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An increasingly crucial role is played by nonprofit organizations (NPOs) as actors of collaborative governance arrangements for both the prioritization and direct provision of public interest services. Ever since the seminal study by Salamon and Anheier (1996), the drivers behind the rise in dimension and relevance of the third sector have been analyzed from different standpoints. It is now relevant to also analyze nonprofits not only as substitutes or complements to “classical” economic sectors such as government, but also the private for-profit sector. The types of relationships between socio-economic actors can be recognized as preconditions for explaining structural developments in knowledge-based economies, with a transformative impact on production modes and specifically on innovation ecosystems. With specific reference to analyses suiting the knowledge society, it is particularly interesting to consider the roles of outcome-oriented organizations as key actors for social innovation.

A relevant explanatory framework, which has gained recognition in recent years, is the triple helix model (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000). This approach was originally employed in analyzing the existing dynamics between key actors (government, businesses, and universities) in fostering innovation and knowledge transfer. The model is rising to be a key reference also for social innovation processes.

In this chapter, we enquire to what extent the triple helix approach to social innovation is diffused in the Italian context, and whether this affects the financial sustainability, collaborative orientation, accountability and readiness for innovation of Italian NPOs. To pursue these research objectives, we employ recent data produced by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) – specifically, the Nationwide Census of Industry and Services carried out in 2011 and published in July 2013. We intersect this secondary data with a nationwide survey of Italian NPOs conducted in 2013, specifically designed in order to gain deeper understanding of the revenue structures, organizational characteristics and features of collaborative relationships of such organizations – that is, highly contingent aspects at the meso- and micro-level which the ISTAT census does not cover.

Our results highlight significant differences in the behavior and outcomes for those NPOs who adopt a systemic collaboration approach with other actors in the socio-economic system. Based on this exploratory evidence, we propose reflections and indications for future research in the discussion section.

The evolution of capitalism has gone through four major epochs, from the first tangible exchanges of goods and resources, to the generation of wealth by entrepreneurs held personally accountable for their actions, to cost-cutting measures for increasing efficiencies and maximizing wealth for the few, and finally to a socially irresponsible form. The fourth epoch dispatched the last remaining shards of capitalist responsibility to anyone but investors, as the basis of wealth appropriation shifted to manipulating the speculative future worth of intangible or fictitious capital. This evolution through four epochs has sadly been a process of diminishing value creation (Boje et al., 2017).

We are trapped in an era of socially irresponsible capitalism with little respect for humankind. But, it was not always this way. The earliest references to entrepreneurial behavior emerged in the east during the Han Dynasty and in the west in the eighteenth century. Somewhat like the fourth epoch of the twenty-first century, these global beginnings of early capitalism were also directed by opportunistic desires to pursue wealth generation by taking advantage of people’s needs and wants. Although capitalists have consistently been the prime directors of resources and the distributors of wealth, in the early epochs of capitalism they were different. The early epoch entrepreneurs bore personal risks of business failure, consequences that might impact them for a lifetime.

The antenarrative generative mechanisms, or spirals, help us understand the interconnectivities of “real” and “actual” domains of reality (Bhaskar, 1975; Boje, 2016). Socially irresponsible capitalism is pulling global societies into a downward spiral toward an addiction of speculative destruction and dehumanization, transforming “real” into “actual” realities. We need a force to pull us back up toward a revitalized form of socially responsible capitalism. This force is called the socio-economic approach to management (SEAM), and in the responsible entrepreneurial spirit of earlier epochs, the path to recovery can be accomplished by accountably working with one organization or entity at a time.

This chapter first investigates the historical double-spiral-helix footsteps of socially irresponsible capitalism in the making. Then through a SEAM project example, we discuss how the micro-societal perspective of an organization places it at a deeper level of reality, deeper within the double-spiral-helix meta-reality of macro-societal capitalism. Finally, we demonstrate how the socioeconomic approach can help diagnose the deeper realities with an organization, beyond the evident narratives, to reveal the third spiral of deficiencies. This third spiral disenables the organization’s ability to activate the micro forces of socially responsible capitalism.

