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This study aims to analyze what promotes the adoption of open innovation (OI) in the foodservice sector. Specifically, it seeks to shed light on the bottom-up mechanisms (the microfoundations) that allow a foodservice firm to organize for OI.

The research design is an in-depth exploratory case study with 18 semi-structured interviews. The findings have been triangulated with documentation available on the corporate website, the project reports and direct observation. Data were analyzed using an inductive approach, coding individual interview transcripts.

This study identifies three categories of capabilities that have to be spread to different organizational levels: the capability to sense organizational triggers to change, to develop external collaborations and knowledge exchanges with different parties and the management's ability to be aware of organizational imperatives and the need to proceed with process adjustment. Results highlight the importance of sensing organizational triggers, allowing a quick switch between new strategies in implementing an OI approach. It was crucial for the company to co-develop new products and services with a large audience of stakeholders, not only limited to customers. The case remarks on the required ability of the organization and management team to activate mechanisms aimed at reconfiguring the competencies within each business unit, keeping an alignment with the needs of the stakeholders.

The study emphasizes the multi-level characteristics of OI and provides a framework for microfoundations on how to organize for OI. Results contribute to the recent debate on the skills and routines an organization should design and promote within their employees.

Drawing from the knowledge-based view of the firm, this paper aims to explore the knowledge management practices that the acquirer uses to exploit its knowledge creating conditions for the exploitation of the target’s knowledge and to explore its knowledge by realizing routines for the integration of new knowledge within the target.

This paper presents an in-depth case study analysis based on the acquisition of a Dutch food service organization by an Italian company operating in the same sector.

The case study analysis reveals four mechanisms for knowledge integration, two aimed at exploiting the acquirer’s knowledge, and two aimed at exploring the acquirer’s knowledge.

This paper unveils that it is the interlinkage among organizational, human and technological factors, at multiple layers of the target, which allows the knowledge integration within the post-acquisition process.

The purpose of this paper is to put forward a model to map the evolution of a business Community of Practice (CoP) in terms of learning and knowledge management processes.

Empirical evidence is based on seven case studies and the analyses of three best practices from secondary sources. Two of those cases are analyzed longitudinally from inception, while the others are retrospective. Cases were chosen in order to cover different kinds of industries and, especially, to analyze sharing of different kinds of knowledge (from call‐centre operators to complex new products knowledge).

The article sheds light on the different evolutionary paths that business CoPs follow and the role of the dynamics of the organizational commitment and the people involvement. It was noticed that a high level of commitment from both the organization and its members is related to the effectiveness of the Community in supporting learning and knowledge management processes.

The case studies and best practice examples reported are all based on the experiences of Western companies – although some, if not all, may have global operations. It is possible that some of the conclusions (e.g, levels of organizational commitment and individual participation, evolutionary stages and drivers), may not be valid for Asian‐headquartered companies.

This article aims to develop actionable knowledge to support management in understanding how to manage a business CoP, in order to create value for both the organization and its members. The proposed model can be used for mapping the CoP evolution, while identifying the appropriate governance tools to cultivate, stimulate and drive the Community evolution.

In the model, the evolution of a Community has been assessed in terms of its vitality – i.e. its effectiveness in supporting knowledge management and learning. This vitality depends on the combination of the organization's commitment and members' involvement. Therefore, supporting a Community in its evolution means stimulating and maintaining the commitment (animation and promotions levers) of these two parties.

Seeks to discuss barriers/drivers to the selection and implementation of different knowledge management configurations in the process of product innovation.

Building on literature and the previous survey‐based research results, this study compares on a longitudinal perspective the approaches of two companies with similar conditions but adopting different choices in terms of ICT and organisational tools to support the knowledge management process.

Case studies highlight how firms adopting a KMC that differ from the one indicated by the previous survey‐based research model show an intention to align to it in the near future. Hence, it seems that a match exists between the configuration expected from the model and the intended configuration planned by the company. Using longitudinal case studies the paper analyses the barriers that hamper the transition of firms toward the approach that better suits their contingent situation. These barriers are mainly at the level of industry trend, lack of culture from users and loss of champions. This paper also analyses the enablers, which strengthen the alignment between the configuration expected from the model and the intended configuration the company planned. These are the social interaction between employees, the pressures from headquarters, the internal commitment from top managers, the technological development and the ICT maturity.

The paper validates two hypotheses. H1: there is a match between the configuration expected from the research model (driven by contingencies) and the intended configuration planned by the company: the contingent approaches which disagree with the model represent different stages of maturity within an evolutionary path which drives toward the configuration expected from the model. H2: there are barriers/enablers, which hamper/foster the transition toward the intended configuration. It also analyses the barriers.

To survive in the global economy small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have to improve their products and processes exploiting their intellectual capital in a dynamic network of knowledge‐intensive relations inside and outside their borders. By erasing traditional constraints to SMEs innovation ability and leveraging their flexibility and responsiveness, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) provide SMEs with opportunities for Knowledge Management (KM) today in most cases largely unexploited. Focusing on the area of Product Innovation (PI) and drawing evidence from the analysis of a multiple‐case study on 47 Italian SMEs, patterns in the adoption and use of new ICT tools are explained in relation both to Contingencies and to KM internal processes. Complexity at both product and system levels, emerges as a key factor driving technological choices. Three different KM configurations emerge in relation to ICT approaches. Implications of this study are relevant for both SMEs managers and ICT developers/vendors.

