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The premise on which the stakeholder approach toward employees is based is that stakeholder management actions bring a strengthening of internal legitimacy and therefore the possibility of creating better working conditions that will lead to improved company competitiveness in terms of intangible resources developed by company employees. The aims of the paper are: to determine and to measure the system of resources of value developed by employees of a company that has developed a stakeholder management policy; to create a model that permits the company to evaluate the factors which have a major effect on the development of such a system; and to define the applications of the tool as a company's performance measurement and control system.

In order to pursue these aims two surveys were conducted in 2005 and 2006 on the employees of a leading Italian company in the agricultural food sector. Structural equation model methodology and multivariate analysis were used to define the quantitative measures of the system of resources and to determine the role played by stakeholder management policies in the development of the intangible resources.

The authors found that the company's social policies have a significant influence, even though its intensity varies, on most of the resources analyzed, and in particular on trust, job satisfaction, networking and communication, ability to work in a group and low turnover propensity. These results confirm the strong link between the resources of value developed by employees and the social strategy of the company.

The measurement system developed in this research can be used in any firm that wants to measure the intangible resources related to employees and represents a control tool that may support managers in planning and control the social investments of the firm.

This paper aims to advance the current debates on the effect of performance measurement (PM) in the operations management domain. In order to accomplish that, it investigates the contribution of business PM and human resource management (HRM) practices to business performance.

The paper is based on ten case studies conducted across both manufacturing and service organisations capturing evidence from both the human resource function and line management.

In the PM and HRM literatures, there is a debate about the contribution these practices make to the overall performance of the organisation. In particular, the results from the PM literature are inconclusive. This paper argues that performance is a result of employee engagement and that the PM system is a communication and guiding mechanism, which if implemented well and used appropriately, can channel the efforts of employees striving to perform.

This paper contradicts the performance drivers approach to PM by providing new insights into the roles PM and HRM practices play in delivering business performance. Additionally, the paper develops a set of propositions as a means of clearly stating the findings and for encouraging future research in this area.

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.

This introduction paper to the special issue on “The twenty‐first century knowledge‐based value drivers of innovation and sustainable development” aims to focus on such relationships between knowledge, learning, capabilities, innovation and competitive advantage in different forms of organization: businesses, clusters and regions. The purpose is to point out the conceptual pillars and contribute to the ongoing debate on: how knowledge assets impact organizational performance, what are the characteristics of such value‐generating processes, what factors affect the process of building organizational capabilities and distinctive competences, and how organizations translate specific capabilities into sustainable competitive advantages.

The article is based on a thorough analysis of the management literature addressing the nature, role and relevance of knowledge, organizational capabilities, learning and knowledge management for organization competitiveness. The conceptual background sets the foundations for a better understanding of the strategic importance of knowledge‐based value drivers for innovation and sustainable organizational value creation.

As knowledge management is establishing itself as a research discipline, it is fundamental to define the conceptual pillars grounding the application of knowledge management initiatives for innovation and business performance improvements. This paper provides a framework summarizing the key assumptions at the basis of understanding the strategic relevance of knowledge‐based value drivers for growth and competitiveness.

In addressing some of the questions posed, this article provides some implications for future research that build on different perspectives and emphasize the importance of adopting multi‐disciplinary approaches to disentangle the complexities of how organizations convert knowledge resources to a long‐lasting competitive advantage.

This editorial presents the key conceptual pillars explicating the role of knowledge resources as building blocks of organizational capabilities and how firms can develop and maintain their competences by promoting and nurturing learning processes. The value of this paper is the definition of a conceptual framework outlining the relationships between knowledge management, organizational capabilities, organizational learning and competitiveness.

The stakeholder theory is a prominent management approach that has primarily been adopted in the past few years. Despite the increase in the theory’s use, a limited number of studies have discussed ways to develop, execute and measure the results of using this strategic approach with stakeholders. This study aims to address this gap in the literature by conducting a systematic review of the stakeholder management process.

Five databases were selected to search articles published from 1985 to 2015. The keywords used were stakeholder management, stakeholder relationship and stakeholder engagement. Starting from 2,457 articles identified using a keyword search, 33 key journal articles were systematically reviewed using both bibliometric and qualitative methods for analysis.

The results highlight that stakeholder management is increasingly embedded in corporate activities, and that the coming of the internet, social networking and Big Data have put more pressure on companies to develop new tools and techniques to manage stakeholders online. In conclusion, synthesizing the findings and developed framework allows the understanding of different streams of research and identifies future steps for research.

While literature reviews are a widespread practice in business studies, only a few more recent reviews use the systematic review methodology that aggregates knowledge using clearly defined processes and criteria. This is the first review on stakeholder management in which the structure is existing knowledge on strategy development, execution and the measurement of performance.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) recognizes the right of disabled people to access work. Against this legislative backdrop, this study explores the strengths and weaknesses of the Italian system of targeted placement for disabled people, based on Law 68/1999, which delegates to regional authorities the management of the labor market. The examination centers on the perspective of companies, the primary stakeholders in the inclusion of persons with disabilities within organizational structures.

