Scholars from different perspectives agree that agritourism can be the right tool to balance the needs of tourists with those of rural communities, offering real opportunities for economic and social development, while mitigating undesirable impacts on the environment. This paper aims to provide a holistic outlook of the different perspectives under which scientific literature deals with the topic of agritourism as a means to support the sustainable development of rural areas. To reach this aim, we performed a systematic review of the scientific literature in order to point out the linkages between agritourism and sustainability. We analyzed papers through a text mining solution based on the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) technique to point out the main topics around which the scientific literature on agritourism and sustainability has grown. Topics are further categorized in themes by means of an agglomerative hierarchical clustering procedure. Results are further analyzed to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the current streams of the literature.
Entrepreneurial firms are central actors in the process of the generation and diffusion of digital innovation which, on the other hand, provides a wide range of opportunities for entrepreneurs. Although existing research has produced several contributions on both topics, the knowledge generated in the field appears fragmented and the findings are sometimes ambiguous. The reason for this fragmentation can be traced back to the lack of reference frameworks that clarify the most used concepts, thus providing a shared language. This study aims to consolidate the state-of-art of scholarly research published over the past 20 years at the intersection of the innovation and entrepreneurship fields of study. To this aim, we carried out a systematic literature review by analyzing a set of 185 papers in order to find what are the relevant topics in the investigated research domain. This activity was performed using MySLR software. Besides a descriptive picture of the scientific activity, a map of the literature published to date that simultaneously addresses the two themes, is provided. In particular, we characterized the six relevant topics in the investigated research domain: start-ups’ collaboration networks, business-model innovation, digital platforms, digital ventures, the digital entrepreneur’s profile, and digital-innovation ecosystems. Based on these results the article proposes three main research directions for future research: multi-level analysis of Digital Innovation in Entrepreneurial Ventures; interdisciplinary approaches; development of specific theories for igital Innovation. Overall, the value of research is to provide a framework for analyzing the phenomenon of innovation in and with entrepreneurial firms that can be used as a reference model for both entrepreneurship and innovation management researchers.
25 August 2021 in International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research
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.
11 August 2020 in Knowledge Management Research & Practice
The ongoing pandemic COVID-19 is soliciting the question: what do we know about the knowledge management in a pandemic? Knowledge is a strategic resource to drive decisionmakers in the management o...
17 August 2024 in Journal of Innovation & Knowledge
Purpose: The paper examines the conditions under which the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) innovation is justified by business purposes. The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology capable of guiding prudent and successful investment in the IoT. The paper identifies enabling conditions to maximize the success of IoT security innovation adoption projects in Italian banks.Design/methodology/approach: The methodology proposed is constructed from two key sources: first a literature review and second through impressions gleaned from an informal survey and in-depth interviews with a sample of convenience of six managers of Italian bank security systems. A key purpose of the literature review is to identify enabling conditions for a successful IT innovation adoption project which is then synthesized into an “innovation adoption model” capable of illustrating an IoT adoption decision. Second, the authors identify business process reengineering (BPR) steps required to establishing an appropriate organizational and technical framework to successfully undertake the adoption of the IoT for bank physical security purposes. The resulting methodology refers to a typical BPR project approached from an information system development perspective capable of fusing IoT services with human-based services at best performance values.Findings: The literature review and proposed BPR framework give indications of possible support for the conclusion that the banking sector is ready for the IoT innovations and transformation of traditional bank branch worksites into smart environments. The tentative nature of these findings give sufficient justification for trialing the IoT for banking physical security by introducing an Intelligent Protection System to manage security management processes. Although the authors do not generalize the findings from examining the Italian banking security system, the literature review and the paucity of studies available encourages us to investigate the use of the IoT for bank physical security more broadly.Originality/value: Adoption of the IoT represents the third wave of IT-driven competition and introduces a methodology applicable to the security domain which represents, globally, an area that is becoming a domain of major economic and social concern. The IoT adoption model proposed reflects the current state of knowledge in the field and could be extended to other organizational at-risk areas requiring continuity of highly effective protection. The authors are encouraged by the results that indicate a high likelihood of success to trial an IoT introduction to banking security.