Search results

In this article, the authors study the gender pay-gap (GPG) among graduates in Italy (2011 cohort) who were employed four years after graduation. The authors focus on individuals who are new entering in the labour market or who match a low level of experience with a high level of education.

Aimed at estimating the amount of the differential between male and female average wages, the authors have applied the Oaxaca–Blinder (O–B) decomposition. The results identify the presence of a GPG at the very beginning of graduates’ careers given that, shortly after graduation, women receive lower salaries than men, even after controlling for several characteristics (individual, academic, job and local labour market). The authors completed the analysis with the reweighted O–B decomposition using the recentered influence function (RIF) and the Juhn, Murphy and Pierce and Machado and Mata decomposition approaches.

The results show that the GPG is already present at the very beginning of graduates’ careers, and it increases when correcting for women’s lower level of participation in the labour market. The authors also identified sticky floor and the glass ceiling effects due to the existence of a relevant high GPG both at the bottom and the top of the graduates’ wage distribution.

By focussing attention particularly on graduates, this paper adds to the existing literature a deeper understanding not only of individuals who have recently entered the labour market, but also those who are highly skilled but have little on-the-job experience. In fact, the authors are looking at a particular sample (graduates who are all transitioning from university to work during the same period) with small heterogeneity which allows the authors to compare very similar young men and women graduates and gain a deeper understanding of GPGs in early careers while controlling for confounding and hidden sources of variability.

As a result of the advancement of the online environment, several methodological proposals emerged to establish procedures for digital qualitative research. While the various online ethnography methods overlap, they are not equivalent in terms of their theoretical bases, procedures and goals. The purpose of this article is to add clarity to their main differences, depicting specificities, potentialities and limitations of each method.

This conceptual article results from an integrative literature review that brought together studies that proposed, debated or used qualitative research methods in the digital environment. The research focused on the primary indexed journals publishing cultural studies in the past 20 years.

The literature review highlights four methods – virtual ethnography, digital ethnography, netnography and the post-application programming interface ethnography. The integrative literature review adds clarity depicting the main premises and procedures of each method. The present analysis positions the different methods considering two dimensions: the focus on the boundaries of the group/culture investigated, and the focus on the platform agency, affordances and specific dynamics.

The article proposes a comparative framework outlining points of convergence and divergence to create a reference for researchers on topics of significance while designing and conducting a research study in a digital environment. This conceptual organization highlights and supports qualitative researchers on their methodological challenges.

University and college students are fully immersed in a participatory, interactive, digital culture that permeates every aspect of their lives. Today’s educators must find ways to integrate educational technology into their curriculum to fully engage their students in the learning process. The difficulty for educators is vetting educational technologies for pedagogical effectiveness and devoting time to work with them prior to classroom integration. Those responsible for creating faculty professional development training opportunities will find self-directed online learning modules coupled with a virtual learning community an effective training tool. Structured inquiry-based learning, which relies on self-direction, curiosity, and knowledge creation, serves as the framework for such professional development efforts. Faculty and staff from 10, public institutions in New York State created an inquiry-based, self-directed, learning community called Tools of Engagement Project (TOEP). The goal was to help faculty and staff identify and master Web 2.0 tools relevant to their teaching needs for integration into their skill set. Approximately 300 faculty and staff from across these 10 institutions met in a virtual environment during a four-month period to actively engage in a collegial, online community where they were encouraged by mentors and fellow participants to learn about Web 2.0 tools. Results of pre- and post-surveys and participants’ comments have shown this self-directed format to be an effective professional development training tool. The pace of TOEP and the differential teaching and learning aspect of the modules have helped faculty and staff who struggle to find the time to integrate these pervasive technologies into their teaching practice.

Frequently the universities' Placement Service is based on the student's hard profile at the expense of soft traits. On the other side, the “person–organization fit” axiom suggests firms are looking for profiles with specific soft skills to face the increasing level of environmental turbulence. This research aims to understand if high-resilience students also have high academic achievements and how the three components of resilience (emotional intelligence, positive thinking, planfulness) can have different impact on individual performances.

