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The paper aims to discuss the role of innovation labs as innovative management models to foster digital and continuous innovation practices within organisations of the digital ecosystem. A meta-model resulting from the analysis of the case study is proposed to describe the key phases and the relevant issues for the effective management of innovation labs as catalysts of digital innovation.

The paper combines theoretical insights with the empirical evidence gathered from a case study. The case study concerns the analysis of an innovation lab engaged in fostering innovation capacity and supporting digital transformation in a regional tourism ecosystem.

The study advances theoretical and practical knowledge about how to effectively design and manage innovation labs. Furthermore, the research provides scholars and practitioners with useful insights and implications for the elaboration, development and assessment of the managerial initiatives aimed at supporting organisations in facing the severe challenges of digital transformation, as well as in increasing organisations’ innovation capacity and continuous innovation attitudes.

The originality and value of the paper reside in enriching the empirical base for a later theory building on management issues of innovation labs, as well as in the proposal of a grounded-theory-based model for their successful management. In doing so, the study fills a relevant gap emerging in the current literature such as the lack of studies dealing with management models for the implementation of digital innovation strategies to manage digital knowledge, foster continuous innovation and based on innovative approaches and methodologies.

The concept of positional innovation – as one of the four innovation types of the Francis and Bessant’s “4P’s” model – is an effective product innovation strategy for producers of mature and credence goods as food products are. Despite the acknowledgement as one of the major industries worldwide, positional innovations about the food products are underexplored in the managerial literature. To fill this gap, this paper first develops a theoretical analysis of the concepts. Then, by adopting a case-study research methodology, it discloses the way a bakery small enterprise manages positional innovation. Theoretical and practical implications are finally introduced and discussed.

After a literature review about the role and the characteristics of the positional innovation, the paper presents a case study of definition and implementation of managerial actions and initiatives driven by positional innovation. The aim is not to report on an inductive study, but to use this example as a picture to clarify theory and show how the various conceptual issues may be operatively applied and provide more contextual insights.

It emerges how a small food enterprise manages positional innovation to survive and compete in the national and international markets; the positional innovation sources are tapped into culture, social responsibility, tradition and other territorial assets of tangible and intangible nature, effectively combined to innovate the product perception and/or the utility in a use context.

“Non-technological”, simple products, like food, are underexplored and rarely seen as relevant context to investigate along the strategic and innovation management literature. Nonetheless, positional innovation is a perspective that values and credits the innovation efforts of small food products, revealing interesting managerial concepts and inspiring entrepreneurs and managers for activating and sustaining new strategies of innovation for their businesses.

This editorial of the special issue of Measuring Business Excellence is devoted to introduce and discuss a knowledge‐based perspective of innovation and performance improvement in health care (HC).

The approaches, evidences and insights discussed in this introduction are based on the discussion of the topics of the conference “International Forum on Knowledge Assets Dynamics” organised in June 2012 in Matera, Italy. After a brief analysis of the importance of the HC for research and practice related to the reform of HC sector that encompassed most OECD countries in the last 15 years and the diffusion of the new public management philosophy, the article presents a rationale explaining the roots and the meanings of a knowledge‐based perspective of innovation and performance improvement in HC. The model of the innovation cycle is introduced and discussed. Finally, the article provides an overview of the papers of the special issue.

At the conference, leading experts discussed the importance of identifying and managing new key‐value drivers in order to face emergent competitive scenarios, and research and management practices for addressing complexity, uncertainty and changes of today's business landscape. This article as well as all the contributions to the special issue provide useful implications both for research and practice. In particular they support the analysis about the resources, the assets, the processes, the factors and the contingency conditions playing a role in determining the improvement of the innovative capacity and consequently the global performance of the HC organisations.

This article – and the contributions to the special issue – deal with different aspects which are important in the discussion about how fostering innovation and performance improvement in HC organisations exploiting knowledge‐based factors. The articles also deal with the approaches, tools, methods and techniques that disentangle the mechanisms by which different knowledge‐based factors, separately or interdependently, contribute to improve HC organisations' innovation dynamics and organisational performance.

