Logistics and Agri-Food: Digitization to Increase Competitive Advantage and Sustainability. Literature Review and the Case of Italy

This paper examines the current challenges faced by logistics with a focus on the agri-food sector. After outlining the context, a review of the literature on the relationship between logistics and strategic management in gaining and increasing competitiveness in the agri-food sector is conducted. In particular, the flow of the paper is as follows: after examining the aforementioned managerial problem and its broader repercussions, the paper proceeds to address two main research questions. First, how and by which tools can digitization contribute to improving supply chain management and sustainability in logistics? Second, what are the main managerial and strategic implications and consequences of this for the agri-food sector in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, cost reduction, and supply chain optimization? Finally, the paper presents Italy as a case study, chosen both for its peculiar internal differences in logistical infrastructures and entrepreneurial management between Northern and Southern regions (which could be at least partially overcome with the use of new technologies and frameworks) and for the importance of the agri-food sector for the domestic economy (accounting about 25% of the country’s GDP), on which digitization should have positive effects in terms of value creation and sustainability.

Carving New Dimensions for Entrepreneurial Management

The purpose of this study is to identify the strategies, enabling the current and potential businesses to achieve their commercial and operational objectives. In-depth semi-structured interviews were used as data collection tools. The data were analyzed through thematic content analysis to gauge themes from the interviews. The explored strategies were mentor-mentee relationship, effective team building, research and development to sustain in the long run, continuous innovation to keep ahead of the competition, efficient customer management to retain the customer base and product proposition. Besides that, academia would be benefited in terms of inculcating such strategic frameworks in the course curriculum of entrepreneurship. The study's originality revolves around a comprehensive strategy from an Asian subcontinent to build and manage the entrepreneurial setup. The literature of entrepreneurship also highlights the importance of such strategies, enabling the practice and academia to learn and harness their business ideas.

Success Factors of SMEs: Empirical Study Guided by Dynamic Capabilities and Resources-Based View

This study aims to identify and analyse the success factors of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) following the lines of dynamic capabilities and resources-based views. To achieve this objective, the multiple case study method was followed, where 10 SMEs/cases in Portugal were selected. From a content analysis of the interviews conducted to the owner-managers of these SMEs, the most important success factors identified were: (1) strategic planning, (2) manager/management capacity, (3) entrepreneurship and innovation, (4) human resources, (5) networks/partnerships, and (6) financing. These factors are considered as drivers of sustained growth and creation of competitive advantage for SMEs in their regions. The results also show that SMEs are oriented towards success, although some evolution is still needed in the way they are managed, where the transition from a “domestic/entrepreneurial” management to a “professional” management and a greater focus on the rarity of their resources and on the dynamic capabilities of their human capital stand out. Conclusions, implications and a future research agenda are also outlined.

The Rise of Entrepreneurial Management Theory in the United States

This article challenges the historiographical commonplace that twentieth-century American management discourse was dominated by bureaucratic aspirations to objective expertise and rational planning. Proposing the category of “entrepreneurial management” to describe the countervailing tendency, it demonstrates the persistence of intellectual interest in managers who used the personal qualities of leadership to enlist enthusiasm among subordinates for their firm's initiatives. By the mid-twentieth century, these managerial leaders were commonly described as “entrepreneurs.” Through a reading of early twentieth-century writing on “human factor” management and Depression-era “human relations” theory, the article shows that intellectual interest in entrepreneurial leadership thrived during a period typically characterized as the height of scientific management and corporate bureaucracy. Analyzing Peter F. Drucker's postwar management writing in detail, the article concludes by arguing that the “entrepreneurialism” of the late twentieth century did not represent a break with the established managerial project, only the strengthened authority of one existing tendency within a variegated intellectual field.

How Entrepreneurial Management and Continuous Learning Affect the Innovation and Competitiveness of Companies?

Entrepreneurial management and continuous learning can significantly impact the innovation and competitiveness of companies and improve the performance of a business. Today business faces numerous and complex challenges. Companies require new skills and methods to gain and sustain a competitive advantage. The goal of the research is to understand how entrepreneurial management and continuous learning affect the innovation and competitiveness of companies. We conducted desk research, narrative research to retrieve necessary information and responses to the questions. The study followed a methodology of a narrative review of the literature, articles, and the other sources related to the task by synthesizing concepts. The research findings confirmed our hypothesis – entrepreneurial management and continuous learning are the key determinants for a company’s success in today’s global marketplace. As organizations, industries, and consumers become more dynamic, effective entrepreneurial management becomes more important. Staying competitive means that organizations need to be innovative, adaptive, and everchanging. An organization’s ability to learn is a key strategic capability to compete in modern markets. Driven by disruptive changes, challenges, and technological growth, rapid advances in the field of artificial intelligence are creating a massive shift in terms of proficiencies, the expertise expected in employees. To innovate, to try a new process, or to do something new all requires learning. Lifelong learning plays a key role in helping employees to develop the necessary skills and expertise. Creating a learning culture within the organization is an effective way to improve performance and innovation. The research findings will be applicable for a broad auditorium interested in the topic and herewith the study results will contribute to future field research in this domain.

Innovating Big Tech firms and competition policy: favoring dynamic over static competition

This paper gives a fresh account of competition in the digital economy. Economic analysis in the field of industrial organization remains largely focused on a sophisticated version of the Schumpeter–Arrow debate, which is unresolved and largely irrelevant. We posit the need to look at competition anew. Static models of monopoly firms and markets in equilibrium are often used to characterize Big Tech firms’ size and scope. We suggest that this characterization is inappropriate because the growth and diversification of many digital firms lead to a situation of broad-spectrum competition that cuts across markets. Current market positions do not reflect entrenched monopoly power but are vulnerable to competitive pressure of disequilibrating forces arising from the use of data-driven operating models, astute resource orchestration, and the exercise of dynamic capabilities. A few strategic errors by management in the handling of internal transitions and/or external challenges and they could be competitively impaired. The implications of a more dynamic understanding of the competition process in the tech sector are explored. We consider how big data and entrepreneurial management impacts firm performance. We also explore the nature of different types of rents (Schumpeterian, Ricardian, and monopoly rents) and suggest a modified long-term consumer welfare standard for competition policy. We formulate preliminary tests and predictors to assess dynamic competition. Our perspective advances a policy stance that favors innovation.

Research on the Project Selection Path of Counseling Graduate Students' Entrepreneurship Plan Driven by TRIZ Resource Analysis

Taking the entrepreneurship plan project as the carrier to cultivate college students' innovative and entrepreneurial thinking and ability is core content of college’ entrepreneurship education in China. Facing the background of the dynamic development of policy, economy, society and technology, there is an urgent need to break the discipline limitations and scientific methods to identify the entrepreneurial opportunities. Although the existing entrepreneurial management theory provides a basis for the source of entrepreneurial opportunities, the counseling practice shows that college students still have difficulties to break through the thinking constraints and innovation bottlenecks in the selection process of entrepreneurial plan project. Based on the perspective of effectual logic, this study introduces TRIZ "9 windows" resource analysis tool, combines it with PEST model, designs the selection path of entrepreneurship plan project, and applies it to the process of tutoring college students' Entrepreneurship plan project. Through the counseling practice of College Students' innovation and Entrepreneurship Program in 2021, the effectiveness of the design path of this study is tested.