The chapter develops a conceptual framework for linking the phenomena included in the field labeled “organizational change” (OC). The objective is to design an OC model that makes selective use of existing theories and creates a premise for further development but avoids proposing a unifying synthesis with a normative value. At the center is the critical circuit of the relationship between the processes of organizational learning, resource development and power management which originates the triple helix of change. The framework explains a variety of change management experiences along a continuum between two poles – “turnaround” and “continuous and fluid transformation.”

Competitiveness of cities forces the city and public sector representatives to invent new methods of management and use the innovative thinking. Success of cities, based on Etzkowitz and Leyedesdorff (2000), has to take into account new strategies of co-operation of the academic institutions with the local authorities, entrepreneurs (in our case in tourism business) and new graduates focused on high-tech industries and start-up businesses. This trend is based on the principles of New Economic Geography (Krugman, 1994; Porter, 1998) and the new Theory of Growth (Romer, 1990), which enforce the importance of knowledge capital and smart technologies. Hjalager (2002) supported the idea of the importance of the institutional innovations and Ward (1998) mentioned that universities and research institutes are key entities to promote smart technologies and decisions in a city (Triple Helix concept). The purpose of the chapter is to discuss the results of research conducted in Waterloo, Canada, Ontario, which belongs to the Ontario Technological Triangle. Waterloo is a city of two universities, Waterloo University and Wilfred Laurier University. The purpose of the chapter is to discuss the results of research conducted in Waterloo, Canada, Ontario, which was focused on the competitiveness growth through the implementation of the smart management systems (Triple Helix Model) in the city marketing and governance. Some of these approaches influenced also tourism business due to multiplication effect and the growing competitiveness is a source of a continual growth of students, visitors and entrepreneurs to the city and the region.

An entrepreneurial mode is the latest stage in the evolution of the scientific role. Earlier phases included the differentiation of the modern experimental scientific role from natural philosophy in the mid 17th century. Indeed, the creation of the scientific role preceded the invention of the term “scientist” by Cambridge philosopher of science, William Whewell, in 1834 to describe Mary Somerville, a unique researcher. A transition from amateur to professional scientist followed in the mid 19th century, exemplified by another female scientist, Maria Mitchell, who carried out her astronomic investigations at home until she was appointed to an academic post in middle age (Bergland, 2008). A transition from basic researcher to entrepreneurial scientist is currently underway as part of a broader reconstruction of innovation systems from double helix (government–university or government–industry) to a university–industry–government triple helix (Etzkowitz, 2008). Each transformation in the scientific role reflected a change in the role of knowledge in the political economy. Thus, experimental science provided the instrumentation that allowed ocean commerce to be carried on in a secure fashion; professional science discoveries that were scaled up to provide the basis for the chemical and dye industries. Entrepreneurial academic scientists in collaboration with venture capitalists, building upon a substrate of government-funded research, created the biotechnology industry.

Following the triple helix (TH) model and the way knowledge is transferred into the industry domain, this chapter aims to define features interface that should be implemented in order to facilitate the University–Industry (UI) relationship and thus encourage the spin-off creation.

In order to support this relationship, a new business model configuration of an entrepreneurial ecosystem is proposed, aiming at creating a sustainable environment, where business entities can grow. The field of the Governance of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems is also investigated in order to define a framework for launching, developing, and sustaining a company over time.

This chapter presents a case study developed within the University of Salento (Italy). It capitalizes results from three different research analyses, based on questionnaires and interviews with actors of the spin-off network (professors and researchers, graduating students, admin-tech staff of the Technology Transfer Office, spin-offs’ CEOs/Associates, and R&D managers of external companies) and on results coming from scientific publications and regional/national reports in the innovation context.

A research methodology based on semantic network analysis and sentiment analysis has been applied in order to identify which features an interface should implement in order to facilitate the UI relationship and encourage the spin-off creation.

To support the start-up overcoming the “death valley,” the creation of a link between the strategy used to transfer value to the market and the phase of innovation is proposed inside the business model configuration. Some aspects of a governance model of an entrepreneurial ecosystem were also presented in order to support the business evolution of a single business entity and assuring sustainability over time.