The Exchange Rate and its Fundamentals in a Complex World

We develop a nonlinear exchange rate model with heterogeneous agents. Some agents adopt a “fundamentalist” forecasting rule, while others use a “chartist” forecasting rule. We show that the model is capable of explaining the empirical puzzles relating to exchange rate movements. In particular, the model explains the “exchange rate determination” and PPP puzzles, the excess volatility, and fat tails in exchange rate returns.     

Multi-level governance for sustainable innovation in smart communities: an ecosystems approach

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - This paper analyses the TrentoSmartCity project to redefine Trento (an Italian municipality) as a smart community according to an ecosystems...     

An integrated approach to supply chain risk analysis

Despite the increasing attention that supply chain risk management is receiving by both researchers and practitioners, companies still lack a risk culture. Moreover, risk management approaches are either too general or require pieces of information not regularly recorded by organisations. This work develops a risk identification and analysis methodology that integrates widely adopted supply chain and risk management tools. In particular, process analysis is performed by means of the standard framework provided by the Supply Chain Operations Reference Model, the risk identification and analysis tasks are accomplished by applying the Risk Breakdown Structure and the Risk Breakdown Matrix, and the effects of risk occurrence on activities are assessed by indicators that are already measured by companies in order to monitor their performances. In such a way, the framework contributes to increase companies’ awareness and communication about risk, which are essential components of the management of modern supply chains. A base case has been developed by applying the proposed approach to a hypothetical manufacturing supply chain. An in-depth validation will be carried out to improve the methodology and further demonstrate its benefits and limitations. Future research will extend the framework to include the understanding of the multiple effects of risky events on different processes.     

Academics' organizational characteristics and the generation of successful business ideas

This paper deals with the generation of Business Ideas (BI) by academics. It investigates organizational factors affecting the process through which new ventures are established by academics and are likely to affect their performance. The BI Market Attractiveness and the BI Articulation are addressed as two characteristics of academic spin-off companies which are likely to lead to their success. Two research hypotheses are formulated: (a) that the BI Market Attractiveness at the time of establishment of the new venture is positively influenced by the market orientation of the academic founders, and by their frequency of interaction with external agents; (b) that the BI Articulation at the time of establishment of the new venture is positively affected by the articulation of roles, and by the degree of prior joint experience of the academic founders. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 42 Italian academic start-ups. Implications for both universities and academic entrepreneurs are discussed.     

Assessing collaborative, pre-competitive R&D projects: the case of the UK LINK scheme

The paper addresses the evaluation of outcomes of collaborative, pre-competitive R&D projects. It draws on some empirical analysis carried out on data and information gathered under the UK 'LINK' scheme, a programme supporting R&D collaborative projects and assessing collaboration outcomes. A new indicator of performance, based on the outputs of LINK projects, has been constructed. It provides a relative and quite consistent measure of performance for making comparisons among different LINK projects. However it does not correlate with the more subjective grade applied by LINK's own management. For further improving evaluating mechanisms, more attention should be paid to the benefits that universities and companies as well as governments are drawing from R&D collaborations.     

Choosing project risk management techniques. A theoretical framework

The pressure for increasing quality while reducing time and costs places particular emphasis on managing risk in projects. To this end, several models and techniques have been developed in literature and applied in practice, so that there is a strong need for clarifying when and how each of them should be used. At the same time, knowledge about risk management is becoming a matter of paramount importance to effectively deal with the complexity of projects. However, communication and knowledge creation are not easy tasks, especially when dealing with uncertainty, because decision-making is often fragmented and a comprehensive perspective on the goals, opportunities and threats of a project is missing. With the purpose of providing guidelines for the selection of risk techniques taking into account the most relevant aspects characterising the managerial and operational scenario of a project, a theoretical framework to classify these techniques is proposed. Based on a literature review of the criteria to categorise risk techniques, three dimensions are defined: the phase of the risk management process, the phase of the project life cycle and the corporate maturity towards risk. The taxonomy is then applied to a wide selection of risk techniques according to their documented applications. This work helps to integrate the risk management and the knowledge management processes. Future research efforts will be directed towards refining the framework and testing it in multiple industries.     

A Note on the Nursing Home Industry

This article addresses the political meaning of President Ronald Reagan's 1981 declaration that "government is the problem." Whereas, historically, the state had been used by elites to extract as much from producers as possible, with democratization of the franchise, the state became the sole instrument that could limit — or potentially end — this extraction. In principle, once control of the state is democratized by the ballot box, the fortunes of elites largely depend upon controlling ideology. In 1955, Simon Kuznets offered the highly influential conjecture that, while rising inequality characterizes early economic development, advanced development promises greater equality. However, rising inequality in most wealthy countries over the past four decades has challenged this hypothesis. What those who embraced Kuznets's conjecture failed to recognize is the dynamics by which the rich inevitably regain control over ideology — and thereby the state — with their far greater command over resources, education, and status. In the course of history, only the very severe crisis of the 1930s discredited the elites' ideology sufficiently to enable a sustained period of rising equality. However, by 1980, they had regained ideological ascendancy. This article examines how this struggle over ideology has unfolded in the US since the democratization of the franchise in the nineteenth century. It concludes with reflections on whether the current crisis holds promise of de-legitimating the elites' hold on power once more and of ushering in another period of rising equality.     

Benefits and costs of open innovation: the BeCO framework

A vast amount of studies have shown how firms embracing the open innovation paradigm tend to improve their industrial and economic performance. Somewhat surprisingly, in such established background, few studies attempted to understand whether the open innovation benefits compensate its costs. To fill this gap, this article presents a novel theoretical framework composed of twelve propositions describing the main benefits and costs of inbound and outbound open innovation modes. Such theoretical framework was tested on a sample of 96 small and medium manufacturing enterprises. While most of the identified cost and benefit classes are acknowledged by the majority of the interviewed firms, most interviewees affirmed that their firms did not suffer from costs associated with the not-invented-here syndrome and with the potential loss of competitive advantage. The results of the study have implications for both firms and scholars, which are expected to lead to future researches.