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This study is intended to work out a bottleneck in the comprehension of the relational nexus which links the set of key strategic resources (SRs) of a company, represented by the uncertain recognition and the ambiguous clustering of their intangible components. The purpose of this paper is to provide a candidate solution for a rational appraisal of the inventory of the knowledge-based resources held by a company, which synergically form its Intellectual Capital (IC).

This goal is achieved by the means of a qualitative/quantitative approach composed of sequential phases, intended to: atomize the value domain of the firm into its basic building blocks; gauge their mutual interactions and impacts; re-aggregate those involved entities accordingly; cluster them into a collection of identified and validated Intangible Assets (IAs). Never giving any direct judgment on the IAs themselves (whose extension can be fuzzy or unknown). But on the impacts between the value drivers they are built on.

The proposed procedure, step-by-step illustrated by means of a numerical simulation, out of the amorphous mass of the SRs, returns an analytic picture of its composing elements keeping track of their intertwined connections and mutual influence. Consequently, allowing the comprehension of the actual framing and of the relational positioning and magnitude of such entities.

This risk-mitigated rational identification of IAs allows the analyst to target a proper evaluation technique on them. And the management of the company to mindfully allocate/leverage on them to improve business performance and strategy alignment. The implementation returns some analytic tools which render a diagnostic snapshot of the composing elements of the IC, increasing the awareness of such entities and allowing internal/external benchmarking.

The suggested methodology mitigates the risk of discretionality in the definition of the perimeter of each target-entity, by avoiding any direct biased judgment on them. So that each asset gets unambiguously identified within a network-logic and the interlinked portfolio of knowledge-based resources can be assessed and managed in an rational and traceable way.

The purpose of this paper is to test a way to overcome specific issues related to the assessment of the strategic capital and to propose a viable solution for its benchmarking. In order to fully appreciate this type of entity an audit on the strategic alignment of the resources involved and of the dynamics of value creation is required. This study tested a procedure to make such findings comparable with other organizations in terms of business performance.

The 7SF is proposed as an alternative method for effective gauging and benchmarking. It is based on an open framework which embraces procedural flexibility, so that different organizations can be processed an compared. A multiple case study (ceramic industry) is provided, where performances driven by strategic resources were detected. Eventually, conducting a comparative analysis of their scores.

The results unveiled some undisclosed knowledge about the value-creation mechanism and potential/actual performance gaps of each tested organization and confirmed the capability of this framework of being used as a benchmark tool.

Performance gaps can be correctly located and directly related to the resource type that caused them, therefore promptly managed and strategy can be re-aligned accordingly. The flexibility features of the seven-step framework allowed to utilize it as an effective gauge for entities that generally can hardly be measured and compared.

This study proposes an assessment solution which can achieve two objectives at the same time: rating the strategic capital and making such results comparable between other organizations, for a consistent benchmarking.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the recurrences in the empirical evidences that link open innovation (OI) actions and innovation performance in European countries. It provides managers with useful strategic suggestions, emphasizes the limitations of the state of the art, and recommends future directions of research.

The authors systematically reviewed empirical articles linking OI actions and innovation performance in European countries, published on peer reviewed journals from January 2003 until May 2013. The authors organized the evidences according to a novel taxonomy grounded in the literature.

The paper shows an increasing interest in the research of empirical evidence regarding OI and innovation performance. Nonetheless, evidence of the role played by outbound OI activities are extremely rare. The authors found that process innovations are more likely to benefit from coupled OI activities rather than inbound activities. Moreover, the effect of coupled depth actions on both product and process innovation performance was always positive in the reviewed articles. The authors also discuss how scholars measure innovation performance, pointing out the criticalities.

The paper allows analysing the empirical evidences found in the literature, emphasizing the limitations of the state of the art and recommending future directions of research.

The systematization of the empirical evidences found in the European literature provides managers with useful strategic suggestions to improve their organizations’ innovation performances.

The paper contains a complete and extensive analysis of empirical OI literature with respect to European countries. The articles and their findings are organized according to a novel taxonomy useful to identify evidences and recurrences in a synoptic manner.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework to analyze the intellectual capital (IC) of new generation business incubators.

The paper carries out a literature-based analysis of the different components of the IC of business incubators and develops a conceptual framework that links the business incubators’ IC to the IC of incubated firms.

The paper provides an analytical model able to support practitioners and scholars to better understand and evaluate the IC criticalities and requirements of incubators. The notion of incubation path is developed.

The paper contributes to the extant literature about the intangible assets of business incubators by analyzing in detail how these structures use their IC to perform their activities.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on how family firms execute open innovation strategies by managing internal and external knowledge flows (KF) to provide a deeper understanding of family firms’ ability to innovate through traditions and create value across generations.

Empirical evidence was collected using an online survey of a sample of 208 Apulian entrepreneurs, who were members of the association of young entrepreneurs of Confindustria in the Apulia region (southern Italy).

The study derives a model that explains the most relevant factors behind the innovation processes developed by young entrepreneurs in family firms: network membership benefits; KF; track record of innovation; and the entrepreneurial attitude of employees.

By integrating insights from different research streams, namely, innovation management, open innovation and family firms, the study provides a novel contribution to the open innovation process in family firms.

The study offers interpretative lenses for entrepreneurs and managers to understand the most suitable knowledge transfer process for encouraging open innovation in family firms, taking into consideration young entrepreneurs’ traditions and interpersonal skills, the KF in local ecosystems and network benefits as the main variables supporting the innovation process.