The research was conducted on students enrolled on different courses of studies and years in an Economics and Law faculty. A questionnaire was administered during the first exam session (ante-Covid) and the second and third exam sessions (post-Covid). This questionnaire consists of 84 questions related to planfulness, emotional intelligence and positive thinking, whose combination can be considered a measure of resilience. In fact, the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was carried to identify these three new variables (the components) based on the 84 initial ones. Finally, an ordered logit model was implemented to verify whether, and in what direction, planfulness, emotional intelligence, positive thinking and Covid 19 (the independent variables) affected the students' performance (the dependent one).

While planfulness positively affected academic performance, emotional intelligence affected it negatively. The impact of positive thinking and Covid was not significant, and thus what emerged from the preliminary analysis of the grades is not confirmed.

This is a case study of a university experience that is paying great care in preparing students to satisfy the firms' work demands. To confirm and refine results the sample will be expanded to other faculties and other life/soft skills will be investigated.

This soft trait approach—that studies how various measures of soft skills are related to course grades—has a two-fold significance by crafting universities' placement activities and facilitating firms' onboarding.

This is a case study of a university experience; a university that is paying great attention to preparing students ready to satisfy the firms' work demands but also citizens capable of supporting the growth of their nation and society in general.

The research can be considered a first step towards the inclusion of the formal evaluation of the students' life skills in their academic path, creating a link with their achievements.

This paper aims to investigate the phenomenon of online food purchasing in Italy and, specifically, Italian consumers' future intentions to use these services even after the end of the COVID-19 emergency. To this purpose, to understand if these phenomena are robust enough to represent irreversible and well-established trends, in the present study, consumers’ Behavioural Intention was investigated.

A theoretical framework based on a preliminary literature analysis on the use of delivery services was developed. Then, an online survey was carried out in Italy during 2021. The data were then elaborated through an exploratory factor analysis (EFA), followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Following the verification of constructs reliability, a structural equation modelling (SEM) using the statistical tools, SPSS and R (Lavaan) was performed.

The results suggest that Behavioural Intention is influenced by items such as convenience, variety of food and time savings. Moreover, the relevant role of social networks and interpersonal relationships in influencing consumers' purchasing intentions has highlighted the importance of focussing on advertising campaigns and good “word of mouth.”

The present research represents the first attempt to investigate the food delivery and ghost kitchens’ phenomena, recently accepted thanks to the delivery applications use in Italy, a Country with strong gastronomic tradition and with an important digital gap. In this scenario, the research focused on the attention on the consumers' future intentions to use these services even after the end of the COVID-19 emergency.

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the vulnerability of Florida’s coastal destinations to climate change and the costs of the adaptation measures required to cope with the impacts of climate change in a range of current and future scenarios.

The paper illustrates a range of current and projected climate change scenarios in Florida, the challenges the state is already experiencing in dealing with the impacts of climate change and some of the measures adopted to date in three particularly vulnerable coastal destinations, namely Fort Lauderdale, Miami Beach and Sarasota.

Although tourism is the number one industry in Florida, the state holds a particularly vulnerable position with respect to climate change. The vacuum of political will to address these issues at the state level is thus of particular concern given the vulnerable position of Florida’s coastal areas. With nearly 10 percent of its land area lying at less than one meter above the present sea level, adaptation is especially urgent in Florida. The local government of Florida’s cities such as Fort Lauderdale, Miami Beach and Sarasota are not willing to surrender to sea level rise (SLR). However, without a strong political will to address climate change at the state and federal levels, the costs of adapting to an escalating SLR are becoming progressively unsustainable.

This illustrative case study paper provides a contemporary synthesis of the implications for Florida’s coastal tourism destinations of rising sea levels and those adaptation strategies deemed appropriate in the search for their longer-term sustainability.

Through a literature review, a gap has been identified regarding the role of competition as a driver of social network (SN) usage. This study aims to design to address this gap, seeking motivators for SN usage based on how SN consumption may be related to users’ experience of competition. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of competition in social media usage.

