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Knowledge transfer is recognized as a fundamental issue for organizations. This research aims at investigating the knowledge transfer process, and finding out the most efficient and effective strategies to support it. Particularly, the research is focused on studying support strategies based on the use of technology. The paper proposes a model that describes both knowledge acquisition and practice. The model components are the actors’ cognitive systems, the processes of codification and interpretation, and the object transferred. The model predicts that a better understanding of knowledge transfer can be achieved by distinguishing organizational similarity from dissimilarity, training from fertilization, and autonomous from interactive practice. This is particularly helpful to discuss what the role and value of technology are in supporting knowledge transfer in organizations effectively.

Predicting customers’ purchase behaviors is a challenging task. The literature has introduced the individual-level and the segment-based predictive modeling approaches for this purpose. Each method has its own advantages and drawbacks, and performs in certain cases. The purpose of this paper is to propose a hybrid approach which predicts customers’ individual purchase behaviors and reduces the limitations of these two methods by combining the advantages of them.

The proposed hybrid approach is established based on individual-level and segment-based approaches and utilizes the historical transactional data and predictive algorithms to generate predictions. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is experimentally evaluated in the domain of supermarket shopping by using real-world data and using five popular machine learning classification algorithms including logistic regression, decision trees, support vector machines, neural networks and random forests.

A comparison of results shows that the proposed hybrid approach substantially outperforms the individual-level and the segment-based approaches in terms of prediction coverage while maintaining roughly comparable prediction accuracy to the individual-level method. Moreover, the experimental results demonstrate that logistic regression performs better than the other classifiers in predicting customer purchase behavior.

The study concludes that the proposed approach would be beneficial for enterprises in terms of designing customized services and one-to-one marketing strategies.

This study is the first attempt to adopt a hybrid approach combining individual-level and segment-based approaches to predict customers’ individual purchase behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that a deeper analysis of customer experience (CE) can identify idiosyncratic and critical perceptions in the experiences of groups of customers.

The methodology that the authors used is made of three main steps: segmentation analysis, profiling and identification of idiosyncratic clusters’ profiles (i.e. those with a CE perception different respect to the whole sample) and among these idiosyncratic clusters, identification of those that may be critical for the business.

The authors identified clusters of customers showing significant differences in their perceived experience with respect to the holistic CE model. Nevertheless, a sample of bank managers assessed three cluster profiles among them to be critical signals a company. The identification of these idiosyncratic patterns provides managers with interesting additional insights that would be hidden in a holistic CE model.

Managers can gain valuable insights of CE from this analysis that should be added to those coming from an holistic CE model.

This paper contributes to the scientific research in that it extends the knowledge about CE by showing how personal factors can be identified and how drawing additional managerial insights.

The main objective of this paper is to analyse the relationship between innovation and traditional concepts to explain the phenomenon of traditional food with innovation from a market and consumer behaviour perspective in the Mexican context.

The research is carried out in two phases: (1) analysis of the offer in distribution and (2) consumer research. First, a mixed observation technique in the offer of traditional foods with innovation was carried out. The data were recollected from 24 companies' websites and was complemented with information from main distribution chains of the city of Hermosillo (Mexico). Second, a survey was carried out with 310 Mexican consumers. The data obtained were analysed using bi-variable and multivariable techniques.

The findings from the websites showed that there are 19 traditional products with innovation that are marketed through this medium, while 39 traditional products with innovation are offered in distribution chains. Of all foods, 61% showed innovations in ingredients and materials. Also, the consumer evaluations identified three segments: the consumers orientated towards innovations, convenience and health (42.2%), those orientated towards sensory innovations (39%), and those more inclined towards innovations in marketing and availability (18.7%).

The research considers a partial perspective of the agri-food chain and not an integral vision, it is limited to a specific area and to certain traditional foods.

The symbiosis between innovation and tradition is identified from the perspective of supply and demand. The trend that exists in the market regarding the types of innovations and the gaps that exist regarding environmental elements are recognized.

