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The COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated a global movement of open innovation initiatives aimed to provide knowledge and tools to support policy decisions and actions in the emergency scenario. The authors describe an open innovation process aimed to build an information coordination system to reduce the infection diffusion within the population.

The authors use coordination theory principles to elaborate a framework of activities, resources and dependencies among information resources and producers in the COVID-19 emergency. The framework was applied to develop a case study aimed at describing a health emergency system implemented by Dyrecta Lab (a research laboratory on computer science) and CITEL (a medical research center).

The authors describe the existence of relevant “flow,” “fit” and “share” dependencies within the activities of infection containment and medical treatment. The authors identify eight key resources and a number of actors involved in those activities, and describe a platform able to gather a multitude of epidemic-related metrics with the purpose to address dependencies and support decision making.

The authors provide insights for advancing the academic discussion on process coordination principles in time-constrained, volatile and highly demanding scenarios.

The value of the authors’ research can be identified for practitioners engaged to develop innovative development projects for public utility. The authors provide a contribution also for first responders and health operators involved in management of the current and future emergencies.

The adoption of process coordination principles is a relatively new and powerful approach to analyze and optimize the processes that characterize the management of emergency scenarios. Besides, the study and application of open innovation in healthcare are partially limited.

Crowdfunding (CF) is a fast-developing and multifaceted phenomenon at the intersection of entrepreneurship, technology, finance and sociology. Although it is an alternative way to fund innovative projects using the internet, CF can provide great value other than money. Nevertheless, only few studies have been conducted to shed light on such additional benefits. The purpose of this paper is to present an integrative model of benefits of CF for the successful undertaking and sustainability of an entrepreneurial initiative.

Based on a systematic review of literature, a preliminary taxonomy is first identified. Industry experts, campaign creators and the analysis of real cases are then used to progressively build a model of 11 areas and 85 categories of benefits deriving from CF.

The paper presents a comprehensive model of benefits of CF for the project, the start-up and the creator related to the following aspects: viability, costs, customer, demand, distribution, employees, fund, strategy, market, partners, personal, product.

The study does not distinguish among different forms of CF. Besides, only benefits are studied whereas potential drawbacks and challenges are not considered. Further research is thus needed to complement the framework along such two additional areas of investigation.

The theoretical framework is an exhaustive snapshot of the benefits of a CF campaign and it can thus be assumed as a starting point for future and empirical studies. Moreover, the paper can support platforms managers in the design of values-added tools aimed to improve attractiveness and project creators in campaign design and management.

Managing a project involves taking a number of critical decisions that can have a crucial impact on the success or failure of the initiative. The analytical definition and visualization of the main components of a project can support project managers engaged to address the right issues at the right time. This article aims to identify crucial crossroads in the management of a project and to provide a visual representation of knowledge involved into a system of project components and decisions.

A design science process is adopted to define the initial goals and requirements and to develop the knowledge visualization framework. Expert feedback is also gathered to obtain a preliminary validation of the framework.

Moving from a system view of project dimensions, we identify eight types of strategic decisions, i.e. growth, problem shifting, goals balancing, escalation, rewarding, resource allocation, problem fixing and cooperation. We then present a visualization map of project decision making addressing six categories of knowledge (i.e. “what-knowledge”, “how-knowledge”, “who-knowledge”, “why-knowledge”, “what for-knowledge”, “when-knowledge”).

The framework needs further theoretical refinement in terms of more fine-grained decision types, other determinants and the reciprocal influence in the management of project activities.

The article can support project managers attempting to build a comprehensive view of project decisions, and it can be a basis to develop novel types of knowledge management systems for project-related applications.

The article proposes a new approach to sustain strategic decision making in project management by adopting a knowledge visualization view. Moreover, it provides an operational tool for managers and analysts at different levels engaged into the management of a project.

The generation of new ventures within established companies, also known as corporate entrepreneurship (CE), is a process influenced by a set of individual and organizational factors. This paper aims to focus on creativity and human resource management enablers of CE, with the purpose to define an integrative framework and draw a set of related research propositions.

The paper relies on a multidisciplinary literature review in the fields of CE, creativity and organizational innovation.

The effectiveness of CE depends on a set of individual factors, distinguished into professional and psychological characteristics, and organizational factors, which include the system of values of the organization and the management practices applied in the same.

From a theoretical point of view, the paper develops an integrative framework of conditions that impact on CE and outlines a set of propositions and alternative research methods to test.

From a practitioner perspective, the study provides managers with a comprehensive set of factors enabling CE by leveraging the creativity of individuals and make it flourish through consistent human resource management practices.

The value of the paper stays in the integration of individual-related and organizational-related determinants of entrepreneurial performance.

Factors such as stakeholder requirements, emergence of exponential technologies, global business operations and pressures for sustainability increase the complexity of modern projects. This article aims to contribute by developing a systems view of project elements and relations among the same.

The article is based on a design science process and uses business management, project management and the system dynamics literature to support the construction of a conceptual framework, which is preliminary validated using practitioner feedback.

The project management model includes: (a) a systems view of a project in terms of 5 subsystems, 9 components and 27 dimensions; (b) a flow diagram showing 11 key relations among project attributes and (c) a discussion of ten system archetypes which can be identified in the management of a project.

