Livio Cricelli, Michele Grimaldi, Levialdi Ghiron

International Journal of Production Economics

Abstract:  In the mobile telecommunication sector, the high competitiveness has increased the complexity of strategic interactions among operators. As the vertical integration has become anything but a choice and not a compelling technical solution, the contest takes place at different levels of the components of the operator value chain: the network infrastructure, the service development and supply, and the relationship with consumers.

Mobile virtual network operators act as retailers and concentrate on the last segment of the value chain by establishing commercial agreements with hosting network operators, which act as manufacturers, to get access to radio communications infrastructure. Productive processes of mobile services offered by operators are different and this difference is imperceptible to customers. Processes difference mainly consists in the infrastructural diversity of the operators and implies different consequences on each network service element.

A model has been defined to analyze the consequences of such diversity in the competition among HNOs, MNOs, and MVNOs by focusing the attention on the characteristics of the call path, in dependence of the types of operators. In fact, many variables interact to define the call path, such as marginal costs and revenues, infrastructural investments, and interconnection charges among operators. The analysis of the results, obtained by the model, gives information on variations of retail prices, market shares, and profit allotment, to adopt the proper strategies. In particular, the model results shed light on how certain MVNOs should enter the markets and adopt a collaborative strategy with HNOs. The model owns the capability of being applied to different contexts, thus representing for the regulator a potential instrument of relevant usefulness.

Carlucci, D. , Schiuma, G.

Journal of Business Research

Abstract : This paper aims to define the position of the role of the arts for management in today’s business landscape. Therefore, it addresses why the arts are relevant in the new business age and how they can drive the management innovation.

It discusses why the arts, from an instrumental and utilitarian point of view, matter in business and defines the conceptual background explaining how the arts can be adopted by organizations for management purposes. The focus is not on a specific art form, but on the arts, in general, considering the arts as a management resource and source for organizational development. © 2017 Elsevier Inc.

Armando Calabrese, Guendalina Capece, Roberta Costa, Francesca Di Pillo, Stefania Giuffrida

Journal of Informetrics

Abstract: The knowledge production provided by universities is essential to sustaining a country’s long-term economic growth and international competitiveness. Many nations are thus driving to create sustainable and effective funding environments. The evaluation of university knowledge, productivity and research quality becomes critical, with ever increasing share of public funding allocated on the basis of research assessment exercises. Nevertheless, the existing methods to assess the universities’ knowledge production are often affected by limits and biases, extensively discussed in the scientific literature.

In this paper we study how to reduce the effect of size-related bias due to university size on the indicators of knowledge performance used in evaluation exercises. We propose an innovative utilization of the scale-free property of the power laws as a scaling relationship, to normalize research productivity indicators, and provide results independent by the university size. Our method has evident policy implications and gives a contribution for the future design of assessment exercises.

Lucio Bianco, Massimiliano Caramia, Stefano Giordani

Computers & Industrial Engineering

Abstract: We study the problem of scheduling project activities with precedence constraints and unlimited resources. The latter problem, with the objective of minimizing the completion time of the project and deterministic activity durations, is known to be polynomially solvable. In the case of stochastic durations, the objective becomes to determine the project makespan distribution which is a #P complete problem. The most common technique used in this case is PERT. However, it is known that PERT tends to underestimate the expected makespan of the project. In our work, we try to overcome this shortcoming by considering a stochastic formulation of the problem, exploiting the activity execution intensity as a stochastic variable, and a chance constrained optimization approach. The main hypotheses under which our model works are essentially two: one is to have a sufficiently large time horizon for the project and the second, differently to what happens for the durations of the activities in the PERT model, is to assume a Beta probability density function for the activity execution intensity variables. The first hypothesis appears to be realistic since, when time horizon is large, stochastic factors tend to come into play in every decision problems; the second hypothesis, is realistic as well, since a minimum and a maximum value exist for the stochastic variables used in our model. Experimental results and a comparison with the PERT model and a Monte Carlo simulation are presented.