The data obtained in the research generate information for business decision-making and entrepreneurship; in addition indicates new dietary and consumption patterns. It also provides knowledge about innovation and tradition, and highlights the relevance of traditional food.

This study tries to fill a gap in the literature by focusing on the market and consumer behaviour perspective for traditional food with innovation.

This study aims to explore factors that affect gendered consumption (male and female), willingness to pay (economic attributes) and the socio-cultural context of Gen-Z consumers towards specialty coffee as compared to other types in Taiwan.

Samoggia and Riedel’s (2018) theoretical framework is adopted to examine the concepts of interest. A mixed method approach comprising interviews and experimental taste tests was used to collect data from Gen-Z specialty coffee consumers in a purposive sampling manner.

The findings suggested the effect of price elasticity of demand where specialty coffee was perceived as an expensive commodity by young consumers, and hence, not a regularly purchased item. Nevertheless, specialty coffee was linked to health benefits, and a signal for conspicuous consumption – where café experiences facilitated self-promotion on sites like Instagram and Facebook. Finally, the findings alluded to a potential gender effect, with more female young consumers likely to consume specialty coffee as compared to their male counterparts.

This study is located within the context of Taiwan, which has been a tea-dominated consumption landscape for numerous decades. The use of an experimental design also presents a unique angle to elucidate sensory elements surrounding specialty coffee as a research design for Gen-Z research projects. The study points to the relevance of social context in the consumers’ behavioural patterns, which has been largely implicit within consumer behaviour scholarship.

This chapter highlights the importance of strategically managing knowledge networks. Strategic management is defined as being aware of current knowledge networks, understanding current knowledge stocks, and identifying gaps. It also involves assessing the knowledge needs of business units and ensuring that those needs are addressed. The chapter also highlights the importance of having a vision of a healthy knowledge network.

The paper addresses supplier selection in the public procurement sector. The motivation is providing a decision-making tool that mimics the intuitive behavior of the public tender committee in evaluating the bid according to predefined (quantitative and qualitative) criteria by a strict and transparent procedure, in accordance with governmental procurement regulations and requirements. To this aim, we address the supplier selection decision problem in the public procurement sector by a well-known fuzzy multiple criteria decision- making approach. Using the presented technique enables evaluation of both imprecise information and quantitative data in vendor selection, while keeping the transparency features requested in public procurement. We show the effectiveness and efficiency of the approach with a case study involving an Italian public administration.

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.

According to behavioral research, aspirations influence a firm's search – exploitive and explorative – for solutions that satisfy a firm's goals. Yet, such goal seeking behavior is adaptive to a firm's past experiences and not to a manager's expectations of its firm's future. A manager's expectations are often explained in terms of their confidence in future events. The purpose of this study is to address the following research question: how does a manager's confidence influence its expectations of a firm's future performance and goals; and how do these future expectations influence a firm's exploitive/explorative search?

In drawing on cognition and legitimacy research, a conceptual model was developed to explain the antecedents and outcomes of a firm's “forward-looking” aspirations. The antecedents to a firm's forward-looking aspirations are attributed to a manager's overconfidence – anchoring, confirmation and availability – biases. In using strategic legitimacy explanations, these biases introduce distinct types of forward-looking (exploitive/explorative) search that legitimize/de-legitimize a manager's forward-looking aspirations.

A key finding of this study is that it introduces a strategic decision-making process in which a firm's exploitive/ explorative search is adaptive toward its forward-looking aspirations.

This forward-looking strategic decision-making process offers research implications to understand how a firm's future goals and expectations can offer new understandings of their past experiences and traditions and explains how a manager's overconfidence biases can influence the assessment of a firm's social aspirational groups.

In addition, this study also offers practical implications in which illustrative examples are used to explain this study's forward-looking strategic decision-making process.

A distinct contribution of this study is that it introduces a forward-looking orientation that has not been previously examined the backward focus of behavioral research.