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The purpose of this paper is to explore the “dark nuances” of social media by identifying moral disengagement (MD) mechanisms and hostile emotions in people discussing the hosting of immigrants and examining the relationship between MD mechanisms and hostile emotions expressed online (annoyance, irritation and contempt).

The method was based on a psycho-lexicographical approach that analysed the in vivo real words, adopting a quanti-qualitative point of view. The investigation started from the case of a Facebook post in support of immigrants after a serious shipwreck causing the death of more than 700 would-be migrants. More than 10,000 comments were codified. For the comments against the hosting of such immigrants, the authors followed a codebook aimed at identifying MD mechanisms and hostile emotions.

The main findings show an interplay between different hostile negative emotions and online MD mechanisms. The greater the intensity of hostile emotions, the more the locus of disengagement moves from the unethical individual’s behaviour – for example, offering moral justifications – to the target recipient of such behaviour – for example, blaming or dehumanising.

The study could be applicable in designing and developing algorithms and technological tools aimed at preventive interventions to promote moral awareness and emotional regulation in online settings.

The study may be a useful contribution to understanding unethical orientation by identifying areas where education can intervene in reducing harmful behavioural tendencies.

This study takes together expressed hostile emotions and MD mechanisms by means of the analysis of real words in vivo through social media discussions.

Decision-making plays a vital role in business. Yet as a trait, it is often overlooked when identifying, assessing, onboarding and empowering leadership talent. This study, therefore, aims to focus on the dimensions of organisational decision-making and investigate whether it should be an integral factor in the hiring process. The survey also looks at the relationships between decision-making and executive leadership, talent strategy and employee satisfaction. Could good decision-making as a trait be a factor when it comes to retention, improving organisational thinking and thriving leadership?

A quantitative and qualitative survey was commissioned and conducted by FT Longitude, part of the Financial Times Group. This included a questionnaire sent out to 400 senior executives at C-suite, C-1 and C-2 levels. The respondents were from companies with more than 1,000 employees in 13 industries and from five countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. This was also accompanied by in-depth interviews with three experts from both the public and private sector.

Almost two-thirds (63%) of senior executives have resigned or considered resigning due to frustration with organisational decision-making, while 29% have considered quitting because they were frustrated with the way a company makes decisions. More than a third (34%) resigned for this reason. Yet, a quarter of senior executives say that their decision-making experience was not explicitly discussed before starting their job. Senior executives who were asked about decision-making in interviews were 1.4 times more likely to be satisfied with their jobs. The ability to make decisions should therefore play a central role in hiring senior executives.

Decision-making as a trait has been neglected when hiring executives. For the first time, this research shows how significant it is for leadership teams. If senior executives are to improve organisational decision-making, this trait needs codifying in HR processes. This has led Kingsley Gate to embed it in recruitment profiling.

Although Colquitt’s Organizational Justice Scale (COJS) is one of the most widely used organizational justice scales (OJS) worldwide, a rigorous adaptation and validation in Italy is still missing. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to examine the construct validity and reliability of the Italian translation of the scale.

Factorial and concurrent validity were examined to assess construct validity. A confirmatory factorial analysis through structural equation modelling was conducted on five factorial models: one-factor, two-factor, three-factor, four-factor and second-order factor model. Concurrent validity implied the examination of the relationships between organizational justice and job satisfaction (convergent validity) and between organizational justice and workplace bullying (discriminant validity).

Evidence of the prevalence of the original Colquitt (2001) four-factor model was found, though also the second-order model obtained adequate goodness of fit. Findings supported both convergent and discriminant validity. Reliability analysis reported evidence of excellent internal consistency. Thus, the Italian version of the OJS can be used in Italy for research and practical purposes.

This is the first study properly addressing the factorial and concurrent validity of the OJS in Italy.

This paper aims to explore the effects generated by the Milan World Expo 2015 on both firm performance and seasonality structure. It aims to answer the following research question: Did the Milan Expo 2015 influence only hotel results without changing seasonal patterns, or was this mega event able to reconfigure seasonal periods?

