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This study investigates the relationship between the strength of innovative entrepreneurial ecosystems and subjective well-being in 43 European smart cities. Subjective well-being is operationalized by a Quality of Life (QOL) survey that references the level of multidimensional satisfaction or happiness expressed by residents at the city level. The entrepreneurial ecosystem concept depicted here highlights actor interdependence that creates new value in a specific community by undertaking innovative entrepreneurial activities. The research uses objective and subjective variables to analyze the relationships between the entrepreneurial ecosystem and subjective well-being.

The authors conducted a cluster analysis with a nonaggregative quantitative approach based on the theory of the partially ordered set (poset); the objective was to find significant smart city level relationships between the entrepreneurial ecosystem and subjective well-being.

The strength of the entrepreneurial ecosystem is positively related to subjective well-being only in large cities. This result confirms a strong interdependency between the creation of innovative entrepreneurial activities and subjective well-being in large cities. The smart cities QOL dimensions showing higher correlations with the entrepreneurial ecosystem include urban welfare, economic well-being and environmental quality, such as information and communications technology (ICT) and mobility.

Despite the main implications being properly referred to large cities, the governments of smart cities should encourage and promote programs to improve citizens' subjective well-being and to create a conducive entrepreneurship environment.

This study is one of the few contributions focused on the relationship between the entrepreneurial smart city ecosystem and subjective well-being in the urban environment.

The literature mainly concentrates on the relationships between externally oriented digital transformation (ExtDT), big data analytics capability (BDAC) and business model innovation (BMI) from an intra-organizational perspective. However, it is acknowledged that the external environment shapes the firm's strategy and affects innovation outcomes. Embracing an external environment perspective, the authors aim to fill this gap. The authors develop and test a moderated mediation model linking ExtDT to BMI. Drawing on the dynamic capabilities view, the authors' model posits that the effect of ExtDT on BMI is mediated by BDAC, while environmental hostility (EH) moderates these relationships.

The authors adopt a quantitative approach based on bootstrapped partial least square-path modeling (PLS-PM) to analyze a sample of 200 Italian data-driven SMEs.

The results highlight that ExtDT and BDAC positively affect BMI. The findings also indicate that ExtDT is an antecedent of BMI that is less disruptive than BDAC. The authors also obtain that ExtDT solely does not lead to BDAC. Interestingly, the effect of BDAC on BMI increases when EH moderates the relationship.

Analyzing the relationships between ExtDT, BDAC and BMI from an external environment perspective is an underexplored area of research. The authors contribute to this topic by evaluating how EH interacts with ExtDT and BDAC toward BMI.

The study analyses the role that open social innovation (OSI) perspective played for Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus (FBAO), a food bank in Italy, in responding to the COVID-19 crisis. It answers the following research question: how does a crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, stimulate the adoption of OSI practices to revamp the activities of FBAO and facilitate appropriate solutions to carry out its social mission?

This study employs a qualitative approach. It is based on a single case study.

The study shows how COVID-19 has stimulated the adoption of OSI practices to continue to meet the social mission, creating innovative projects or finding new ways to do the same things.

The study is based on a single case study.

The paper contributes insights into the literature on OSI, examining how inbound and outbound OSI mechanisms can modify business models and increase the adaptation capacity of food banks and their effectiveness. In addition, it provides a rich context in which the social value drivers provided by OSI are studied.

This paper applies the OSI to a food bank to evaluate what this action mode produces for the food bank during a health crisis. Specifically, this is the first paper that studies the COVID-19 crisis response of a food bank from the OSI perspective, focusing on the inbound and outbound OSI processes that characterized the entire network of relationships.

Sustainable development calls for concerted efforts towards building an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and planet. The approach that considers sustainable development as the fight against poverty, through the promotion of a sustainable and equitable economy, as the attempt to reduce polluting emissions to promote environmental protection and as the satisfaction of social goals to increase the well-being of populations is adopted. Sustainability development is therefore a complex and subjective concept, considering the three dimensions that define the phenomenon: economic, environmental and social.

The authors have chosen subjective variables, which provide information on the perception of the ‘sustainable development’ in the European countries. Data come from the database of ‘Eurofound’, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. The authors applied a formative measurement model, according to which indicators are considered as the cause of the phenomenon analysed, unlike with the reflective model. To conduct the quantitative analysis, the authors have adopted a non-compensatory approach: Mazziotta and Pareto index which summarising a set of individual indicators that are assumed to be not fully substitutable. The authors place at the centre of the analysis, variables deriving from the perceptive state of the different European populations, offering new hints to measure sustainable development on the basis of subjective assumptions.

Globalization has contributed to unprecedented economic growth but with some criticalities such as increasing inequality, growing environmental degradation, and uncertainty about the future of new generations. In order to remedy this difficult situation, over the years the United Nations (UN) have outlined several sustainable development goals (SDGs) to be achieved at the global level. Given the many facets of the international framework, it can be useful to assess national progress by paying attention to the regional specificities. The Italian case is particularly delicate, since it is characterized by a large gap between the North-Center regions – among the most developed in Europe – and the South – with an economy mainly based on agriculture. Our work aims at quantifying the sustainable development level achieved by the Italian regions. Starting from the theoretical framework of Salvati and Carlucci, we build a composite index to measure the regional sustainable development performance. The method adopted to construct the index is the Pena's distance (DP2). The results confirm the existence of a gap, splitting the country into two parts. The regions of the North and Center-North stand out as the most virtuous, while the Southern regions show a state of backwardness in achieving the SDGs. In addition, we find that where the sustainable development levels are higher, there are higher levels of gross domestic product per capita and less inequality.

Modern cities are divided into some essential dimensions, according to the definitions of smart cities. Smart cities follow innovation-oriented development standards. A smart city combines multiple aspects, which encourage the birth and blossoming of start-ups. The analysis of smart cities according to subjective variables puts in evidence their potential growth, as well as strengths and weaknesses. On the basis of the Eurostat (2015) survey, the present chapter creates a DP₂ index that singles out the most attractive cities for business activities.

Technological progress in recent decades has driven a true digital revolution. The promise of greater efficiency, immediacy, and effectiveness of processes accompany this digital transition. However, to prove effective, it needs the development of quantitative instruments to assess the quality and competitiveness of the national and international digital strategies. Under this perspective, the study proposes the construction of a statistical index in the Italian context built on the five digital development dimensions of the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), that is, connectivity, human capital, use of Internet services, integration of digital technologies and digital public services. The elaboration of a DESI at a regional level (NUTS-2) allows to identify more precisely the possible digital gaps existing in the national territory. The findings make it possible to explain Italy's extreme backwardness within the European rankings. The study identifies the strong digital gap between the northern regions and the southern area of the country as one of the main criticalities, as well as human capital and integration of digital technologies.