1,720,968 research outputs found
Deprivation and Regional Cohesion as Challenges to Sustainability: Evidence from Italy and Greece
Full text linkItaly and Greece share many structural and economic similarities, including
high regional disparities and marked asymmetries between dynamic metropolitan areas
and structurally weaker regions. Both countries also face high public debt and an aging population, conditions worsened by recent economic crises. These challenges have
significant implications for sustainability, as economic hardship often leads to inefficient
resource use, underinvestment in green infrastructure, and socially unsustainable outcomes.
Promoting socio-economic and environmental sustainability thus requires addressing territorial inequalities through integrated policies that balance growth, equity, and ecological
responsibility. This study introduces a spatiotemporal application of the Peña Distance
(DP2) method, allowing for a dynamic and multidimensional analysis of socio-economic
deprivation at the NUTS 1 level. The results confirm persistent disadvantages in remote
Greek regions and Southern Italy, where youth outmigration and limited development
opportunities are prevalent. These regions are affected by multiple, interconnected forms
of vulnerability that compromise their prospects for long-term sustainable development,
underlining the need for timely and coordinated interventions across different policy levels
Measuring human IT agility and firms' digitalization using POSET: evidence from Italy
No full textPurpose – The aim of this study is to provide a detailed picture of the digitalization propensity and human IT agility of Italian SMEs, verifying whether companies are pursuing coherent and reliable choices for these dimensions and whether digitalization choices affect human IT agility.
Design/methodology/approach – Using a POSET approach, this study constructs two nonaggregative multidimensional indicators of human information technology (IT) agility and firms’ digitalization. The analysis is based on the microdata provided by ISTAT relating to 4,682 Italian manufacturing companies.
Findings – The results show the existence of a strong relationship between digitalization propensity and human IT agility. However, the analysis shows that companies are characterized by a low level of digitalization propensity and human IT agility. At the same time, the findings highlighted that the managerial choices adopted by companies appear to be inconsistent with respect to the two multidimensional indicators.
Practical implications – This study has important implications for managers and policymakers by suggesting acting specific policies to promote a better implementation of digitalization that considers the key role of human IT agility.
Originality/value – This study contributes to the existing literature on organizational agility and digitalization by providing a detailed picture of the Italian manufactured SMEs. At the same time, the POSET approach allows to aggregate a lot of information in one or more indicators without neglecting the value of each dimension faced with the extreme heterogeneity of companies’ profiles
Food Poverty, Health, and Innovation: the Impact of new food frontiers on the social context
No full textFood preferences have long been increasingly influenced by sensitivity to ethics and the sustainability of production processes, from the beginning of the supply chain to the table. All this must be considered the food poverty that affects a large segment of the population. In fact, the propensity for healthy products is growing, with methods of use and purchase based on
sustainability and a shared concept of well-being. However, the main obstacle to the development of new food systems continues to be inequality in access to food. To respond to the needs arising from food poverty, which has predominantly social and not only economic or nutritional characteristics, research, with the aim of defining an indicator for evaluating the phenomenon,
has identified three fundamental indicators dimensions of analysis with respect to nutrition: material and/or social food deprivation index (DAMS), risk of food poverty index, relative food poverty index. We proceeded with a comparative analysis within the Italian regions, through a Gaussian Mixture
cluster analysis. The analysis highlighted problems such as malnutrition and incorrect nutrition, two opposing problems whose paradoxical correlation is typical of our era. The study, therefore, highlighted how it is necessary to put people’s needs at the center, with a synergic and non-substitutive welfare system with respect to the public and contractual one, focused on social
Globalization, Social innovation, beyond the list of services and benefits provided. The objective
is therefore to satisfy real individual needs, supporting people in identifying a customized service
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
The Relevance of the Economic Environment to the Development and Growth of Academic Spin-Offs. A Panel Approach
No full textThe importance of academic research ("AR") to economic growth is widely accepted but quantification of
incremental impacts, and their attribution to any one country's expenditures, is difficult. Yet quantitative
justification of government AR funding is highly desirable. We therefore attempt to quantify one impact which
can be directly and causally attributed to one country's funding: spin-off companies.
Although there is great interest in the new knowledge economy, less favoured regions seem permanently
disadvantaged because they lack a critical mass of knowledge capital to initiate accumulation, growth and
economic development processes. This is a problem for policy-makers seeking to promote economic growth and
territorial cohesion in such regions. This paper seeks to develop four empirical models of how Academic spin-off
companies can improve their economic performances. The economic benefits that such companies bring are
explored, to identify those elements which can potentially upgrade regional economies through knowledge
accumulation, which are termed „building up territorial knowledge pools‟.
We argue that the impacts of valid and ongoing policies in support of the Third Mission represent incremental
contributions to the ROI of academic spin-offs, much greater (also on a updated base). The impacts therefore
provide a quantitative justification for public investment, allowing much more important (but less quantifiable)
long-term benefits be considered as a "free" bonu
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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