Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between the strength of intellectual capital (IC) and small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) innovation performance.Design/methodology/approach: Primary data of 150 SMEs belonging to manufacturing medium-high tech industries were collected through a survey. The methodology consists of a confirmatory factor analysis and a cluster analysis, complemented by at-test, to assess whether there is a significant difference in terms of innovation performance of SMEs characterized by a different strength of IC.Findings: Overall, the findings show that SMEs of the sample can be divided into two groups characterized by a different strength of IC, and those SMEs disclosing a higher strength of IC, in terms of human capital, innovation capital and relational capital, exhibit a significantly higher radical and incremental innovation performance.Practical implications: The present study provides SME entrepreneurs and managers with an empirical evidence that possessing strong IC in its three dimensions seems to help SMEs reinforce their ability to generate both radical and incremental innovation. This calls that SME entrepreneurs and managers need to identify and effectively manage IC in order to strengthen and effectively leverage their investments on IC.Originality/value: This study is particularly relevant because, instead of focusing on single categories of IC as previous studies mainly do, it adopts an overarching perspective of the dimensions of IC and their impact on both radical and incremental innovation performance. Moreover, it focuses on the SME context which has been less investigated than large firms within the domain of IC.

Purpose: In today’s knowledge economy the ability to innovate and develop new products is a key factor to sustain firm performance. Within this context, analysing the role of different components of intellectual capital (IC) becomes of foremost importance, as well as an under-investigated issue for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of human, organisational and relational capital (RC) on radical innovation performance (RIP), as well as to examine whether organisational capital (OC) and RC mediate the relationship between human capital (HC) and RIP and whether OC moderates the relationship between RC and RIP.Design/methodology/approach: The methodology consisted of a factor analysis and different regression models to test for mediation and moderation. The analyses are carried out on a sample of 150 micro firms and SMEs involved in the production of machinery or instruments and located in Italy.Findings: Results show that HC is directly associated to RIP, as well as OC and RC that totally mediate the relationship between HC and RIP. Moreover, OC positively moderates the relationship between RC and RIP.Originality/value: This study is particularly interesting because it adopts an overarching perspective on IC testing the interplay between the different components of IC. In addition, it focusses on the SME context which is under-investigated as far as IC and performance measurement is concerned.

In this paper we address the role of university policies in the creation of academic spin-offs. We focus on university technology transfer units (UTTUs) in Italy and on the mechanisms they have implemented to support academic entrepreneurship. We gathered data relating to their strategies for technology transfer and to the mechanisms they had implemented to support new venture creation. Results show that the number of people dedicated to technology transfer activities, strong relationships that UTTUs have with external organisations involved in technology transfer activities, and finally support services provided by universities and UTTUs have a significant influence in fostering the generation of new ventures.

Purpose: Following an increasing interest in the area that merges digital/I4.0 technologies and business models (BMs), which led to a proliferation of articles in this domain, the purpose of this article is to systematize this body of literature by means of a structured literature review.Design/methodology/approach: After a careful selection of articles, we carried out the analysis with the support of bibliometric techniques, using the bibliographic coupling approach complemented with factor analysis and the content analysis of articles.Findings: The results of the literature review analysis allow us to organize the literature around four main research streams, namely digital technologies and business model innovation, digital strategy and BMs, digital platforms and BMs, and IoT, servitization and BMs. On such a basis, we outline gaps and provide promising avenues for further research in this research area.Research limitations/implications: This study has implications for academics in terms of conceptualization of relevant constructs, integration of two streams of research and specific technologies whose relationship with the BM still deserves attention.Practical implications: This study has implications also for managers, who may take advantage of the description of some BM archetypes driven by digital/I4.0 technologies and also appreciate the relevance of taking a strategic approach, with a particular focus on the BM, toward the use of digital technologies.Originality/value: This study merges two relevant streams of research in an attempt to see how they have developed synergically and what potentials their merge could offer for future research.

The success of the open innovation (OI) paradigm is still debated and literature is searching for its determinants. Although firms’ internal social context is crucial to explain the success or failure of OI practices, such context is still poorly investigated. The aim of the paper is to analyse whether internal social capital (SC), intended as employees’ propensity to interact and work in groups in order to solve innovation issues, mediates the relationship between OI practices and innovation ambidexterity (IA). Results, based on a survey research developed in Finland, Italy and Sweden, suggest that collaborations with different typologies of partners (scientific and business) achieve good results in terms of IA, through the partial mediation of the internal SC.

Purpose: Strategic flexibility (SF) has become increasingly important for firms because of the fast changes in the external environment. In line with the practical importance of SF, an emerging research field has developed around it that has attempted to understand the nature of SF and the key relationships. The aim of this study is to unveil the semantic structure of the recent literature on SF and to suggest new promising areas for future research.Design/methodology/approach: The authors conduct a systematic literature review with a bibliographic analysis technique, which allows authors to identify the main recent streams in the literature, as well as offer reflections and suggestions for future research.Findings: The authors uncover three main emerging areas in the research on SF, namely SF as a dynamic capability, the role of knowledge management for SF and the relationship between a firm SF and the external environment. The authors put forward three avenues for future research on SF: Avenue 1. SF, business model innovation (BMI) and other dynamic capabilities (DC), Avenue 2. Digital technologies and SF/organizational agility and Avenue 3. SF and sustainability. Articles included in the special issue entitled “A strategic perspective on flexibility, agility and adaptability in the digital era” contribute to Avenue 2, thus paving the way for filling some of the identified gaps regarding the relationship between SF and digitalization.Originality/value: To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first literature review on SF that uses a bibliometric approach to draw conclusions on the findings in the literature. The review contributes to the theoretical understanding of SF by illustrating and explicating core topics that have persisted over time, as well as by presenting three main avenues for further developing authors’ knowledge around SF.