This study creates a link between open innovation and family firm research by providing an empirically grounded model illustrating how the innovation process is realized in family firms.

This paper proposes an in-depth and complete literature review of the revenue management (RM) issue in the passenger transportation industry. The purpose of this paper is to investigate structural elements and characteristics that help to make sense of the current body of RM literature under a managerial perspective.

The RM literature landscape is analysed according to a systematic literature review approach to point out the main topics around which the scientific literature has grown in the past 30 years. Topics are further categorized in themes by means of an agglomerative hierarchical clustering procedure.

First, the scientific literature of the past 30 years has been categorized into ten topics and four themes. Second, topics and themes are put in contrast with stages of the RM business process to highlight research areas still unaddressed by the literature. Third, the paper suggests research lines for future-related works that could positively contribute to the elevation of RM from a system of techniques to a “strategic management” theory.

Available literature reviews of RM in passenger transportation are focused on quantitative aspects and poorly structured in the systemic view of the RM. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first of its kind, as it aims to assess the whole body of literature, rather than specific themes, and to do it under a management/business perspective.

System dynamics (SD) is emerging as a powerful approach to understand, analyse, simulate and predict complex and dynamic business processes. In particular, it is true in the process of business model innovation (BMI) and not only as a computational approach. Due to the visual and diagrammatic tools employed by SD, innovation managers overcome humans' mental limitations and improve knowledge management in the BMI. This paper discloses the value of SD's visual tools, i.e. causal loop diagrams and stock and flow diagrams, to contribute to the “Knowldege Visualization” research line, and promote the application of SD as a powerful approach to support decisions in BMI.

Given the explorative nature and the “how” question driving the research, the methodology involved is a single, holistic case study. In particular, the case is about a business model (BM) diversification, in which an information and communication technology service provider has added to its existing business model a new BM based on a digital multi-sided platform, for passengers transportation.

The diagrammatic tools of SD, that is causal loop diagrams and stock and flow diagrams, allowed entrepreneurs to overcome the complexity of the business parameters concurring in the design of the BM.

The value of this research is in the exploratory approach and in the originality of the perspective by which SD is analysed: the visual knowledge perspective.

Digital platforms for the provision of food information-based services (FISs) represent a consolidated business with increasing revenue streams for entrepreneurs. Such platforms have transformed and clarified the nature of uncertainty and ambiguity inherent in the traditional food sector entrepreneurial processes. Anyway, a clear understanding of the value of digital platforms for FISs is not yet consolidated in the literature. With this paper, the authors try to fill this gap through a critical literature review of scientific research that combines knowledge on food consumer's behavior and user's knowledge behavior.

The authors carried out a critical literature review of scientific research combining knowledge of food consumer's and food information user's behavior. This allowed the identification of the main value components of FISs.

The authors propose a multidimensional framework for modelling the value proposition of digital platforms for FISs. Three main value dimensions have been identified: relevance, credibility, and accessibility. These dimensions concur with the consumer's perceived value of consumers in terms of benefits increase and cost reduction.

The research was intended to shed light on aspects characterizing consumers' perception of food information value. The authors put in evidence that the informational perspective of food communication is under-investigated. This study attempts to provide a holistic overview of the dimensions impacting on consumers' perception of the value of information for food consumers, opening new research perspectives.

The framework represents a tool for positioning food information offerings on the market, with the objective to analyze the value proposition of FISs according to a consumer perspective and to understand gaps of current offering of FISs. Moreover, it may support the design of a new generation of digital platform for food information provision, which would respond to consumers' expectations and information needs, highlighting emerging business opportunities for digital entrepreneurs.

Few research works provide a characterization of value proposition of digital platforms providing food information to consumers. In particular, to date, literature lacks of a holistic overview of the dimensions influencing consumer's perception of the information value of food communications.

This study aims to validate a direct method to measure relational capital through the estimation of corporate brands. Considering the influence of relational capital management in leading performance and brand development, we consider brand value as a proxy for relational capital. The main research goal is to extend the previous literature on intellectual capital, financial performance and brand management by elaborating and testing an original approach for valuating corporate brands using regression analysis on multiples based on firm-specific accounting data and market information.

The authors propose two econometric models, for both listed and non-listed companies, which consider brand valuations made by primary consulting entities (Interbrand, Brand Finance, BrandZ, European Brand Institute) and multiples derived from accounting and market data of firms. Models were tested on a sample of nonfinancial firms for the period from 2006 to 2019, distinguishing between IAS/IFRS-based and US GAAP-based reporting standards.

The empirical results show that the identified set of market and accounting multiples proved to be significant information for estimating the value of brands within the IAS/IFRS framework, while a lower explanatory power was assessed for US GAAP firms. Furthermore, the empirical evidence confirm that the direct, relative approach based on multiples is more accurate for valuating listed firms than non-listed firms. Robustness analysis demonstrates that findings do not change significantly when the reference datasets and the main assumptions of the models are altered.

The statistical significance of the analysis is limited by the non-objective nature of brand value estimates. The use of additional sources for brand valuations might allow for the further assessment of the robustness of the relationships identified.

Due to their efficacy and ease of use, the proposed models represent valid practical tools for managers, investors, analysts and professional evaluators.

This work contributes to the existing literature through the identification of significant, stable relationships between brand values and the main economic, financial and asset characteristics of firms; the identification of those relationships would allow for the extension of the multiples approach also to the evaluation of brands.