Whereas the application of systems thinking in project management has been mostly addressed to build system dynamics tools, this article advances the discussion by providing a framework useful to support theory development and contextual knowledge construction in project management activities.

The article provides (project) managers with an articulated project management model and insights to address the complexity of modern project activities.

The main value of the research stays in the integrative nature of the presented framework, along with its twofold focus on components and flows (dynamic view).

This study aims to present a methodology and a system to support the technical and managerial issues involved in anomaly detection within the reverse logistics process of an e-commerce company.

A case study approach is used to document the company’s experience, with interviews of key stakeholders and integration of obtained evidence with secondary data.

The paper presents an algorithm and a system to support a more efficient and smart management of reverse logistics based on a set of anticipatory actions, and continuous and automatic monitoring of returned goods. Improvements are described in terms of a number of key performance indicators.

The analysis and the developed system need further applications and validations in other organizational contexts. However, the research presents a roadmap and a research agenda for the reverse logistics transformation in Industry 4.0, by also providing new insights to design a multidimensional performance dashboard for reverse logistics.

The paper describes a replicable experience and provides checklists for implementing similar initiatives in the domain of reverse logistics, in the aim to increase the company’s performance along four key complementary dimensions, i.e. time savings, accuracy, completeness of data analysis and interpretation and cost efficiency.

The main novelty of the study stays in carrying out a classification of anomalies by type and product category, with related causes, and in proposing operational recommendations, including process monitoring and control indicators that can be included to design a reverse logistics performance dashboard.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the need for a new corporate learning archetype in the extended enterprise scenario and to present the stakeholder university as a suitable model oriented to create value for a large number of business and non‐business actors.

A conceptual development is integrated with field studies to describe the distinguishing features of the stakeholder university and provide a cross‐discussion with the extended enterprise concept.

The stakeholder university is characterized by large focus, extended scope, and rich interconnection, which address in a comprehensive manner the needs and expectations of the resource base, industry/market and socio‐political stakeholders of the extended enterprise.

The topics investigated are mostly relevant for large international companies. Besides, further discussions are needed to validate the links between business models, organizational configurations and human capital development processes.

The discussion proposed can be useful for managers involved in the design and development of high‐impact and large‐scope human resource management initiatives.

The value of the article stays in the creation of a conceptual link between the business role of enterprise stakeholders and the requirements existing in terms of co‐developing intangible assets.

Business process management (BPM) is still mostly associated with methods and software tools for process modeling, automation and redesign/performance analysis, with limited effort toward building and applying interdisciplinary approaches which capture the real complexity of business processes. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate a system view of BPM and presents an actionable body of knowledge to enhance process-related decisions and actions within organizations.

A design science approach is used to build a conceptual contribution based on extended process management literature and a multi-year author experience in the area of business process engineering in both research and education contexts.

A business process management system includes strategy, model, execution and performance dimensions whereas the management of a process involves activities related to scope, structure, resource, systems, dependency, exception, performance and external integration.

The frameworks and related definitions need further theoretical development and refinement in terms of the components and reciprocal relations among system and activity elements. In this vein, the study would also benefit from real-life applications and empirical analysis.

The paper can support process implementation, maturity assessment and competence development efforts within organizations as well as be a foundational work to advance the creation of a global body of knowledge on process management.

The paper proposes a holistic perspective on BPM as a system of components and a bundle of activities, thus providing a twofold strategic and operational tool for process analysts and managers at different levels.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main factors affecting information and communication technology (ICT) adoption and process redesign within organizations, with the objective of defining a systematization framework and a set of methods and tools useful for students and practitioners.

The review of literature focused on organizational change and ICT‐enabled process innovation allows to extract the key issues for building the model and approaches presented.

The effective introduction of change requires addressing aspects placed at strategy, people, process and enablers level. A system view of these components and their relationships is a key to streamline ICT adoption and process redesign.

The roadmap is addressed to support only the design or pre‐implementation phase of change, with a major intra‐organizational perspective.

The main asset of this paper is to combine several frameworks into a unique roadmap to support the investigation of human, process, and technology dimensions of organizational change. Besides, a set of methods and tools are proposed to streamline the design of ICT‐enabled and process‐based change within an organization.

This paper aims to discuss the role of intangible assets in higher education and research institutions and to present a measurement framework, along with an illustrative application.

A review of existing theories and practical experiences is undertaken to build the core conceptual model and a dashboard of indicators. The model is then applied to investigate the mission and performance angles of intellectual capital with reference to an Italian higher education and research institution.

Creating intangible assets is at the core of the mission of education and research organizations. The identification and measurement of intellectual capital are thus an operational priority to evaluate the alignment between strategic orientation and performance within such institutions.

The research has to be considered as exploratory and presents a single case, resulting in the need for further applications. However, the dashboard of metrics proposed is comprehensive and can thus represent a useful ground for refinements, mostly related to the links between indicators and management/strategy issues.

The dashboard can be used as a stakeholder communication tool and a tableau de bord to support the strategic decisions related to the human, social and structural capital of education and research organizations.

The paper presents a first discussion on the systematic identification, classification and reporting of intellectual capital indicators in higher education and research.