Purpose: In the digital age, companies require leaders to foster digital transformation entrepreneurship, i.e. the organisational attitude and orientation of the creation of a new business or the development of an existing business by having at the core or embracing digital transformation as the continuous development and application of digital knowledge for companies' value creation. This paper identifies six critical competencies distinguishing the transformative leadership profile supporting enterprises' digital transformation development.Design/methodology/approach: The paper, through a critical literature review focussing on three research streams, i.e. wise, transformative and digital leadership, addresses the following research question: What competencies characterise a digital transformative leader promoting and encouraging digital transformation entrepreneurship? Methodologically, first, explorative analysis of the literature has been carried out exploring the role and relevance of leadership in driving companies' digital transformation. Second, focussing on the three leadership perspectives, wise, transformative and digital, the critical features distinguishing each view have been identified. A set of hypotheses has been formulated to develop a framework to profile a digital transformative leader. In the third stage, the framework of the digital transformative leadership compass has been developed.Findings: The paper profiles the digital transformative leader, a critical figure in companies competing in the digital age to nurture digital transformation entrepreneurship. Six specific competencies are synthesised and proposed throughout the transformative leadership compass. It is presented as an interpretative framework helpful to understand what affects the organisational culture and behaviours driving digital transformation. The proposed model defines theoretical foundations to operationalise an assessment framework and developing empirical research about leadership characteristics hampering and enabling successful companies' digital transformation.Originality/value: The study proposes a novel framework based upon a critical analysis of the leadership literature. Combining insights gathered from the literature review on transformative, wise and digital leadership, the need for nurturing a transformative digital leadership allowing enterprises to stay competitive and able to change and adapt to the scenario's evolution emerged. Accordingly, the paper defines the digital transformative leader as a leadership profile sustaining organisational and digital transformation. The transformative leadership compass is proposed as a model to outline the critical competencies distinguishing a digital transformative leader capable of driving continuous company innovation and specifically digital transformation entrepreneurship.

This theoretical paper explores the fundamental issue of how knowledge management initiatives impact business performance. Reflecting on the management literature in the fields of knowledge management and performance management enabled the deduction of four basic assumptions, representing the links of a conceptual cause-and-effect framework - the knowledge value chain. Drawing on the resource-based view and the competence-based view of the firm, the paper identifies strategic, managerial, and operational dimensions of knowledge management. The review of performance management frameworks discusses the role of knowledge management in those models. These reflections allow linking knowledge management with core competencies, strategic processes, business performance, and finally, with value creation.

Purpose: Digitalization had a relevant impact on the cultural tourism sector, both demand and supply. If, on the one hand, advances in digital technologies provided tourists with new mobile services able to amplify the cultural experience, on the other hand, they catalyzed the development of new business models by digital enterprises. This paper has a twofold purpose: to detect business models and key characteristics of mobile apps for cultural tourism and to analyze the offering of app-based services in this sector.Design/methodology/approach: The authors defined a methodology to identify, characterize and analyze a particular category of digital products for cultural tourism: app-based services. They are studied in terms of value creation, proposition and capture with the aim to identify the distinctive features of business models. As a result, the authors identified a classification framework on three main dimensions, namely “how to exploit mobile app features to create value for cultural tourists” (value creation), “which valuable services are delivered to cultural tourists” (value proposition) and “how companies are rewarded for the value they offered” (value capture). The authors apply the framework to perform a situation analysis of app-based services in the cultural tourism market.Findings: The analysis highlights that digital enterprises offering app-based services do not fully exploit advances in technologies about users' value requirements. Hence, the results of our work suggest some directions that digital enterprises may follow to better exploit mobile app technology.Originality/value: To date, little research has been devoted to investigating cultural tourism business models involving the exploitation of mobile app-based services. This research provides a useful framework to analyze fundamental aspects of business models in this sector. Such a framework represents a practical tool that provides fruitful insights for the design of a new generation of app-based services within the so-called “Internet of things” domain.

Purpose: Selecting the most meaningful performance indicators, i.e. key performance indicators (KPIs), represents one of the major challenges that companies have to face for developing an effective performance measurement system (PMS). Selecting KPIs can be interpreted as a multiple criteria decision‐making (MCDM) problem, involving a number of factors and related interdependencies. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model, based on the analytic network process (ANP), for driving managers in the selection of KIPs. The model draws upon the consideration that KPIs can be evaluated and selected on the basis of a set of criteria, theoretically founded, and the feedback dependencies between the criteria and performance indicators as well as among indicators.Design/methodology/approach: Based on a review of management literature regarding the information quality required by performance measures, the paper identifies a set of criteria for selecting KIPs. The criteria form the building blocks of the proposed ANP model. The feasibility of the model is proved through its application to a real case.Findings: The paper proposes and illustrates the practical application of an ANP‐based model for selecting KPIs. The use of the ANP makes it possible to extracts weights for setting the priorities among indicators, by taking account of mutual dependencies among indicators and criteria. This enhances the quality of the selection process.Originality/value: Often managers choose KPIs without an accurate approach. The paper offers a novel model for driving managers towards the choice of KPIs through a rigorous approach, based on the ANP method. The model draws on a solid theoretical foundation and has been proven in practice.