Organizations are increasingly aware that to face complexity and uncertainty in today's business landscape, it is important to properly exploit, combine, and continuously develop their intellectual capital (IC). In this introduction to the special issue the aim is to develop some theoretical and managerial reasons explaining the importance of IC to achieve business excellence; then, to call for renewed analysis in the IC research stream aimed to investigate what are the new key intellectual capital dimensions and traits to be better developed and managed in order to deal with the fluidity of business, uncertainty, crisis, change, turbulence and high competitive pressure.

The approaches, evidences and insights discussed in this introduction are largely based on the discussion of the topics of the conference “International forum on knowledge assets dynamics” organized in June 2010 in Matera, Italy. At this conference, leading experts discussed the importance of intellectual capital for organizational business excellence in the twenty‐first century, the new IC key‐value drivers to manage in order to face emergent competitive scenarios, and research and management practices for addressing complexity, uncertainty and changes of today's business landscape.

The outcomes of this introduction and the contributions to the special issue reflect the emerging discussion about the role of IC management constructs. This discussion is largely focused on the importance of translating IC management within organizational components for achieving business excellence, highlighting approaches and tools in different contexts of analysis.

This introduction as well as all the contributions to the special issue deal with different aspects, which are important in the discussion of the role played by IC in achieving organizational business excellence as well as the approaches, tools, methods and techniques to better disentangle the mechanisms by which IC dimensions, separately or interdependently, contribute to improve companies' organizational performance.

The purpose of this research is to show how the variety of ways of performing through knowledge and intangible resources exploitation raises the question of how these kind of resources can be coherently and successfully declined into companies' processes and operations, what are the “right”, or appropriate approaches to manage intellectual capital (IC), and how these approaches can disentangle the mechanisms by which those resources contribute to improve companies' organizational performance. In this introduction to the special issue some conceptual interpretations are developed to investigate IC‐based approaches, methods, tools and factors of companies' performance improvement.

The approaches, evidences and insights discussed in this introduction are largely based on the discussion of the topics of the conference “International Forum on Knowledge Assets Dynamics” organized in June 2007 in Matera, Italy. At this conference, leading experts discussed the importance of IC for organizational performance improvement, the IC key‐value drivers of the performance management and measurement, and theoretical concepts of, and practical approaches towards, a high‐performing IC management.

The outcomes of this introduction and of all the contributions to the special issue reflect the current discussion about better operationalization of IC management constructs. This discussion is largely focused on the importance of space for IC management activities, on the main knowledge assets that drive companies' processes improvement, the diversity of the relative relevance of each knowledge asset and the necessity for strategic and managerial decision‐makers to learn to apply general approaches, methodologies and instruments in specific companies. In this context, managing IC was mostly dealt with as a means to reach performance targets.

This introduction as well as all the contributions to the special issue deal with different aspects, which are important in the discussion of needs for a better understanding of the relationships between IC management and companies' performance improvement as well as the approaches, tools, methods and techniques to better disentangle the mechanisms by which knowledge assets, separately or interdependently, contribute to improve companies' organizational performance.

Nowadays organizations have realized that knowledge, its effective use and the fast acquisition and utilization of new knowledge represent the only source of sustainable competitive advantage. In fact, an effective exploitation and management of knowledge resources are the basis of the development of those capabilities that ground the organization's capacity to deliver successfully targeted value propositions. During recent decades, there has been a growing interest in the processes of management of knowledge resources. Currently the debate on knowledge management processes is still lively. The dynamics which link knowledge processes to value creation, the valuation of their impact on organizational performance and the role of some organizational and technological resources as enablers or restraints of successful knowledge management emerge as relevant topics to be investigated. This introduction to the special issue aims to develop some theoretical and managerial reasons explaining the importance of an effective management of knowledge processes to deal with the uncertainty, change, and turbulence of the current socio‐economic scenario.

The approaches, evidences and insights discussed in this introduction are largely based on the discussion of the topics of the conference “International forum on knowledge assets dynamics” organized in June 2010 in Matera, Italy. At this conference, leading experts discussed the challenges and practices of measuring and managing knowledge resources to support value creation and business performance improvement of organisational systems.

