John Cabot University ScholarShip
Not a member yet
907 research outputs found
Sort by
Blending Digital and Physical Experiences in Luxury Wine Hospitality: An Experiential Approach to Technology Integration
No full textPurpose – This study explores luxury wine hospitality by considering physical activities and activities created by integrating the physical domain with digital technology. In doing so, it aims to identify the different types of wine tourism-related luxury experiences and build a framework for interpreting hybrid luxury experiences in wine hospitality in the digital era.
Design/methodology/approach – An explorative mixed-methods approach was adopted to investigate types of luxury wine hospitality using cluster analysis and in-depth interviews with producers of wines with controlled and guaranteed designation of origin in Italy’s Sangiovese area.
Findings – This study presents a framework for understanding hybrid digital and physical experiences in wine hospitality by examining the core components of luxury experiences. We identify six types of luxury
experiences in wine hospitality that combine a physical experiential component with varying degrees of integration with digital technologies.
Practical implications – Our findings provide wine businesses operating in hospitality within the luxury segment with a useful tool for optimising the integration of digital technology into physical experiences to add value to visitors’ activities and highlight the importance of digital skills for wineries that organise luxury experiences.
Originality/value – This study systematises the integration of digital technologies into physical activities related to wine hospitality. It presents a hybrid physical–digital analytical framework that adopts an experiential
outline of the strategic design of wine hospitality businesses
La sfida del discredito: la risposta strategica del movimento cooperativo sociale a Mafia capitale
No full textQuesto studio esamina l’impatto dello scandalo Mafia Capitale sul sistema cooperativo italiano e il modo in cui la stigmatizzazione che ne è derivata si è rapidamente diffusa all’intero movimento delle cooperative sociali. La ricerca esplora inoltre i meccanismi attraverso cui il movimento cooperativo ha reagito a questa crisi, volti ad affrontare la stigmatizzazione e ripristinare la legittimità del movimento. Lo studio evidenzia in particolare come il “lavoro istituzionale” messo in opera collettivamente abbia innescato un meccanismo di revisione del modo in cui il movimento traduce i propri principi in modelli operativi, andando a riallineare valori e pratiche, e rimuovendo infine la stigmatizzazione
Shadow Sovereignty: Faith, Narcoculture, and Power in Mexico
No full textMaster of Arts in International Affairs -- John Cabot University, Fall 2025.Mexican drug cartels today exercise forms of authority that exceed existing models of organized crime, insurgency, or state weakness. This thesis argues that their power is best conceptualized as shadow sovereignty—a mode of governance that does not replace the state but becomes embedded within its institutional, symbolic, and affective infrastructures. Through a multimodal qualitative analysis of narcocorridos, ethnographic and documentary visual materials, and representations in other popular media, this study examines how cartels mobilize syncretic religious symbolism, particularly the figure of Santa Muerte, alongside the narrative and aesthetic repertoire of narcoculture, to construct legitimacy, moral order, and community embeddedness. These symbolic systems, such as ritualized invocations of authority and retribution, public shrines functioning as territorial signposts, narrative mythmaking in corridos, and the visual grammar of narcoaesthetics, operate not as peripheral cultural artifacts but as constitutive infrastructures of governance. The findings of this thesis demonstrate that cartels transform religion and culture into semiotic and cosmological technologies of rule. Santa Muerte devotion provides a flexible moral grammar through which violence, protection, obligation, and inevitability are rendered intelligible; narcoculture furnishes the narrative and affective scaffolding that embeds these meanings in everyday life. Together, they produce a coherent symbolic universe in which cartel authority becomes familiar, morally resonant, and pragmatically necessary in contexts of institutional abandonment. This symbolic embeddedness enables cartels to inhabit, rather than merely oppose, state structures—generating overlapping, co-produced systems of authority that align with contemporary theories of hybrid governance, simultaneity, and embedded sovereignty. By theorizing shadow sovereignty as a fractal, culturally mediated configuration of power, this work contributes to broader debates in International Relations, political anthropology, and security studies. It demonstrates that understanding cartel governance requires analytic attention not only to coercion or economic incentives but to the religious, aesthetic, and narrative infrastructures through which legitimacy is constructed and lived. The conclusion situates these insights within current U.S.–Mexico security dynamics, underscoring the policy relevance of symbolic and spiritual dimensions that remain largely absent from existing frameworks. This work, thus, advances a reconceptualization of sovereignty, legitimacy, and violence in twenty-first-century governance, revealing cartels as political-theological actors whose authority is sustained by the patterned organization of meaning itself
Il lavoro da casa in Italia: verso quale nuova normalità?
