1,721,007 research outputs found
Digital academic entrepreneurship: The potential of digital technologies on academic entrepreneurship
No full textToday's digital technologies, such as social media, business analytics, the Internet of Things, big data, advanced manufacturing, 3D printing, cloud and cyber-solutions and MOOCs, permeate every private and public organization. However, even if this phenomenon has been analyzed for entrepreneurship in general, to the best of our knowledge, the impact of digital technologies on academic entrepreneurship remains not only slightly addressed. With the aim of filling this gap, this paper proposes a novel contribution regarding the emerging concept of Digital Academic Entrepreneurship. Based on a qualitative literature review, an interpretative framework for Digital Academic Entrepreneurship is deductively proposed that is composed of the following components: the rationale for the adoption of digital technologies for academic entrepreneurship (why), the emerging forms of digital academic entrepreneurship (what), the stakeholders involved through the digital technologies to achieve the academic entrepreneurship goal (who), and the processes of academic entrepreneurship supported by digital technologies (how). The discussion section provides a conceptualization of Digital Academic Entrepreneurship. The paper closes with the identification of a research agenda for this promising and under-researched field
eLearning political strategies: A four act play
No full textThe starting point for this paper is the eLearning Political Strategies (ELPoS) model. The model is basedon two dimensions: 1) the direction of the political strategy (upward or downward), and 2) the scopeof the political strategy (individual or group based). The interaction between the above dimensions definesfour different types of eLearning political strategies, which result in different political outcomes.The model is accompanied with one case study that is divided into four parts ("acts"). Each of the actsprovides an example of one of the four strategies in the model. The discussion and conclusions sectionsintegrate the findings from the case study, outline the rules that govern the application of political strategiesin the context of eLearning, and list some of the theoretical and practical implications from a betterunderstating of the politics of eLearning
Digital Technologies supporting incubation processes: an analysis of Italian Incubators
No full textObjectives: this paper investigates the digitalization level of Italian incubators in pre-Covid and Covid
contexts, in the aim to understand how much strategic they consider digital technologies for their development
and success. In particular, the research aims at understanding the typologies of technologies adopted, the
extent of their usage to support the different phases of the entrepreneurial process, and the intensity of
investments made along this direction.
Prior Work: incubators play a central role for the creation of new ventures and the promotion of economic
development of territories. The Covid-19 emergency made more difficult the incubation process of companies
for the restrictions and limitations related to face-to-face relationships and physical meetings. At the same
time, the rapid development and adoption of digital technologies may reveal an effective instrument to allow
incubators for overcoming such difficulties and relaunch their activity, also during a pandemic period. Actually,
digital technologies may represent a key lever for the strategic positioning of incubators, overcoming the
geographical barriers and replacing the physical proximity with relational proximity. Accordingly, they can
renew and revitalize the entire value chain of the incubators, by offering new configurations of operational
activities that contribute to boost their competitiveness. However, it is still unclear how incubators can
leverage these technologies to facilitate and support their incubation processes.
Approach: we adopted a survey strategy by designing and delivering a questionnaire to incubators’
managers. We select the list of Italian certified incubators from the official register of the Italian Minister for the
Economic Development, and we study each incubators website to retrieve information about location, size,
and industry of reference.
Results: results show that most of Italian incubators show a low level of digitalization, as they use very few
digital technologies in limited incubation phases. Notwithstanding, some managers state that their digital level
is slightly improved due to the COVID-19 diffusion and the limitations imposed by governments. Finally, four
digital strategies pursued by Italian certified incubators were identified, namely: digital leaders, digital addicts,
digital explorers, and digital laggards.
Implications and Value: This research has implications for academics, practitioners and policy-makers. For
the academics, the study extends the incubator research stream by including the digital-technology level and
provides insights to increase their impact. Practitioners may use this research to understand how to increase
the digitalization of their activities, thus enlarging their strategic and operational scope, and improving their
performances. Policy-makers could use this research to define proper and more effective measures able to
support incubators, as well as startups in their digital transformation processes
How entrepreneurial role models impact on entrepreneurial outcomes: A gender perspective
Full text linkThis paper examines whether male and female students respond differently when exposed to predominantly masculine or feminine role models. Drawing on Social Cognitive Career Theory, we explore if the exposition of individuals to entrepreneurial role models can significantly influence their entrepreneurial outcomes in terms of entrepreneurial intentions (EI), entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) and entrepreneurial learning (EL). We collected data from 106 engineering students attending an entrepreneurial program in 2019/20 with an exposition to a prevalent male entrepreneurial role model, and from 88 engineering students attending the same program in 2022/23 where the exposition was a prevalent female entrepreneurial role model. A pre- and post-course survey was run in both years to measure differences in ESE, EI and EL. Results reveal a gender effect in EI, as female role models boost female students’ confidence and improve their intention to start entrepreneurial activities. EL increased independently by the gender. Finally, female role models impact the ESE of female students, while male role models impact both. This research extends intention-based analysis by incorporating gendered structural barriers, shedding light on their demonstrable influence on entrepreneurial outcomes
Digital Academic Entrepreneurship: A structured literature review and avenue for a research agenda
