Focus Africa

2026-07-01 Emanuele Acconciamessa

Engagement, Personalization, and Measurement: How AI Is Redefining Customer Loyalty in Retail

The retail sector is undergoing a historic phase characterized by structural fragility that can no longer be attributed solely to temporary shocks or easy-to-interpret economic cycles. Unlike past crises, which companies could tackle with short-term strategies or limited corrective measures, the persistent instability we are seeing today is profoundly mutating market mechanisms and consumer behavior. As highlighted by recent analyses from the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, in 2024–2025 various exogenous factors converged: geopolitical tensions, energy instability, ...

Read

2026-06-23 Sandro Castaldo

Trust, the hidden architecture of the economy

In an era marked by growing geopolitical instability, accelerated technological transformation, and economic volatility, it is not surprising that the word “trust” was one of the most discussed terms of 2025. When Italy’s most authoritative encyclopedia—Treccani—named it Word of the Year, the choice was less symbolic than it might have seemed. Indeed, today trust is one of the most telling indicators of the health of contemporary societies and economies. It is not merely a psychological or moral disposition, but a true relational infrastructure underpinning markets, institutions, businesses, ...

Read

2026-06-18 Andrea Beltratti, Alessia Bezzecchi

AI, the market, and the value of possible worlds

The high valuations of AI stocks are fueling debate over a possible new technology bubble. A few figures explain why. In 2026, Nvidia surpassed a market capitalization of $5 trillion, while the U.S. semiconductor sector posted gains of more than 100% over the past year. The U.S. market is trading at multiples that are very high by historical standards: the S&P 500’s Shiller P/E has risen above 40, levels previously seen only during major episodes of financial euphoria. It is therefore natural to ask whether these prices are sustainable, or whether the market is overestimating the economic impact ...

Read

2026-06-10 Paola Tagliavini

The impact of non-financial risks: processes for strengthening organizational resilience

In recent years, corporate priorities have been homing in on non-financial risks as major sources of organizational vulnerability. This category includes geopolitical, cyber, business continuity, reputational, technological, and data management risks. Although they many manifest in various ways across sectors and geographical contexts, international risk rankings reveal a clear convergence: most of these risks originate outside companies and lie largely beyond their direct control. As recent global reports indicate, escalating geopolitical tensions frequently generate interconnected cyber threats; ...

Read

2026-06-04 Angelo Cavallo, Federico Frattini, Tommaso Canonici

Persistent growth: why expanding is no longer enough

A recent scientific study shows that only 15% of the companies that exhibited high growth in 1985 were able to sustain it for at least thirty years. McKinsey reached the same conclusion in a study examining the performance of the world’s 5,000 largest companies. In particular, the study found that the median corporate growth rate was 2.8% (considering the ten years prior to Covid), and that only one company in eight recorded annual growth rates above 10%. The problem of “persistent growth” is rooted not only in contextual and contingent factors, such as the pandemic or geopolitical and economic ...

Read

2026-05-26 Marco Sampietro

More projects, less time: why managing them well makes all the difference

If we were to reduce to the bare essentials the kind of activities organizations carry out—all organizations—we could simply say: processes and projects. In some organizations, the process component is predominant: think of producers of fast-moving consumer goods, banks, or energy utilities. In others, the project component is more relevant: think of plant engineering companies, software developers, or consulting firms. Yet it is impossible to identify organizations that do not carry out both types of activity. Processes and projects can be seen either as opposites or as having strong points ...

Read

2026-05-08 Donato Masciandaro

Banks: yes to simplification, no to deregulation

“Caesar I was”, and “from within the laws I drew out the excess and the vain ”. Thus does the Supreme Poet had Emperor Justinian speak, suggesting the compass that should guide the Union in reforming banking regulation and supervision: simplification. It is a suggestion that the finance ministers of the European Union have decided to heed. Economic analysis confirms that simplification would have the positive effect of improving the efficiency of the financial system, but also of stimulating economic growth. The starting point is to distinguish between two aspects of regulation that are ...

Read

2026-04-29 Gianmarco Ottaviano

Digital trade: who sets the rules in the absence of a global agreement?

The Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization is the summit that periodically brings together the trade ministers of member countries and represents the institution’s highest decision-making body. The latest took place at the end of March in Yaoundé, in Cameroon, and marked something more than a negotiating impasse. Among the central dossiers was the so-called moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, in force since 1998, which prevents states from imposing tariffs on digital flows, from software downloaded online to the data that power services and applications. ...

Read

2026-04-23 Maria Carmela Ostillio, Antonella Di Lazzaro

Beyond the Festival: Sanremo as cultural infrastructure and brand platform

To observe the Sanremo Festival still means confronting a media object that is difficult to place within the traditional categories of television entertainment. For a few days each year, the Festival suspends the fragmentation of the contemporary media experience and recomposes a rare form of collective attention, one that cuts across age groups, cultural competencies, and consumption practices. Sanremo is not simply an event to watch, but an experience to inhabit: it is commented on, discussed, contested, and shared both in real time and afterwards. The music competition is only one of the layers ...

Read

2026-04-08 Niccolò Todaro, Emilia Filippi, Andrea Pontiggia, Duccio Tosi, Francesco Testa

From research to practice: game-based learning for knowledge transfer

Introduction In recent years, the impact – and thus the vital nature – of effective knowledge transfer between academia and the real world has been the focus of increasing attention from scholars (e.g., Wickert et al., 2021). While management research aims to generate valuable insights, a persistent challenge lies in embedding this knowledge into organizations in ways that foster change in managerial and organizational practices (MacIntosh et al., 2021). This difficulty contributes to the well-documented “research-practice gap,” where findings from management studies often fail to translate ...

Read