Purpose: Smart cities and their internationalization process and efforts in order to gain the competitive advantage in the international arena have received a great deal of attention by marketing scholars and practitioners alike. Yet, the growing number of studies focused on this topic has led to considerable fragmentation and theoretical confusion.Design/methodology/approach: To move the domain forward, this study applies the systematic review methodology and reviews 41 peer-reviewed articles published in highly esteemed publication outlets.Findings: Building on the antecedents–phenomenon–consequences framework, the authors discuss the antecedents and consequences of the various innovative marketing strategies that smart cities adopt for their internationalization and development of an international competitive advantage. In the process of doing so, the authors synthesize the findings of the studies as well as literature gaps that provide fruitful avenues for future research.Originality/value: This article offers a systematic review of extant marketing research on smart cities and their efforts to internationalize. In particular, this study advances the conceptual development of smart city internationalization and innovation by a marketing lens, provides an integrative, international-oriented framework that maps the extant literature across disciplines and countries, expands the boundaries of this research domain into new research paths and offers implications for policy and practice.
19 February 2020 in Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the distinctive elements of CSR communications that characterize the communications models of family businesses in the Italian wine industry, and to compare them with nonfamily businesses.Design/methodology/approach: Using a case study approach, a sample of large and medium companies practicing corporate social responsibility was identified. The content of their websites was examined using content analysis and text mining (correspondence analysis techniques and word association analysis using the T-Lab software).Findings: The analysis indicates that the ownership structure nature makes a difference in the online CSR communications process. The cultural identity in both family and nonfamily businesses is founded on intangible factors such as tradition; however, being a family business is a fundamental driver in the online CSR communications process, no longer forming a bond among players in the wine industry, but rather linking with other wine family businesses.Research limitations/implications: One limitation of this work is the small size of the investigated sample. An added value it contributes is its focus on the Italian wine industry. The paper provides the essential elements that family and nonfamily wine businesses should consider in customizing their CSR communications with the brand’s specific details.Originality/value: The authors highlighted the similarities and differences of family and nonfamily wine businesses in terms of their online CSR communications. The authors also observed how the family wine business identity, in its multidimensional construct, has common factors with what we call “familiness.” This research could establish a starting point for further work within this important sector.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the features that qualify the wine tourism destinations’ (WTDs) image and to deepen analyse the role of the image on the wine tourists’ perception, assuming that it changes from tourist to tourist, depending on who has formed its perception after a real experience or not.Design/methodology/approach: This contribution fits in the range of studies regarding the measurement of the destination image; the authors suited the Echtner and Ritchie’s model (1991, 1993), as its multidimensionality approach, rarely applied in the area of wine tourism.Findings: From a comparison between the images of the chosen destination, wine tourists consider Bordeaux the benchmark of WTDs and, in the collective imagery, France is one of the excellences between WTDs. The association territory-wine is less marked, so the biggest contribute is given by thein situexperience.Research limitations/implications: Despite results can’t be generalised because the samples of convenience, they have provided an overall outline of attributes, benefits and attitudes of wine tourists of Web 2.0.Practical implications: A managerial lecture of results shows that young destinations (aka new wine regions) have a bigger propensity for destination management as well as the attention to marketing aspects, which are able to influence the competitiveness of destination. Instead, destinations with an ancient tradition (aka old wine regions), although unique for their wines and territories, food traditions and the historic-architectural heritage, need to improve their services.Originality/value: This research applies the consolidated analysis method of E&R on the theme of destination image to the wine tourism, never used for WTDs, improving the model with a comparison between visitor and no-visitor perceptions.
With its Global Compact, the United Nations (UN) called companies to align strategies and operations with universal principles on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption, while settling and pursuing the seventeen UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Achieving SDGs in business reporting is part of the lively debate in the literature about the ability of nonfinancial reporting in providing stakeholders with useful and value-relevant information about companies’ behaviors. This paper intends to address this issue in the aftermath of the recent European Union EU policy (Directive 95/2014/EU) of mandating companies to disclose nonfinancial information (NFI) according to some of the SDGs matters. To this end, the Italian context was analyzed, and main findings provide some early evidence of the absence of association between NFI and financial/market performance. At the same time, the positive association between companies’ Beta factor and size and NFI is supported. This implies that stakeholders still do not appreciate NFI reported according to the new rules and probably that more time is needed to assess the possible advantages of an improved regulation about NFI. However, results show that larger companies and/or companies with higher risk profiles (Beta) have already started to improve their NFI.
Purpose: The authors aim to investigate which social media posts' characteristics result in higher stakeholder engagement in the European context.Design/methodology/approach: The authors apply chi-square automatic interaction detection (CHAID) method to categorize social media posts based on their engagement levels. The authors conduct analysis on the tweets published in 2019 by companies that draw up and publish a sustainability report on Global Reporting (www.globalreporting.org). The final sample is based on 3,045 tweets from 173 firms of different industries and countries.Findings: The authors find that tweet characteristics, such as content type, industry type and country of a firm, significantly influence stakeholder engagement rate.Practical implications: The findings are useful for practitioners and stakeholders. Firm management should consider the most important Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) concerning their business activities for engaging stakeholders and contributing to sustainable development.Originality/value: The authors consider stakeholder theory and contribute to stakeholder engagement and sustainability debate. For this purpose, the authors focus on firms' communication of SDGs through social media. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study which considers the SDGs’ communication to determine the most significant SDGs resulting in higher stakeholder engagement.