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The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the articles presented in the special issue “Entrepreneurial learning dynamics in knowledge-intensive enterprises.” The special issue is inspired by recent research on entrepreneurial learning dynamics in knowledge-intensive enterprises literature. The aim is to extend and consolidate this emerging research area exploring entrepreneurship as a never-ending dynamic learning process, as well as, to cross-fertilize entrepreneurship and organizational learning studies.

The paper is based on a literature and published document review, experiential reflections and argument.

The paper reveals an integrative framework to highlight the breath of entrepreneurial learning research according to different level of analysis: the context where learning happen, the different typologies of entrepreneurial learning processes, the ontological levels at which learning can occur and the different typologies of entrepreneurial learners. Continuous learning processes allow entrepreneurs to develop and grow, as well as, enable knowledge-intensive enterprises to engage in strategic renewal processes.

Although, entrepreneurial learning research so far has focused on applying existing theories in the entrepreneurial context, more research is needed to broaden the perspective and understanding how entrepreneurial learning can help to face key entrepreneurship’s challenges in different context.

The paper presents an holistic approach of current entrepreneurial learning research and encourages researchers to explore how different learning types come into play in different entrepreneurial contexts (start-up initiatives, strategic renewal in incumbent enterprises, ventures development and growth).

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the scientific debate on innovation in tourism by focusing on modularity as emerging approach for creating personalized tourism experiences. The focus on modularity has two objectives. The first is to demonstrate that tourism offering can be conceived as bundles of products and services with growing relevance of knowledge; the second is to highlight how its adoption by tourism firms can enhance their competitiveness and contribute to assuring greater involvement of tourists in co-creating travel experiences.

The study adopts an exploratory approach based on multiple case studies to analyze two innovative tourism companies located in the Apulia region (Southern Italy).

Categorized as integrators of a wide set of tourist products and services, the cases provide a consistent scenario for deepening understanding of the meaning of modularity in tourism.

The study offers an original contribution in determining the meaning of modularity in the field of knowledge-intensive services by demonstrating that the adoption of a modularity approach in the designing and offering by tourism companies can provide interesting benefits for their competitiveness and the greater satisfaction of customers.

The study offers implications for companies and decision makers involved in delivering more personalized tourism experiences.

Elements of originality can be identified in this contribution to the extension of studies on modularity in the service sector as well as for its strategic contribution at the co-creation of personalized tourism experience.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the main Intellectual Property (IP) protection strategies adopted in the R&D phases of a company operating in the bio-pharmaceutical industry, according to an open innovation (OI) approach.

In order to assess how R&D intensive firms adopt IP strategies during OI practices, this research uses a single case-study design. The case has been studied over an extended period of time (from 2008 to 2015), triangulating data and information by means of multiple interviews with different key informants and projects documents. The novelty of the research justifies the use of a single case study.

The study reveals how a mix of formal and informal tools for IP protection are used, with a final attempt to maintain control over different technological solutions during their validation process and profiting from stable R&D collaborations with research partners.

Limitations of the study relate to the single case study methodology as well as to some peculiarities of the analyzed company and of the Bio-Pharmaceutical industry.

Research managers could find some food for thought in the adoption of OI approaches for reducing costs and risks associated with technological uncertainty, with particular attention to the strategic role of IP rights.

Despite knowledge protection being widely recognized to be a critical issue for implementing OI approaches, how IP strategies should be used in the different phases of R&D is still debatable. Moreover, few empirical studies relate to the adoption of optimal combinations of IP tools in relation to the different R&D phases in such technology intensive industries as the bio-pharmaceutical industry.

Universities concerned with third mission activities are engines that increase regional competitiveness since their primary role in the knowledge-based economy is to stimulate innovation by transferring new knowledge and technologies to industry and society. The purpose of this paper is to show how IC can be mobilized by university technology transfer offices (TTOs) due to the correlation between efficient university technology transfer and intellectual capital (IC), thus contributing to the third stage of IC research.

The application of the Maturity Model developed by Secundo et al. (2016) is expanded by collecting data from 18 universities in the European countries to illustrate how IC can be used as a strategy and solution to the barriers faced by TTOs.

TTOs with increased access to and utilization of IC tend to have higher maturity levels. This new application of the Maturity Model, proves that IC can be utilized to manage and improve the efficiency of TTOs.

An indication of the level of access that TTOs have to university IC is given leading to recommendations to improve university technology transfer. Future research should include a wider sample of universities to increase the validation of the Maturity Model and to prove it as a suitable and strategic approach for IC management at TTOs.