No full textThis paper reviews the Academic Entrepreneurship literature according to the emergence of powerful Digital technologies, providing an overview of the state of research and outlining a future research agenda about Digital Academic Entrepreneurship. One hundred and sixty-five journal papers were initially extracted from Scopus and their content was analysed for the paper selection process by two researchers in parallel, plus a third one in case of uncertainty. Finally, fifty-nine papers dealing with digital academic entrepreneurship and published in a variety of academic journals have been analyzed through a content and a bibliometric analysis. Findings show that literature on Digital Academic Entrepreneurship is really scant and dominated by unrelated research. Content analysis provides the emergence of four major research streams: 1) Digital Technologies for Entrepreneurship Education; 2) The “maker space movement” for Academic Entrepreneurship; 3) Digital technologies for discovering entrepreneurial opportunities; 4) Creating entrepreneurial competences in the Digital “University-based” Entrepreneurial ecosystems. The paper presents the first attempt to provide a comprehensive structured literature review of the disruptive role of digital transformation for the Academic Entrepreneurship. Despite the growing literature on Digital Entrepreneurship, this research area is still fragmented and undertheorized. More systematic and holistic studies, considering both the technological, economic and the social aspects of Academic Entrepreneurship are required
Digital transformation in entrepreneurship education centres: preliminary evidence from the Italian Contamination Labs network
No full textPurpose: This paper analyses whether the entrepreneurship education centres introduced by the Italian Ministry of Higher Education and Research in 2012 (the Italian Contamination Labs – CLabs) are effectively adopting the emergent digital technologies for nurturing their entrepreneurship education activities and dissemination of knowledge contamination practices among university students. Design/methodology/approach: An in-depth analysis of italian entrepreneurship education centres provides evidence about the direct role played by digital technologies in supporting and enhancing the entrepreneurial processes, as well as on their indirect role in stimulating entrepreneurship activities of nascent student entrepreneurs. Findings: Findings provide some insights into the strategic role of some categories of digital technologies inside the CLabs. The main results show still a weak use of digital technologies in CLabs except for social media and digital platforms, mainly used for promotion scope and communication of the entrepreneurial outputs achieved by the students. Research limitations/implications: Limitations of the study consist of the need to expand the study to all the other CLabs belonging to the CLabs Italian Network and to derive a set of “invariance” among the cases in terms of digital technologies support for student entrepreneurship. Practical implications: New ways of managing entrepreneurship centres will involve a more massive adoption of digital technologies to support and transform some processes realized inside the CLabs, even if the governance of such centres must develop new digital skills. Originality/value: The originality of the work regards the contribution to the emerging role of digital technologies on the student's entrepreneurship
Towards a political theory of elearning
No full textThis study focuses on the political strategies that are utilized in the context of eLearning. The startingpoint for this paper is the eLearning Political Strategies (ELPoS) model. The model is based on twodimensions: 1) the direction of the political strategy (upward or downward), and 2) the scope of thepolitical strategy (individual or group based). The interaction between the above dimensions definesfour types of eLearning political strategies, which result in different political outcomes. The presentationof the model is followed by four mini case studies that demonstrate the political strategies that themodel outlines. The discussion and conclusion sections integrate the findings from the case studies andelaborate on the rules that govern the application of political strategies in different eLearning contexts
The evolution of student entrepreneurship: State of the art and emerging research direction
No full textIn the knowledge society, universities are asked to contribute to regional development and
economic growth through the direct exploitation of research products and, indirectly, through
enhancing entrepreneurial awareness in students. Student entrepreneurship (SE) gained
increasing relevance among scholars that suggest more research is needed and identify student
entrepreneurship as an emerging and growing phenomenon. In this paper, we present the results
of a systematization of the current literature to define the state of the art and identify possible
new research directions, analyzing 288 published articles in the main International Entrepreneurship
and Management Journals and the main journals in Education and Management Business
Accounting subject area. The results are presented in two macro sections. The first one is
related to the corpus overview and bibliometrics which explores articles by evolution on time,
author, citation analysis, and journals. The second section will involve a content analysis that
highlights the main issues that emerge from the analysis of the papers, such as the most frequently
used theories, data gathering methodologies and methods and mechanisms adopted by universities
to support and promote SE. We are confident that these topic areas will significantly help
any researcher approaching the study of SE by offering an overview of the different sub-fields in
this area. Our work offers suggestions to management educators and business schools administrators
to identify new ways to support student entrepreneurs by enhancing their entrepreneurial
activities, and institutional leader to rethink policies that encourage entrepreneurship among
students
Interorganizational collaboration in innovation networks: An agent based model for responsible research and innovation in additive manufacturing
No full textThe significant progress in scientific research and innovation has led to the need for a new paradigm to legitimise the innovation process in society and politics. The European Union, with the Horizon 2020 framework program and Horizon Europe, institutionalises this change by defining the concept of responsible research and innovation (RRI), aiming at greater inclusiveness and sustainability in the research and innovation processes. This paper aimed to present an agent-based model (ABM) to simulate the dynamics between the different actors that cooperate within networks during the innovation process, taking the inclinations toward RRI practices into account. The different types of agent, their characteristics, and the different strategies that they follow have been formulated within the Horizon 2020 project I AM RRI-Webs of Innovation Value Chains (IVCs) of Additive Manufacturing (AM) under consideration of RRI. Besides, some experiments are reported to validate the model, ensuring its rigor and making our model a useful tool for policymakers, assisting them in defining strategic guidelines for disseminating and encouraging RRI best practices and defining the critical factors of the innovative cooperative process
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