The authors used an exploratory qualitative approach, conducting a set of focus groups with young social media users. Data was analyzed with software.

Two new drivers for SN use are proposed, namely, competition and collective narrative.

This is an exploratory study, and it does not seek to generalize results or quantify causal relationships among variables.

This paper offers SN managers a deeper understanding of key growth drivers for these media.

This research can help society understand and debate the impacts of SNs on users’ lives, providing insights into drivers of excessive usage.

This paper proposes the following two SN usage drivers yet to be described in the literature: competition and collective narrative.

This paper aims to analyze the digital servitization (DS) process with the paradox theory lens. The purpose is to catch how intra- and inter-organizational tensions generate complexity along a DS journey to find “where” and “when” industrial companies can intervene to face them.

The methodology is a qualitative, in-depth single case study, which longitudinally explores the DS strategy of a manufacturer along with three phases of development: design, implementation and assessment.

The analysis reveals six intra- and inter-organizational tensions in DS and provides insights on tensions’ origin and how to face them. A theoretical framework on DS complexity and an empirical framework on tensions’ origin is produced.

The research combines service and organizational paradox literature. Together with a longitudinal methodology, it results in a spatial and temporal analysis of DS, from which theoretical and managerial implications are drawn.

This study aims to focus on consumers’ preferences towards rosé wine and explore whether and how the consumption context may influence consumers’ choices.

Using social networks platform, the authors conducted a choice experiment, to evaluate Italian consumers’ preferences for a glass of rosé in two consumption contexts, restaurant and wine bar. Characteristics of the rosé wine also included price, origin and type of wine. The authors applied a latent class analysis to define rosé wine consumers’ segments and incorporated personality traits in the model.

The results define three rosé wine drinkers’ profiles: “Wine bar visitors”, “The unenthusiastic” and “Restaurant visitors”. Socio-demographic characteristics and personality traits significantly affect consumers’ membership to the different segments. Who prefers to drink a rosé glass at the wine bar is younger, more opened to new experiences and, therefore, more inclined towards more sophisticated choices. Consumers at the restaurants tend to be more extrovert and sensitive to price.

This study offers insight for practitioners of both wine and hospitality industries in the development of strategies for new products market placement and, at the same time, for academics who are interested in the understanding of behavioural reasoning of consumers’ wine purchase choices.

This research investigates the effect of consumption context on individuals’ preference formation for a less familiar wine, such as rosé in Italy. To the authors’ knowledge, no previous studies explored how personality traits may affect consumers’ wine consumption context choices.

This paper aims to provide a contribution on the diffusion of Industry 4 (I4.0)-related knowledge in industrial districts (IDs). The main goal is to examine the dissemination of I4.0 knowledge, exploring the main mechanisms for its spreading and highlighting the main factors shaping such processes. Focus is on dissemination processes in IDs active in traditional industries, which could represent the “periphery” of I4.0 application context.

The methodology is qualitative. Notably, this paper presents a case study of the Pesaro ID specialized in furniture/woodworking machinery sector. A total of 18 in-depth one-to-one interviews have been conducted with relevant informants from a variety of organizations within the cluster: companies, institutions and universities.

The complexity of I4.0 requires a combination of traditional mechanisms with innovative ones within IDs characterized by the emergence of new players, activities and resources. These changes led to three main evolving patterns: the horizon of I4.0 upgrading shows blurred boundaries in terms of sectors and geographic location, the I4.0 diffusion appears fragmented in terms of initiatives and projects by both firms and institutions and the dissemination of I4.0 knowledge pushes ID firms and institutions to pursue deliberate initiatives leading to innovative forms of “collective” cooperation.

This paper contributes to both theory and practice. From the theoretical point of view, this paper contributes to the literature on innovation in IDs and clusters on two interrelated grounds. First, it provides further research on I4.0 and IDs and clusters. Second, it contributes to the stream of research on knowledge creation and diffusion in IDs and clusters, providing empirically based insights over emerging local learning processes in IDs. Moreover, relevant managerial and policy implications stem from the analysis.