Armando Calabrese, Nathan Levialdi Ghiron, Luigi Tibuzi

Tim Baines Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK

Abstract: This study reviews systematically the literature on the measurement of the firm-level degree of servitization. The results show that servitization measures are inconsistent across studies, even among those investigating similar research questions, and that a theoretical reference for their appropriate use is still missing. Focusing on these shortcomings, this study conceptualizes the firm-level servitization degree in three classes, i.e. ‘extension’, ‘infusion’, and ‘orientation’. Hence, measures to operationalize each class are derived from the literature review and subsequently discussed with a panel of experts. In addition, servitization measurement is further conceptualized other than firm-level degree, as a measurement at the regional, product, and individual employee levels, other than at the firm level. This study is the first to provide a systematic review on the topic and to develop a general conceptualization and operationalization of servitization measurement. Furthermore, this research is the first to employ an international standard classification of economic activities as a basis to identify objectively firms’ service offerings. This research supports both scholars and practitioners because it brings consistency across studies and applications, thus fostering assessment and comparability of servitization experiences.

Rosati, F., Costa, R., Calabrese, A., Pedersen, E.R.G.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management 

Abstract: Previous studies show that individual characteristics can influence stakeholder attitudes towards corporate social responsibility (CSR). This study analyses employee attitudes such as CSR demandingness, trust and satisfaction, to determine whether they vary according to differences in gender, age, and educational level. The analysis was carried out by surveying 153 employees of 11 Italian banks, and by performing a content analysis of the banks’ sustainability reports. The Italian banking sector was chosen because of recent financial and CSR scandals. The findings suggest that, on average, male employees are slightly more trusting in and satisfied with CSR performance than their female counterparts. Graduates are slightly more demanding, largely more trusting, and generally more satisfied than non‐graduates. Interestingly, the difference between older and younger employees is not significant. The proposed approach can be useful in designing tailored CSR activities and communication avenues by shedding light on employees’ CSR attitudes.

Grimaldi, M., Cricelli, L., Rogo, F.

Journal of Intellectual Capital 

Abstract: Several causes may induce firm managers to analyze the actual technology condition of patent portfolios, among which is the need of exploiting patents strategically. In this paper, the question of how to support intellectual property (IP) managers of large high technology companies in their strategic decision-making process of evaluating patents is examined. The purpose of this paper is to provide a decision support framework that suggests the suitable exploitation strategy for patents.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper proposes an audit framework able to point out whether patents are aligned to the overall business strategy, to select those that are not aligned, and to identify the most appropriate exploitation strategy for each patent of the portfolio. The framework is structured into two phases: in the first one, patents are selected through the analysis of four dimensions that characterize the value of patents effectively; in the second one, a questionnaire is distributed to IP managers in order to support their decision on patents. The paper illustrates case-based applications of the framework.

Findings

Results of applications show that the framework is able to suggest IP managers the suitable exploitation strategy on four possible alternatives (maintaining, licensing, selling, abandoning) for each patent of their portfolios.

Originality/value

The framework is an innovative and valuable tool to IP managers, and besides its structural formulation, it is appreciable in terms of application expedition and efficiency of performance.

A. Nuzzolo, U.Crisalli, A. Polinemi 

2018 21st International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems 

Abstract:This paper deals with the lane accommodation problem for road networks with Automated Vehicles (AVs), Up to now, this problem has been studied for extra-urban networks, while this study investigates the more complex urban case. It aims at contributing to the definition of sharing mobility scenarios based on the use of AVs and restrictions to the use of Conventional Vehicles (CVs) for our future cities. This paper recalls the problem of lane accommodation for AVs and presents a procedure to define a subnetwork with AV reserved lanes, which is specified by using a what-if approach. In the view of strategic planning applied to large and complex network as urban ones, and of speeding up the problem solution, such a procedure uses a commercial macro-simulation model. The model is properly specified to capture the main aspects of the presence of both AVs and CVs and AV dedicated lanes. First results of a test case application are reported to show the capability of the proposed approach.