#Diogenedixit

2024-05-27 Sylvie Goulard

Beyond illusions, within limits: business and the sustainability challenge

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, we have drawn on natural resources as if they were limitless. The air and water, the soil, the fish and the trees, all living things seemed at our disposal. Economic science has long suggested that wealth results from the combination of only two factors of production: capital and labor. As Jean-Baptiste Say wrote in 1803 in his book on Political Economy: “Natural resources are inexhaustible, because otherwise we would not obtain them for free. Since they cannot be multiplied or exhausted, they are not the subject of economic sciences”. We have ...

Read

2024-05-24 Nic Beech, Paul Hibbert and Katy Mason

A Learning Orientation to Improve Impact Across Sectors

‘If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.’ Kurt Lewin Over the past two decades, there has been a significant global focus on improving the impact of research on practice. Governments, research funders, academics, practitioners, and businesses all perceive value in enabling a stronger connection between research and practice to improve practical outcomes (Haley, 2021). For this to work effectively, there is a need to understand not only the roles that academics and practitioners play, but also how we can adapt to create new practices and processes. While more traditional ...

Read

2024-05-23 Luigi Rinzivillo

Generative AI: A Source of Wisdom

In "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," the journey and adventures of a young girl, Dorothy, are recounted as she navigates the magical Land of Oz after being swept there by a tornado that struck Kansas. The story describes Dorothy's travels with her "new friends" to meet the wizard who can grant each of their wishes. Although being displaced by a tornado is not a common experience, the feeling of being "swept away by a cyclone" is more common than one might think. A defining characteristic of our time is undoubtedly the rise of "artificial intelligence" (AI), the ability of a computer system (an algorithm) ...

Read

2024-05-10 Andrea Ciacci

The Strategic Value of Big Data Transition

Overwhelmed by massive data flows and compelled by the need to intercept the real customer needs in a competitive, swiftly changing world, firms must take rapid action to address economic needs by restructuring how they think and operate. Since big data is changing the intrinsic nature of strategy, firms need to shape their functions and processes to facilitate the big data transition, implementing data-driven business models and capitalizing on big data value. While big data provides significant opportunities to enhance a firm's potential in terms of competitiveness and innovativeness, it also ...

Read

2024-05-02 Donato Masciandaro

Declining Interest Rates and the Five Faces of the Fed

In recent months, financial markets seem stuck in a repetitive cycle: analysts closely watch US economic indicators to gauge the timing of the Fed's interest rate cuts. This represents the "macroeconomic" face of the Fed. Yet, there are at least four other faces that need attention: the political and bureaucratic ones, followed by the psychological aspect, and not forgetting, albeit last, the financial. Last March, the Fed confirmed its decision to maintain the maximum level of the benchmark interest rate at five hundred and fifty basis points, as decided eight months prior. This phenomenon is ...

Read

2024-04-16 Sandro Castaldo

A Journal with an Impact

One of the priority issues facing the different management disciplines today is the critical question of research impact. We are confronted with the question of how to translate the immense potential of knowledge produced by the scientific community into management practices that are useful for transforming organizations and their processes to create value and generate welfare for society. In management studies, it is not difficult to find works that question the relevance and real impact of research. It is also not uncommon to find evidence from the world of management that the academy is a distant, ...

Read

2024-04-16 Salvatore Vicari

Artificial Intelligence Ethics: a Brief Overview

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly revolutionizing our world, with applications in every sphere of life, from medicine to finance, manufacturing to entertainment. It is estimated that, in the near future, a large part of our activities will be carried out by intelligent machines or will see a collaboration between humans and AI. However, this unprecedented technological progress brings with it new ethical challenges. Intelligent machines, in fact, can make decisions that have a significant impact on the lives of people and society. It is no coincidence that the first Artificial Intelligence ...

Read

2024-04-16 Generoso Branca

Beyond physical reality. Packaging and product in the age of VR

Interest in Virtual Reality (VR) technologies is growing in various sectors, attracting the attention of academia and society. In VR, users can interact in real-time with digital objects, in a completely virtual environment, living an immersive experience characterized by presence and interactivity. Individuals are isolated from the outside world, in a synthetic environment that may or may not simulate the real world. VR can help accelerate digitization in many areas of human life. It commonly finds application in areas such as entertainment, tourism, education, or healthcare. In addition, it ...

Read

2024-04-16 Stefano Caselli

Capital Markets A Key Asset for Growth

The coming months will be crucial for thinking about how to shape the European Single Market and how to make the European Union competitive with other economies. The values at stake, compared to the size of the United States on the one hand and China on the other, would be enough to justify the reasons for accelerating the path of political integration. This would enable the economic systems of the individual European countries and their companies to play a role on the international stage. But the optimism of reason must be supported by progressive steps, and the construction of the single financial ...

Read

2024-04-16 Andrea Beltratti, Alessia Bezzecchi

CFO and AI: an Evolution Starting from Afar

The Financial Times recently argued that the role of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is changing as a result of the increasing introduction of Artificial Intelligence in the enterprise, which enables the availability of analytical and predictive tools. It is hard to disagree: academic research supports with econometric models that the use of predictive analytics enables a productivity improvement amounting to about 3 percent of revenues for companies in the United States. But can we really say that the role of the CFO is suddenly changing because of algorithmic innovations? We believe not. ...

Read