The present analysis is based on Smith Travel Research (STR) data. This source offers daily data on a large sample of Milan hotels (approximately 80 per cent of the total), representing more than 30,000 rooms. The empirical data relate to a period of 12 years, 11 of which are focused on the pre-event period (2004-2014), while 2015 is centered on the Milan Expo. This data comprise 4,383 daily observations. For each day, three operating measures were analyzed: occupancy, average daily rate (ADR) and revenue per available room (RevPAR).

The empirical findings fully support the first hypothesis: the four seasonal periods built around the main market segments are relevant lenses for understanding Milan’s demand structure before Expo 2015. The findings also support the second hypothesis relating to the effects generated by the event: Expo 2015 was able to improve hotel performance during the four seasonal periods analyzed. The most fragile seasonality registered the highest rise. Finally, the last two hypotheses to be investigated are as follows: did the Milan Expo 2015 simply improve hotel performance, without changing the underlying seasonal patterns (H3), or did this event reconfigure the demand structure (H4)? The analyses carried out lend more support to the fourth hypothesis, suggesting that new seasonal patterns emerged during Expo 2015.

This paper explores the impact of a mega event on seasonal patterns of hotel performance metrics. At least three original aspects are introduced. First, to analyze the Milan demand variation, a market segment approach that proposes an innovative seasonal matrix is developed. This is based on the three main client groups attracted by the destination. Second, the effects generated by the Expo are measured with consideration given to the four seasonal periods. Third, based on graphical and statistical analysis, the paper confirms that new seasonal patterns emerged during the Expo.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate travel agencies' social media usage and its perceived effectiveness by small- and micro-Italian travel agencies; the pre-pandemic period is compared to the forecasts for the post-Covid-19 period and different characteristics of firms and entrepreneurs are considered. Furthermore, the study analyses the expected benefits in terms of marketing objectives, such as improving brand image and/or personalizing the offer.

The research was developed through a questionnaire administered electronically to travel agents (282 respondents). The resulting data was analyzed by applying the McNemar test, a pairwise t-test and the multivariate analysis of variance.

The results show that social media are strategically significant for travel agents, even though their adoption is influenced by different agency aims; the perceived effectiveness results are diversified according to varying agency typologies.

The two main limitations of the study are its focus on the Italian context only and the missing consideration of the consumer's point of view. The latter prevents an exhaustive assessment of future trends regarding the use of social media in the client–agency relationship.

The study, which focuses on a little debated topic concerning the relationship between social media and SMEs, organically explores various dimensions related to the adoption of social media by small agencies, also considering the impact of the Covid-19 on the perception of travel agents. As a further element of originality, the research takes into consideration the main social platforms separately rather than the set of tools as a whole.

Recognizing novel entrepreneurial opportunities arising from a crisis is of paramount importance for firms. Hence, understanding the pivotal factors that facilitate firms in this endeavor holds significant value. This study delves into such factors within a representative empirical context impacted by a crisis, drawing insights from existing literature on opportunity recognition during such tumultuous periods.

The authors conducted a qualitative inspection of 14 Italian firms during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The authors collected a rich body of multi-source qualitative data, including 34 interviews (with senior managers and entrepreneurs) and secondary data (press releases, videos, web interviews, newspapers, reports and academic articles) in two phases (March–August 2020 and September–December 2020).

The results suggest the existence of a process model of opportunity recognition during crises based on five entrepreneurial influencing factors (entrepreneurial knowledge, entrepreneurial alertness, entrepreneurial proclivity, entrepreneurial personality and entrepreneurial purpose).

Various scholars have highlighted that, in times of crises, it is not easy and indeed very challenging for entrepreneurs to identify novel entrepreneurial opportunities. However, recent research has shown that crises can also positively impact entrepreneurs and their capacity to identify new entrepreneurial opportunities. Given these findings, not much research has analyzed the process by which entrepreneurs identify novel entrepreneurial opportunities during crises. This study shows that some entrepreneurial influencing factors are very important to identify new entrepreneurial opportunities during crises.