The article discusses the results of focus groups conducted with 28 managers of large, medium and small enterprises in Lombardy (Italy). Qualitative analysis was employed, and the results were structured using a simplified strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis, incorporating practical recommendations.

The analysis leads to practical suggestions to improve the entire targeted placement process at the regional level, from selection and accompaniment to evaluation, such as improving the networking of local stakeholders who deal with the inclusion of disabled people, homogeneity of the procedures in different regions, making all employees aware of diversity management, etc. The territorial network and the welfare environment are particularly important in achieving a successful targeted placement and to promote an inclusive corporate culture.

This study is not representative of Italy as a whole, as it remains a qualitative investigation focused on a single region.

This contribution accomplishes an in-depth study of the law of labor inclusion of people with disabilities observed from the point of view of companies, which are still usually reluctant to integrate people with disabilities into their organizations or encounter difficulties in doing so.

This study aims to examine the potential effect that business ethics (BE) in general and corporate social responsibility (CSR) more specifically can exert on the voluntary disclosure (VD) of intellectual capital (IC) for the ethically most engaged firms in the world.

The research design is based on an inductive approach. As part of the global quantitative investigation, the authors have analyzed the impact of BE and CSR on the transparent communication of the IC. The data under analysis have been investigated using multiple linear regression.

Based on a sample of 83 enterprises emerging as the most ethical companies in the world, the results have revealed that the adoption of ethical and socially responsible approach is positively associated with the extent of VD about IC. This finding may help attenuating the asymmetry of information and the conflict of interest potentially arising with corporate partners. Hence, IC-VD may stand as an evidence of ethical and socially responsible behaviors.

Global and national regulators and policymakers can be involved by these results when setting social reporting standards because they suggest that institutional and/or cultural factors affect top management's social reporting behavior in the publication of the IC information.

Direct and indirect stakeholders, if supported by ethical and socially responsible behaviors of the company, could assess more in detail the quality of the disclosed information concerning the IC.

Most of the studies that have been conducted in this field have examined the effect of BE and CSR on the firm's overall transparency, neglecting their potential effect on IC disclosure. This study is designed to fill in this gap through testing the impact of ethical and socially responsible approaches specifically on IC-VD.

This study aims to propose a conceptual model indicating the impact of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies on lean tools. Additionally, it prioritizes I4.0 technologies for the digital transformation of lean plants.

The authors conducted a questionnaire-based survey to capture the perception of 115 experts of manufacturing industries from Germany, India, Taiwan and China. The impact of I4.0 on lean tools, using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Further, the authors drew a prioritization map of I4.0 on the employment of lean tools in manufacturing, using the Best–Worst Method (BWM).

The findings indicate that cloud manufacturing, simulation, industrial internet of things, horizontal and vertical integration impact 100% of the lean tools, while both cyber-security, big data analytics impact 93% of the lean tools and advanced robotics impact 74% of the lean tools. On the other hand, it is observed that augmented reality and additive manufacturing will impact 21% and 14% of the lean tools, respectively.

The results of this study would help practitioners draw up a strategic plan and roadmap for implementing lean 4.0. The amalgamation of lean with I4.0 technologies in the right combination would enhance speed productivity and facilitate autonomous operations.

Studies exploring the influence of I4.0 on lean manufacturing lack comprehensiveness, testing and validation. Importantly, no studies in the recent past have explored mapping and prioritizing I4.0 technologies in the “lean” context. This study thereby attempts to establish a conceptual model, indicating the influence of I4.0 technologies on lean tools and presents the hierarchy of all digital technologies.

This paper investigates why and when messages regarding unsustainable luxury products lead to negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) through a focus on the role of guilt, need to warn others and consumers' cultural orientation.

Three experiments test whether messages describing unsustainable versus sustainable luxury manufacturing processes elicit guilt and a need to warn others and whether and how the need to warn others affects consumers' NWOM depending on their cultural orientation.

Consumers experience guilt in response to messages emphasizing the unsustainable (vs sustainable) nature of luxury products. In turn, guilt triggers a need to warn other consumers, which leads to NWOM about the luxury company. Furthermore, the results suggest that two dimensions of Hofstede's model of national culture – namely individualism/collectivism and masculinity/femininity – moderate the effect of the need to warn others on NWOM.

Luxury managers should design appropriate strategies to cope with consumers' different reactions to information regarding luxury brands' unsustainability. Managers should be aware that the risk of NWOM diffusion may be higher in countries characterized by a collectivistic and feminine orientation rather than an individualistic and masculine orientation.

Consumer reaction to unsustainable luxury, especially across different cultural groups, is a neglected area of investigation. This work contributes to this novel area of research by investigating NWOM stemming from unsustainable luxury manufacturing practices in different cultural contexts.