No full textIn Italy, as in many other countries, working from home (WFH) is now a common rather than an exceptional way of working and seems destined to remain a structural feature of labour markets. This paper presents an empirical analysis of the diffusion of WFH in Italy, also in comparison with other countries, and investigates the factors influencing the transition from potential to actual WFH. It shows that the persistence of WFH at levels significantly higher than the pre-pandemic status quo characterises the “new normal” of work and testifies to the existence of substantial benefits that can be derived from it, first and foremost for workers and firms. In the foreseeable future, WFH will only take hold where it is chosen by those involved, workers and enterprises, in order to realise these benefits. Since the benefits and costs are asymmetrically distributed between workers and enterprises, the adoption of WFH beyond the short term requires their shared distribution
Civilizational Decline and the Liberal International Order
No full textMaster of Arts in International Affairs -- John Cabot University, Fall 2025.Traditionally, the Liberal International Order’s crisis is analyzed through the lens of shifting power dynamics, growing populist discourse and politics, democratic backsliding, and/or through binary frameworks like realism vs. liberalism. This research focuses on deeper, structural causes of this crisis and questions whether the LIO has entered its final “Civilizational exhaustion” phase, what Armenia’s experience after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war reveals about this decline, and whether the LIO has entered its final “Civilizational exhaustion” phase. Using Oswald Spengler’s cyclical theory of civilizations as the main lens of analysis, this research suggests that the LIO has entered the “civilizational” phase, the late stage of its cycle. It is important to mention that this framework is not used for prediction, but rather for interpretation. It provides a lens for understanding the liberal international order as a late civilizational formation whose institutions persist but whose creative moral energy has been exhausted. Spengler’s civilizational phase is characterized by rationalistic, standardized and functionally insufficient and/or paralyzed institutional structures. In other words, at this stage, the institutions become rule-bound and uniform, but they no longer function well. This can be seen in the LIO, especially after the Cold War when it became highly intrusive (some scholars call it the “postnational liberalism”), appeared stable but was characterized by “crisis of authority” and was fragile when faced with a real crisis. The study also uses Armenia’s experience after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War as a case study to confirm this hypothesis. Armenia isn’t just an example of geopolitical failure, it is also a case that exposes the civilizational exhaustion of the liberal order. The LIO’s response to the conflict was insufficient, exposing systemic limitations rather than just policy slipups. iii By analyzing the structural patterns of normative exhaustion, institutional formalism, and the practical irrelevance of liberal peacekeeping mechanisms in the face of widespread ethno-territorial conflict, this research concludes that the LIO’s crisis is a historical consequence of civilizational exhaustion. The Armenian experience reveals structural decay, moving the analysis of the current global disorder beyond temporary policy failures toward recognizing a transformation consistent with Spengler’s late-stage framework
The Capabilities That Determine Whether Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) Stay or Leave: A Case Study of Unilever's Sustained Commitment to Emerging Markets.
