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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the emerging crowd‐funding phenomenon, that is a collective effort by consumers who network and pool their money together, usually via the internet, in order to invest in and support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Successful service businesses that organize crowd‐funding and act as intermediaries are emerging, attesting to the viability of this means of attracting investment.

The research employs a “grounded theory” approach, performing an in‐depth qualitative analysis of three cases involving crowd‐funding initiatives: SellaBand in the music business, Trampoline in financial services, and Kapipal in non‐profit services. These cases were selected to represent a diverse set of crowd‐funding operations that vary in terms of risk/return for the investor and the type of payoff associated to the investment.

The research addresses two research questions: how and why do consumers turn into crowd‐funding participants? and how and why do service providers set up a crowd‐funding initiative? Concerning the first research question, the authors' findings reveal purposes, characteristics, roles and tasks, and investment size of crowd‐funding activity from the consumer's point of view. Regarding the second research question, the authors' analysis reveals purposes, service roles, and network effects of crowd‐funding activity investigated from the point of view of the service organization that set up the initiative.

The findings also have implications for service managers interested in launching and/or managing crowd‐funding initiatives.

The paper addresses an emerging phenomenon and contributes to service theory in terms of extending the consumer's role from co‐production and co‐creation to investment.

In a largely exploratory study, the authors investigate: how do managers’ experiences with exogenous hazards (e.g., natural disaster risk) affect their identification of those hazards as salient to the firm? This analysis is based on an international survey of 575 managers across 18 disaster-prone countries. The authors examine whether and how locational hazard risk and managerial experience influence the identification of natural disaster risk as an important firm issue. The authors find that locational natural hazard risk, and direct and indirect experience with natural disasters, increases the likelihood that managers’ will identify firm-specific natural disaster risk as an important firm issue. In addition, the authors also find that managers are likely to identify natural hazards as a threat when natural hazard risk is high and when managers have experience in natural disasters that directly affected their businesses.

The paper aims to contribute to the debate concerning the use of knowledge translation for implementing co-production processes in the healthcare sector. The study investigates a case study, in which design was used to trigger knowledge translation and foster co-production.

The paper employs a case study methodology by analysing the experience of “Oncology in Motion”, a co-production program devoted to the recovery of breast cancer patients carried on by the IRCCS C.R.O. of Aviano, Italy.

Results show how design could help to translate knowledge from various stakeholders with different skills (e.g. scientists, physicians, nurses) and emotional engagement (e.g. patients and patients' associations) during all the phases of a co-production project to support breast cancer patients in a recovery path. Stewardship theory is used to show that oncology represents a specific research context.

The paper highlights the vast practical contribution that design can have in empowering knowledge translation at different levels and in a variety of co-production phases, among different stakeholders, facilitating their engagement and the achievement of the desired outcomes.

The paper contributes to the literature on knowledge translation in co-production projects in the healthcare sector showing how design can be effectively implemented.

Waste of electric and electronic equipments (WEEE) disposal methods adopted by most of the countries are based on adhocism and therefore cannot provide sustainable solution. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for sustainable WEEE management based on Human Activity Modeling. The macro model is developed to provide a problem-solving approach for policy makers and to aid them in determining strategic directions in policy making.

Qualitative research paradigm is used to review WEEE management in developed and developing countries and Activity Theory (AT) approach is extended into environmental management domain to design a sustainable system.

The approach recommends that the real world complexity must first be analyzed by “problem modeling” of the contemporary activity in the environment and then based on this mapping “solution modeling” must be carried out to obtain sustainable solutions.

The solution recommended is based on theoretical foundations but still a need for experimental evidence is felt to further strengthen the argument. Second further studies are needed to cascade the strategic-level model presented in the study to connect it with the community-level interaction.

Strategic policy recommendations are given to modify the role of three major actors identified in the society and resultantly attain socio-economic balance among the actors for obtaining sustainable solution.

The study advocates a new paradigm for solving environmental management issues by using AT approach, focussing on redesigning human interaction in socio-cultural perspectives.