Guest Editorial: Agile beyond software - In search of flexibility in a wide range of innovation projects and industries

The nine papers in this special section focus on new developments in agile software and reports on applications for its use. A key aspect for the extensive use of agile software is that it supports developers with coping with the growing uncertainty and turbulence in technological and market environments. Feedback and change are at the core of Agile for a dynamic, evolving, and organic, rather than static, predefined, and mechanistic development process advocated by waterfall management. To create timely, high-quality, cost-efficient, and innovative solutions, Agile developers organized in small, colocated, autonomous teams, build and test software in rapid iterative cycles, actively involving users to gather feedback, updating the project scope, and plan “on-the-fly,” using face-to-face communication as opposed to documentation. These papers contribute to the state-of-the-art of agile research by offering a rich, up-todate account of the dynamics occurring when expanding Agile into “not-just-software” contexts of the key challenges and perils related to the scaling and of the possible solutions to them

Supply chain management as the key to a firm’s strategy in the global marketplace

Purpose: This research aims to analyze the intersection of two literature streams: that of strategy and supply chain management (SCM). This review should create a better understanding of “strategic SCM” by focusing on relevant theories in the strategic management field and their intersection with SCM to develop a joint research agenda. Design/Methodology/Approach: We conducted a correspondence analysis on the content of 3,402 articles from the top SCM journals. This analysis provides a map of the intellectual structure of content in this field to date. The key trends and changes were identified in strategic SCM research from 1990-2014 as well as the intersection with the key schools of strategic management. Findings: The results suggest that SCM is key to a successful deployment of strategy for competing in the global marketplace. The main theoretical foundations for research in this field were identified and discussed. Gaps were detected and combinations of theoretical foundations of strategic management and SCM suggest four poles for future research: agents and focal firm; distributions and logistics strategic models; SCM competitive requirements; SCM relational governance. Research limitations/implications: Scholars in both the strategy and the SCM fields continue to search for competitive advantages. Much recent research indicates that strategic SCM can be a critical source for that advantage. One of the limitations of our research is that the analysis does not include every journal that published an article mentioning SCM. However, the 34 journals selected are reputed to be the most influential on SCM and focused primarily on SCM. Practical implications: The map of the intellectual structure of research to strategic SCM highlights the need to combine different theoretical approaches to the complex phenomenon of SCM. Practitioners should consider the supply chain as an informal organization and should devote time and resources to build a shared advantage across the supply chain. They should also consider the inherent benefits and risks that sharing Originality/value: The paper demonstrates that strategic SCM needs a balanced and rigorous combination of theoretical approaches to deliver more theory-driven evidences. Our research combines both a qualitative analysis and a quantitative methodology that summarizes gaps and then outlines future research from a large sample of articles. This methodology is an original contribution to this field and offers some assistance for enlarging the sample of future literature reviews

Consumer engagement through corporate social responsibility communication on social media: Evidence from Facebook and Instagram Bank Accounts

This paper investigates the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication through social media on consumer engagement, focusing on the top 15 European banks’ social media accounts. Drawing on stakeholder theory and customer engagement perspective, this study analyzes banks’ content posted on Facebook and Instagram from January 2021 to December 2022. The research employs multiple regression analysis to assess the relationship between CSR dimensions and consumer engagement. Results reveal that two CSR dimensions (employee support and diversity) positively arouse more engagement than non-CSR-related content. Oppositely, other CSR dimensions (environment, community support, product) provide negative or non-statistically significant results compared to non-CSR-related content. This empirical study, utilizing official data from Facebook and Instagram, contributes valuable insights into consumer engagement with CSR-related posts in the banking sector, addressing both scholarly and practical needs for understanding consumer social media engagement dynamics

Entrepreneurial education and internationalisation of firms in transition economies: a conceptual framework from the case of Croatia

The aim of this paper is to offer an integrated perspective on internationalisation process in transition economies and the role that an entrepreneurial education can play in it. The context of a transition economy, such those countries belonging to the former Yugoslavian republic, deeply affect the entrepreneurial activities established. Internationalisation offers a viable advantage to entrepreneurs and their firms to overcome a limited internal market and hostile conditions faced in the local environment. Thanks to the results obtained by a stream of studies focused on the entrepreneurial context in Croatia, we build a framework to explore the problems faced by entrepreneurs when internationalisation is considered and possible solutions. Our main contribution is the proposition of an entrepreneurial education as facilitator of the process. Indeed, entrepreneurial education, considered as formal education and an entrepreneurial university context, can directly ameliorate the process of internationalisation. Simultaneously it can also affect the networking strategy that in literature is another prominent element tackled regarding the problem of internationalisation in transition economies. Thus, entrepreneurial education may represent a strong boost in which to invest with public policies and targeted interventions

How does circular economy work in industry? Strategies, opportunities, and trends in scholarly literature

