Cloud computing in high tech startups: evidence from a case study

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the implementation of cloud-based systems in startups to answer how and why hi-tech startups use cloud computing, an overlooked question to date. Thus, referring to an extended version of Ross and Blumenstein [2015. “Cloud Computing as a Facilitator of SME Entrepreneurship.” Technology Analysis & Strategic Management 27 (1): 87–101] framework, encompassing issues of context and culture following Spanò et al. [2019. “Context, Culture and Control: A Case Study on Accounting Change in an Italian Regional Health Service.” Journal of Management and Governance. doi:10.1007/s10997-019-09458-0], we analyse cloud adoption in startup firms and rely upon a case study of an Italian hi-tech startup. The case study allowed us to tap into the main issues relating to cloud implementation that is increased opportunities, reduced costs, scalability, access to global markets, and access to international venture capital. The results offer interesting insights to the literature on cloud computing, and also have some managerial implications in that they better unfold the effects played by context and culture.     

Identifying factors affecting the status of superhost: evidence from Sardinia and Sicily

Quality & Quantity - Airbnb is currently one of the most developed new forms of hospitality. It is essentially an online platform that connects the owners of apartments or rooms with potential...     

Innovation and Design in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

At the heart of any innovation process lies a fundamental practice: the way people create ideas and solve problems. This “decision making” side of innovation is what scholars and practitioners refer to as “design.” Decisions in innovation processes have so far been taken by humans. What happens when they can be substituted by machines? Artificial Intelligence (AI) brings data and algorithms to the core of the innovation processes. What are the implications of this diffusion of AI for our understanding of design and innovation? Is AI just another digital technology that, akin to many others, will not significantly question what we know about design? Or will it create transformations in design that current theoretical frameworks cannot capture? This paper proposes a framework for understanding the design and innovation in the age of AI. We discuss the implications for design and innovation theory. Specifically, we observe that, as creative problem-solving is significantly conducted by algorithms, human design increasingly becomes an activity of sensemaking, that is, understanding which problems should or could be addressed. This shift in focus calls for the new theories and brings design closer to leadership, which is, inherently, an activity of sensemaking. Our insights are derived from and illustrated with two cases at the frontier of AI—Netflix and Airbnb (complemented with analyses of Microsoft and Tesla)—which point to two directions for the evolution of design and innovation in firms. First, AI enables an organization to overcome many past limitations of human-intensive design processes, by improving the scalability of the process, broadening its scope across traditional boundaries, and enhancing its ability to learn and adapt on the fly. Second, and maybe more surprising, while removing these limitations, AI also appears to deeply enact several popular design principles. AI thus reinforces the principles of Design Thinking, namely: being people-centered, abductive, and iterative. In fact, AI enables the creation of solutions that are more highly user centered than human-based approaches (i.e., to an extreme level of granularity, designed for every single person); that are potentially more creative; and that are continuously updated through learning iterations across the entire product life cycle. In sum, while AI does not undermine the basic principles of design, it profoundly changes the practice of design. Problem-solving tasks, traditionally carried out by designers, are now automated into learning loops that operate without limitations of volume and speed. The algorithms embedded in these loops think in a radically different way than a designer who handles the complex problems holistically with a systemic perspective. Algorithms instead handle complexity through very simple tasks, which are iterated continuously. This paper discusses the implications of these insights for design and innovation management scholars and practitioners.     

Class diversification,economic growth and urban sprawl: evidences from a pre-crisis European city

Economic expansion indirectly promotes class diversification at the neighbourhood scale with a consequent reduction of social divides at the regional scale. To verify this working hypothesis, the present study investigates class diversification at both spatial scales in a Mediterranean city (Athens, Greece) using the European Socioeconomic Classification based on population census data referring to 1991–2001, a phase of economic expansion and intense urban sprawl preceding the 2004 Olympic games. Results of multivariate analysis and diversity indexes outline a local-scale social mix associated to suburban expansion, and regional-scale class segregation, reflecting an increasing polarization in affluent and economically deprived urban districts. The contrasting pattern at the two spatial scales results in a complex social geography with class diversification and moderate changes over time in the economic spatial divide between urban and neighbouring rural areas. These findings contribute to design scale-dependent policies reducing social inequalities and improving quality of life in urban areas. Future paths for socio-spatial processes were delineated for sprawling metropolitan regions under economic expansion and discussed in the light of future demographic trends in both developed and emerging countries.     

The Housing Cycle: What Role for Mortgage Market Development and Housing Finance?

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - We use duration analysis to assess the impact of securitization, mortgage sector liberalization and government involvement in housing finance on...     

The Bargaining–sales‐delegation Game

This article revisits the managerial delegation literature led by Vickers ( 1985 ), Fershtman and Judd ( 1987 ) and Sklivas ( 1987 ) by introducing a bargaining mechanism between owners and managers over managerial contracts. It shows that the degree of bargaining interacts with the extent of product differentiation in determining whether the sub‐game perfect Nash equilibrium is sales delegation or profit maximisation. In contrast with the classical result, no sales delegation emerges and the typical prisoner's dilemma of the managerial delegation literature is solved. This holds in both contexts of Cournot and Bertrand rivalries. The article also provides results for the more general cases with heterogeneous managerial bargaining power and endogenous decisions of the owners regarding the bargaining power of the manager that should be or not be hired in a firm. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managerial Delegation Theory Revisited

This article challenges the results of the ‘classical’ managerial delegation literature, where it is assumed that the weight of the managerial bonus only depends on the owner's will to maximise his own profits. By considering sales (S) (resp. relative profit (RP)) contracts, the received literature has found that (S,S) (resp. (RP,RP)) is the unique pure‐strategy sub‐game perfect Nash equilibrium in a game that contrasts S (resp. RP) with pure profit maximisation (PM). This article shows that none of the previous results may hold when the owner negotiates about managerial compensation with his manager. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

CES and Translog parameter estimates in a SAM-based regional general equilibrium framework

The computation of General Equilibrium models crucially depends on Social Accounting Matrix (SAM)-based calibration and on how estimation/imputation are performed to reproduce the benchmark dataset as an equilibrium solution. In this paper, theoretical contributions are provided by suggesting a new procedure in which the production function parameters and the elasticity of substitution are estimated by resorting to the data contained in the SAM. To this aim, the Generalized Cross-Entropy estimator is used. Application of this self-contained procedure to the regional SAM for the Italian region Tuscany leads to empirical results consisting of the estimates of the elasticities of substitution of Constant Elasticity of Substitution and Translog production functions consistent with the theoretical background. This yields a more efficient and effective solution of Computable General Equilibrium models.     

THE EFFECTS OF PENSION FUNDS ON MARKETS PERFORMANCE: A REVIEW

The worldwide reforming process of pension systems triggered by the demographic transition and globalization has led several countries to implement multi‐pillar pension systems and enhance pension funds. For this reason the studies on the effects that pension funds exert on markets performance have been flourishing in the last decades. In this paper, we provide an updated review of the empirical advances in this field of study, with particular focus on the effects that pension funds produce on labour markets, financial markets and economic growth.