Knowing which IC components are essential for the efficiency of TTOs, and which IC needs greater utilization, will provide insights into policy and practical interventions to improve their efficiency, resulting in increasing universities’ competitiveness.

A new approach and perspective on utilizing IC to improve university technology transfer to contribute to the third stage of IC research calling for more practice-oriented research.

This paper aims to demonstrate how customer knowledge management (CKM) can opportunely support the process of value creation from Big Data. Focusing on tourism as a knowledge-intensive industry, the paper tries to contribute to the debate on management of Big Data by proposing CKM as a meaningful approach for transforming the huge amount of data available on social networks into valuable assets for competitiveness of tourism destinations.

The paper adopts a qualitative research methodology based on multiple exploratory case studies identified in a set of digital local events related to the Apulia destination (southern Italy).

Research findings demonstrate that the three dimensions of CKM (knowledge for, from and about customers) could be adopted as lens for analyzing the huge amount of data created for, from and about tourist experiences and for transforming them into valuable assets supporting the competitiveness of tourism destinations.

Limitations are related to the industry and the regional dimension of the sample. Accordingly, more research is necessary to prove the validity of the approach and to assure its larger replicability.

Implications for the agenda of organizations and destinations’ makers for designing and implementing knowledge-based services and products arise.

Elements of originality reside into the adoption of CKM as framework to analyze Big Data in the tourism industry.

This study aims to investigate the Big Social Data (BSD) paradigm, which still lacks a clear and shared definition, and causes a lack of clarity and understanding about its beneficial opportunities for practitioners. In the knowledge management (KM) domain, a clear characterization of the BSD paradigm can lead to more effective and efficient KM strategies, processes and systems that leverage a huge amount of structured and unstructured data sources.

The study adopts a systematic literature review (SLR) methodology based on a mixed analysis approach (unsupervised machine learning and human-based) applied to 199 research articles on BSD topics extracted from Scopus and Web of Science. In particular, machine learning processing has been implemented by using topic extraction and hierarchical clustering techniques.

The paper provides a threefold contribution: a conceptualization and a consensual definition of the BSD paradigm through the identification of four key conceptual pillars (i.e. sources, properties, technology and value exploitation); a characterization of the taxonomy of BSD data type that extends previous works on this topic; a research agenda for future research studies on BSD and its applications along with a KM perspective.

The main limits of the research rely on the list of articles considered for the literature review that could be enlarged by considering further sources (in addition to Scopus and Web of Science) and/or further languages (in addition to English) and/or further years (the review considers papers published until 2018). Research implications concern the development of a research agenda organized along with five thematic issues, which can feed future research to deepen the paradigm of BSD and explore linkages with the KM field.

Practical implications concern the usage of the proposed definition of BSD to purposefully design applications and services based on BSD in knowledge-intensive domains to generate value for citizens, individuals, companies and territories.

The original contribution concerns the definition of the big data social paradigm built through an SLR the combines machine learning processing and human-based processing. Moreover, the research agenda deriving from the study contributes to investigate the BSD paradigm in the wider domain of KM.

The paper aims to contribute to the Circular Economy debate from the Entrepreneurship Education perspective. Despite scholars' growing interest in both these research streams, scarce consideration is given to the comprehension of their mutual implications and meaning.

The paper is based on a cross-case analysis. It compares 16 higher education programmes launched by Universities in Europe aimed to create competences and skills for Circular Economy in students with different profiles. The analysis provides a critical view of the emerging trends for the entrepreneurship education skills and competencies needed for the emerging circular entrepreneurship paradigm.

The paper discusses the main trends of Entrepreneurship Education focused on Circular Economy debate at the European level: rationale and learning objectives (why); contents (what), target students and stakeholders (who) and the learning processes (how). Four thematic areas are identified as common patterns: circular economy business model, green supply chain management, technology entrepreneurship and innovation and public policies and institutional frameworks.

The paper sheds new light on a still under-researched area, suggesting several implications and avenues for future research in Circular Economy and Entrepreneurship Education. Limitations regard the need to analyse education programmes from a larger geographical area, to take into consideration interesting experiences in the rest of the world and to also collect quantitative data.

Practical implications arise for the development of learning initiatives for the Circular Economy: learning objectives and new thematic areas focused on circular, sustainable and innovative rethinking of the process for creating value in the incumbent companies; exploring meaning and benefits of collaborative approaches and participation in the circular economy innovation ecosystem and developing advanced models for soft-skills development in terms of leadership, motivational and creative skills.

The debate on CE can also be rooted in the paradigm of entrepreneurship as a core process to advance knowledge on valuable and sustainable innovation.