This chapter aims to build a systematization of the current theoretical and empirical academic contributions on smart working (SW) in the organization studies domain and to examine which are the main paths that researchers are concerning themselves with, with specific attention being paid to the new meaning that the work itself has acquired in the model proposed by SW. Particular consideration is devoted to an analysis of the characteristics of the present debate on this construct and the meaning of SW, identifying two different – and contrasting – approaches: one considers it as a totally new concept; the other is notable for its continuity with previous arrangements such as telework. Further, some relevant concepts, strictly related to that of SW in working environments are considered. In the last part of the chapter, some key points for further research are proposed to create stimuli for discussion in the community of organization studies and HRM scholars and among practitioners, given from the perspective of deepening the change in progress, the relevance for which there is general consensus.

The purpose of this paper is to discover a three-step process for building contextual ambidexterity into inter-organizational IT-enabled service processes through developmental interventions.

A longitudinal action research project was conducted. The empirical study consisted of three consecutive developmental interventions to support the collaborative development effort of an IT company and its customer network to efficiently serve their present and future customers. The data consists of process modeling and simulation workshop discussions, interviews, observation, and archival data. The development effort was studied for over a year.

The study shows that the three developmental interventions acted as a process for balancing the exploration-exploitation tension in inter-organizational service processes. The sequential interventions facilitated the studied organizations in crossing the inter-organizational knowledge boundaries and creating shared domain knowledge, creating common understanding of the collaborative IT-enabled service processes, and co-developing the coordination mechanisms that are essential for the continuous exploration and exploitation of the new ideas in the future collaborative service processes. These three steps built capacity for the inter-organizational management system to achieve synergies between goals, resources, and activities in the inter-organizational collaboration.

The study contributes to the understanding on the process of building inter-organizational ambidexterity. The study presents a three-step process for building inter-organizational contextual ambidexterity into the IT-enabled service processes through developmental interventions. Research on inter-organizational contextual ambidexterity is combined with research on coordination and knowledge management.

The purpose of this paper is to study critical practices when adopting improvement knowledge as a management innovation in a professional organization.

This paper is based on an action research approach, in which practitioners and researchers are seen as a part of a participative community generating actionable knowledge. Research involved gathering data over a five-year period through more than 250 interviews and 25 focus groups.

This paper identifies five critical practices for adopting a management innovation in a professional context: first, focussing on labeling and theorizing to create an organization’s own vocabulary; second, focussing on the role of internal change agents; third, allowing for an evolutionary adoption process; fourth, building new professional competence through the change agents; and fifth, adopting a research-driven approach to the adoption of a management innovation.

For healthcare practitioners, this paper points to practices to consider when adopting improvement knowledge – for example, identifying the patient as the guiding principle and encouraging involvement and local change initiatives. For practitioners in other professionally driven organizations, this paper identifies critical practices for adopting a management innovation – for example, focussing on theorizing and labeling in order to create an organization’s own vocabulary related to the professional context.

On a generic level, this paper contributes to the understanding of critical aspects when adopting management innovations in a professional organization. In a healthcare context, this paper points to the value of improvement knowledge for improving quality of care. Improvement knowledge is relatively new in healthcare, and this study provides an example of a hospital in which this management innovation helped transform the organization.

Food companies and consumers are increasingly interested in healthy food and beverages. Coffee is one of the most commonly consumed beverages worldwide. There is increasing consensus that coffee consumption can have beneficial effects on human body. This paper aims at exploring Twitter messages' content and sentiment towards health attributes of coffee.

The research adopted a utilitarian and hedonic consumer behaviour perspective to analyse online community messages. A sample of 13,000 tweets, from around 4,800 users, that mentions keywords coffee and health was collected on a daily basis for a month in mid-2017. The tweets were categorized with a term frequency analysis, keyword-in-context analysis and sentiment analysis.

Results showed that the majority of tweets are neutral or slightly positive towards coffee’s effects on health. Media and consumers are dynamic Twitter users. Findings support that coffee consumption brings favourable emotions, wellness, energy, positive state of mind and an enjoyable and trendy lifestyle. Many tweets have a positive perception of coffee health benefits, especially relating to mental and physical well-being.

The high number of users and tweets analysed compensates the limited amount of time of data collection, Twitter messages' restricted number of characters and quantitative software analysis limitations.

The research provides valuable suggestions for food and beverage industry managers.

This work adds value to the literature by expanding scholars' research on food product attributes perception analysis by using social media as a source of information. Moreover, it provides valuable information on marketable coffee attributes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the integrated report (IR) of a South African public university (UFS), by comparing it with the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) framework, to verify whether UFS IR matches the IIRC framework main aims, which is integrating IC and non-IC information into a single report for stakeholders.

The paper employs the case study approach, which is appropriate when a researcher needs to conduct a holistic and in-depth analysis of a complex phenomenon in its real-life context. As such, this method is particularly suitable for exploring intellectual and social capitals, which is complex and context-dependent by nature.

UFS IR includes the content elements of the IIRC framework as labels, but it does not deepen their meaning. As regards the IIRC guidelines principles, the analysis of the UFS IR shows that it does not seem to follow them. Briefly, the data do not have an outlook orientation, the information is not interconnected, the stakeholder relationships are not highlighted and the organisational ability to create value is not disclosed.

The implications based on the “bad” experience of UFS IR aims to extend the findings of the case study by shedding light on the levers and the barriers that managers have to face when implementing an IRing project in their organisations.

To the best of the knowledge the research is the first investigating the IR theme in the public sector, specifically the higher education sector, dealing with disclosing IC (and non-IC) information within a new reporting mode: the IR.