The outcomes of this introduction and of all the contributions to the special issue reflect the emerging discussion about the role of knowledge processes and, more generally, of the management of knowledge resources, in value creation. This discussion is largely focused on the dynamics at the base of the translation of knowledge processes and resources into value, highlighting properly approaches and tools or application in different contexts of analysis.

This introduction, as well as all the contributions to the special issue, deal with different aspects which are important in the discussion both of the role played by knowledge processes in achieving outstanding organisational performance and the approaches, tools, methods and techniques to structure, organize knowledge resources and optimize their use in order to support effective organizational processes execution and value creation.

This introduction paper to the special issue on “Managing intellectual capital dimensions for organizational value creation” aims to focus on the relationships between intellectual capital (IC), innovation, performance improvement and competitive advantage in private and public organizations. The purpose of this paper is to review and underline some relevant theoretical pillars and contribute to the ongoing debate on how knowledge assets may impact organizational performance and innovation dynamics.

The paper is based on a deep analysis of the managerial literature addressing the nature, the role and the relevance of the IC dimensions for organizational value creation. The conceptual background sets the foundations for a better understanding of the strategic importance of knowledge-based value drivers for innovation and sustainable competitive advantage.

This paper provides a framework summarizing the key assumptions at the basis of a better understanding the strategic relevance of the knowledge-based value drivers for competitiveness.

The value of this paper is the definition of a conceptual framework outlining the relationships between IC management, innovation, performance improvement and value creation capacity.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the intellectual capital (IC) performance of the Romanian companies, to empirically examine the association between IC performance and traditional corporate performance and to analyse the relative importance of various components of IC on the company's performance.

Value Added Intellectual Coefficient model (VAICTM) is applied to measure IC performance. Traditional corporate performance is measured through profitability, productivity and market value. In total, 12 null hypotheses are tested using multiple regression analysis where another two control variables (firm size and industry type) are generally included.

Entities creating value from their intellectual, physical and financial resources are penalized by the capital market. Capital employed has an insignificant role in both value creation and in reducing company's production costs. Market value is not necessarily improved by a properly managed structural capital but is influenced by company size. Human capital plays a major role in productivity variation.

Results related to the impact of control factors are mixed and sometimes not significant. Additional research could introduce other control factors, may investigate paper's hypotheses across time, revisit some of the basic assumptions of the VAICM and assess their potential consequences for the validity of empirical testing and results.

This is the first study that replicates VAICTM in the case of Romanian companies. It provides valuable insights about corporate performance in an emerging economy and into the association between IC and traditional corporate performance. It enriches both IC and management literature with new empirical evidence and provides a basis for comparison with other studies.

This paper aims to define a general model to identify and assess performance and impacts of the technology districts (TDs), paying great attention to avoid confusion on contents and methods as well as overlapping of economic, financial and managerial dimensions of performance and impact that often have characterized the academic and policy literature. Although over the past years the emphasis on knowledge and science-based resources has strongly contributed to create a wide acknowledgement of the relevance of the TDs for the national and local development paths, there is still a need for a better understanding about the assessment of the TDs’ performance and impacts.

First, a literature review – both at academic and practitioners’ and policy level – was performed using a systematic approach. Then, a rigorous Delphi methodology was designed and implemented to identify and select the most important issues of interest of the research by soliciting qualified experts.

Based on this research, a well-grounded set of macro-areas and specific indicators aimed to assess performance and impact of the TDs is proposed from which researchers and policymakers can choose those which are more fitted to the needs of their studies and as a way to define the specific focus of their investigation.

The definition of this general model has the objective to support the elaboration of a structured set of managerial and policy implications able to drive, respectively, the management in the strategy formulation and implementation, as well as in the actions for the performance improvement, and the decision-makers in the elaboration of effective policies of development and correct evaluation of the impact of the TDs on the different places.

This paper contributes at theoretical and practical level to improve the managerial and policy methods and tools to identify, assess, manage and report the performance and the impact of the TDs. The originality and the value of the paper resides in its attempt to improve and to let more shared and transparent the informative quality on which the TDs are called to operate and report to the stakeholders, in particular regulators and public organizations. Moreover, this paper will hopefully stimulate a debate and encourage a greater level of clarity, generalizability and comparability in the TDs performance measurement systems research stream.