The concept of circular economy (CE) has been a topic of interest for researchers, managers, and policy makers. It is recognised as the latest attempt to balance industrial development, environmental health, and economic growth. Although academic literature in this field has been gradually developing, it is limited in its analysis in terms of economic and competitive opportunity in the face of different strategies. This article provides a holistic view by mapping the literature on strategies-based EC for the economic competitiveness of companies through a systematic literature review supported on the co-citation bibliometric technique. To this end, 126 articles were selected and organised into 5 clusters: (i) strategic applications of CE; (ii) mediating factors for implementing CE strategies; (iii) drivers of CE strategies; (iv) determinants used to promote CE; and (v) emerging digital technologies used to enable CE practices. The results of this study help practitioners assess EC from a new point of view and design competitive strategies for a circular model without neglecting economic growth and competitive advantage, in addition to serving as crucial evidence for policymakers, helping them leverage policies to circumvent sustainability concerns and promote circularity. A future agenda for detailed cluster-based research is put forward based on the identified gaps, including a framework to help managers set priorities to escape the zero-profit trend associated with green and sustainable practices.This work is financed by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I. P., under the project "UIDB/04630/2020".info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Knowledge Management in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Mapping the Literature and Scoping Future Avenues

Due to increased competitive pressure, modern organizations tend to rely on knowledge and its exploitation to sustain a long-term advantage. This calls for a precise understanding of knowledge management (KM) processes and, specifically, how knowledge is created, shared/transferred, acquired, stored/retrieved, and applied throughout an organizational system. However, since the beginning of the new millennium, such KM processes have been deeply affected and molded by the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, also called Industry 4.0, which involves the interconnectedness of machines and their ability to learn and share data autonomously. For this reason, the present study investigates the intellectual structure and trends of KM in Industry 4.0. Bibliometric analysis and a systematic literature review are conducted on a total of 90 relevant articles. The results reveal 6 clusters of keywords, subsequently explored via a systematic literature review to identify potential stream of this emergent field and future research avenues capable of producing meaningful advances in managerial knowledge of Industry 4.0 and its consequences

Technology Foresight: A Bibliometric Analysis to Identify Leading and Emerging Methods

Foresight studies provide essential information used by the government, industry and academia for technology planning and knowledge expansion. They are complicated, resource-intensive, and quite expensive. The approach, methods, and techniques must be carefully identified and selected. Despite the global importance of foresight activities, there are no frameworks to help one develop and plan a proper foresight study. This paper begins Keywords: technology foresight; strategic foresight; adaptive foresight; Social Network Analysis (SNA); bibliometric tools; data mining; text mining. to close this gap by analyzing and comparing different schools of thought and updating the literature with the most current tools and methods. Data mining techniques are used to identify articles through an extensive literature review. Social Network Analysis (SNA) techniques are used to identify and analyze leading journals, articles, and researchers. A framework is developed here to provide a guide to help in the selection of methods and tools for different approaches

Call for Papers/Special Issue: Agile beyond software - In search of flexibility in a wide range of innovation projects and industries

“At its heart, an agile approach has little to do with software; it's all about recognizing and applying feedback.” These are the words of Andrew Hunt, one of 17 authors of the Agile manifesto, which in 2001 initiated revolutionary changes in the way new software is developed and delivered. Yet, the large majority of empirical studies on the effective use of Agile principles and methods has exclusively focused on the IT industry. Thus, the aim of this special issue is to spur and develop high-quality research in the emerging field of Agile management beyond software development. The special issue intends to offer an holistic and rigorous assessment of the current state of the art in the application of Agile principles to project management, innovation management, new product development, entrepreneurship, software engineering and design

Talent management in English universities during the coronavirus pandemic

This article reports a longitudinal study exploring talent management, through narratives provided by a group of managers of doctoral programmes in eight UK universities during the 2020 coronavirus outbreak. These managers were also academics, researchers and doctoral supervisors and their perspectives were gathered before and during “lockdown,” and then into the subsequent confused period of semi-lockdown / second lockdown, as cases of Coronavirus increased again in late 2020. Changing socio-economic circumstances, together with the added pressures of family responsibilities, impacted on participants' perceptions of changing roles and relationships during the pandemic. Over 12 months, six semi-structured online interviews (each lasting between 50 and 120 minutes) were conducted, using available platforms, with intervening emails. The narratives showed both formal and informal “talent management methods” and emphasized the need to use both to attract and retain international students

Management lessons from Italy: a bibliometric analysis of top Italian based scholars and studies published from 1985 to 2015

Based on three decades of data collected via Web of Science (WOS) database this paper offers a comprehensive overview of Italian managerial studies published in international journals indexed in the WOS Core Collection. This paper, taking in consideration 1,665 researches made by Italian scholars or based in the Italian context, firstly shows the most influential papers, authors, and the most relevant journals. Furthermore, using a keywords co-occurrences analysis the paper shows the most relevant topics, how they are clustered together, and the relative importance in terms of number of citations. Finally, it provides a representation of keywords average novelty highlighting the past, the present, and the future trends in Italian managerial studies