Despite the abundance of research in open innovation, few contributions explore it at inter-organizational level, and particularly with a focus on healthcare ecosystem, characterized by a dense network of relationships among public and private organizations (hospitals, companies and universities) as well as other actors that can be labeled as “untraditional” player, i.e. doctors, nurses and patients. The purpose of this paper is to cover this gap and explore how knowledge is transferred and flows among all the healthcare ecosystems’ players in order to support open innovation processes.

The paper is conceptual in nature and adopts a narrative literature review approach. In particular, insights gathered from open innovation literature at the inter-organizational network level, with a particular attention to healthcare ecosystems, and from the knowledge transfer processes, are analyzed in order to propose an interpretative framework for the understanding of knowledge transfer in open innovation with a focus on healthcare ecosystem.

The paper proposes an original interpretative framework for knowledge transfer to support open innovation in healthcare ecosystems, composed of four main components: healthcare ecosystem’s players’ categories; knowledge flows among different categories of players along the exploration and exploitation stages of innovation development; players’ motivations for open innovation; and players’ positions in the innovation process. In addition, assuming the intermediary network as the suitable organizational model for healthcare ecosystem, four classification scenarios are identified on the basis of the main players’ influence degree and motivations for open innovation.

The paper offers interpretative lenses for managers and policy makers in understanding the most suitable organizational models able to encourage open innovation in healthcare ecosystems, taking into consideration the players’ motivation and the knowledge transfer processes on the basis of the innovation results.

The paper introduces a novel framework that fills a gap in the innovation management literature, by pointing out the key role of external not R&D players, like patients, involved in knowledge transfer for open innovation processes in healthcare ecosystems.

Crowdfunding (CF) is a fast-developing and multifaceted phenomenon at the intersection of entrepreneurship, technology, finance and sociology. Although it is an alternative way to fund innovative projects using the internet, CF can provide great value other than money. Nevertheless, only few studies have been conducted to shed light on such additional benefits. The purpose of this paper is to present an integrative model of benefits of CF for the successful undertaking and sustainability of an entrepreneurial initiative.

Based on a systematic review of literature, a preliminary taxonomy is first identified. Industry experts, campaign creators and the analysis of real cases are then used to progressively build a model of 11 areas and 85 categories of benefits deriving from CF.

The paper presents a comprehensive model of benefits of CF for the project, the start-up and the creator related to the following aspects: viability, costs, customer, demand, distribution, employees, fund, strategy, market, partners, personal, product.

The study does not distinguish among different forms of CF. Besides, only benefits are studied whereas potential drawbacks and challenges are not considered. Further research is thus needed to complement the framework along such two additional areas of investigation.

The theoretical framework is an exhaustive snapshot of the benefits of a CF campaign and it can thus be assumed as a starting point for future and empirical studies. Moreover, the paper can support platforms managers in the design of values-added tools aimed to improve attractiveness and project creators in campaign design and management.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how collaborative entrepreneurial learning (EL) processes between entrepreneurs and university students can enhance the entrepreneurial practices in the context of knowledge-intensive enterprises. These learning processes represent a valuable source for entrepreneurship development in incumbent enterprises in the forms of innovative products, services, processes or organizational renewal.

An extreme case study is the project “Mimprendo” (www.mimprendo.it), an initiative promoted by the Italian Conference of the University Colleges and the Italian Association of Young Entrepreneurs in collaboration with Italian universities. This is analyzed in the period 2009-2015, during which seven editions were developed.

A framework is presented based on collaborative EL processes to perform relevant entrepreneurial projects in knowledge-intensive enterprises. The framework provides a coherent and systematic approach to generate, select and implement entrepreneurial practices in incumbent companies starting from a project competition involving creative students and innovative entrepreneurs. EL processes in the community composed of entrepreneurs, experts and university students are grouped into the entrepreneurial phases of inspiration, exploration, exploitation, acceleration and growth, and include the learning processes of “intuition and sensing,” “contamination,” “experiential and contextual learning,” “experimenting and acting” and finally “thinking and reflecting.”

Implications for research can be identified according to many perspectives to deepen the centrality of the learning process in the research on knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship.

The framework results to be a promising approach to diffuse an entrepreneurial culture both in incumbent enterprises and in university students through a synergic collaboration among industry, university and institution. Practical implications could be derived for enterprise, students and educators involved in the design of innovative learning initiatives to sustain the development of an entrepreneurial mind-set.

The framework contributes to extending an emerging research area exploring entrepreneurship as a never-ending dynamic learning process. The involvement of brilliant university students in activating EL process with entrepreneurs in incumbent enterprises represents a novel aspect in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation.