widely recognized that technology in all its forms, is an important and integral element of the solution, but industry and wider society also view technology as being part of the problem. Increasingly, researchers are referencing the importance of responsible digitalization to eliminate the significant levels of e-waste. The reality is that technology is an integral component of the global efforts to get to net zero, however, its adoption requires pragmatic tradeoffs as we transition from current behaviors to a more climate friendly society.</p

End users' purchasing task involvement, power and influence strategies in organizational buying

Peer reviewe

Comparing the effectiveness of offline and online sponsorship of long tail communities

According to the recent \u201cThe Long Tail\u201d perspective the significant changes brought about by the digital age and by the web 2.0 are having a deep impact on market structures. As a consequence, the importance of business models based in niche markets is steadily increasing, while in the past most of companies were more likely to focus on mass markets and key clients who were thought to be more profitable. Anyway, given its novelty, this topic is still under-researched. In particular the aim of this paper is to explore the effectiveness of sponsorship of new \u201clong tail\u201d communities in term of purchase intentions of the sponsoring brands. Drawing on available models, this paper also explores the differences between online and offline sponsorship of the mentioned communities. Interesting results obtained thorough a research on 131 long tail communities\u2019 members are presented and discussed

The Long Tail Perspective for Niche Communities Online: a Framework for Brand Loyalty Measurement

According to the recent \u201cThe Long Tail\u201d perspective (Anderson, 2004) the significant changes brought about by the digital age and by the web 2.0 are having a deep impact on market structures since they are leading to hyper differentiation: much information is now available, the marketplace is more transparent and consumers can now optimize their choices (Clemons, 2008). As a consequence the importance of business models based in niche markets is steadily increasing. In the past most of companies were more likely to focus on mass markets and key clients who were thought to be more profitable. Nowadays the falling costs of storage and distribution and the global market makes it profitable to target the so-called \u201cThe Long Tail\u201d, which means serving niche markets and niche clients. That is why niches often translate to riches (Brynjolfsson, 2006). So far the costs to retain small niche clients have generally been estimated to be higher than the corresponding costs to retain key clients. Anyway given the new technologies, on which the long tail perspective is based, retention costs can be strongly decreased. This research is a preliminary study about the consequences of the changes mentioned before for brand loyalty and brand strategy. In particular, this paper intends to gather some evidences on how brand loyalty is positively or negatively affected by the choice of focusing on the long tail instead of the mass market, i.e. whether long tail customers are more or less loyal to the brand as compared to mass market customers. Specifically this study focuses on brand loyalty expressed by small and localized, \u201cThe Long Tail\u201d virtual communities, following recent researches about general brand loyalty within virtual communities (Lin, 2008; Lin et al. 2008; Porter and Donthu, 2008) The preliminary results confirm that \u201cThe Long Tail\u201d niche clients are characterized by different brand attitudes and by a different level of brand loyalty as compared to mass market client