No full textMultinational Enterprises (MNEs) operating in large, complex emerging markets (EMs) are continuously exposed to heightened geopolitical and institutional volatility, which translates into significant operational uncertainty and elevated transaction costs. This capstone investigates how MNEs successfully mitigate these risks and sustain long-term commitment rather than choosing strategic withdrawal. Utilizing the Dynamic Capabilities Theory (DCT), this study employs a qualitative, critical case study of Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), a subsidiary operating in the highly complex Indian market environment. The research examines HUL’s strategic responses to macroeconomic shifts, regulatory uncertainties, and intense local competition through the lens of DCT’s three core processes: sensing (identifying threats and opportunities), seizing (mobilizing resources), and transforming (renewing organizational assets). The findings demonstrate that effective dynamic capabilities serve as a crucial moderating force, enabling HUL to strategically transform its governance modes and operational capabilities to maintain competitive advantage amidst pervasive institutional voids and geopolitical fluctuations. This research provides significant implications for global MNEs formulating longterm commitment strategies for high-risk, high-reward emerging economies like India
The House that Refuses to End: Shaping the Collective-Self in Friedrich Kiesler’s Endless House
No full textThesis (B.A. in Art History, Minor in Business Administration)--John Cabot University, Fall 2025.This thesis examines Friedrich Kiesler’s Endless House—an unbuilt architectural project developed between 1944 and 1965—as the expression of a transhistorical concept of dwelling that counters the passive existential mode Kiesler attributed to Functionalism. Rather than interpreting the Endless House solely through its opposition to the dominant International Style, or reduced to its seemingly Surrealist form, or through Kiesler’s connections with the New York émigré avant-garde, this study positions the project as the culmination of his artistic trajectory by foregrounding Correalism and the ideas posthumously collected in Magic Architecture. Correalism, a porte-manteau of “correlation” and “realism,” articulates a relational pseudo-scientific vision of architecture in which human beings and their environments co-constitute one another in a continuous, dynamic field. Through an analysis of the Endless House’s form, material proposals, sensorial experience, and intended rituals of inhabitation, the thesis argues that Kiesler sought to replace Modernist universalism with a model of “endless” becoming grounded in primordial continuity between humans and their environments. Turning to anthropology, theater, and phenomenology, Kiesler developed an architecture of participation: one that dissolves the boundaries between stage and life, actor and inhabitant, shelter and organism. In this light, the Endless House can be read as a generator of active, ritualized domestic existence as a space that transforms passive routine into performative consciousness and collective renewal. Never realized, the Endless House gains conceptual force precisely through its speculative condition because it embraces process over finality. As an organism, rather than a building, it proposes an alternate paradigm of dwelling in which domesticity encourages heightened consciousness, environmental awareness, and a reimagined relation between individual and collective becoming
Age diversity management in healthcare: leveraging generational differences with an inclusive approach
No full textThis paper examines the growing generational diversity within the healthcare workforce and highlights the importance of leveraging these differences through an inclusive approach. As Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials coexist in the healthcare workforce, organizations face new challenges and opportunities. Each generation brings its own distinct values, expectations, and work attitudes that significantly impact team dynamics, stress management, job retention, and leadership preferences.
Through a comprehensive literature review, the study suggests effective strategies to address generational differences to promote collaboration and team cohesion. Particular attention is paid to the role of coordinators in identifying and applying tailored interventions, such as mentoring, reverse mentoring, shared leadership models, and tailored communication styles, that cater to the specific needs of each generation.
The paper emphasizes the relevance of recognizing age-related diversity as an asset to create resilient, adaptable, and high-performing teams. By adopting age diversity management practices, healthcare organizations can better appreciate individual contributions and encourage an environment of mutual respect and learning. Ultimately, the study states that inclusive and flexible leadership can improve staff satisfaction and the quality of patient care in a rapidly evolving healthcare landscape
Illocutionary Acts and Inequality: A Feminist Critique of Pornography and Liberal Freedom
No full textThesis (B.A. in Humanistic Studies, Minor in Art History and English)--John Cabot University, Spring 2025.This thesis explores the philosophical debate surrounding pornography, focusing primarily on its role in the subordination and silencing of women. The key work throughout this thesis is Rae Langton’s influential essay, “Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts”, in which I examine her claim that pornography functions as a kind of speech act that holds the authority to reinforce gender power imbalances. The central research question guiding this thesis is: Can pornography, as a form of speech, perform illocutionary acts that actively contribute to women’s social and political subordination, and how should this challenge liberal commitments to freedom of expression and autonomy? Each chapter engages with different aspects of this question: first, pornography’s role in women’s subordination; second, pornography’s role in women’s silencing; and third, pornography’s protection under the principles of individual liberties, such as freedom of expression or freedom of autonomy. I hold that Langton’s work remains a powerful tool for feminist critique of pornography—rather than reflecting misogynistic culture, pornography actively reinforces and constructs misogyny through its linguistic and cultural force. This thesis advocates for a rethinking of free speech and autonomy that considers the social context in which such freedoms are exercised and denied