Editorials

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, ...

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2026-03-03 Bruno Busacca

Marketing, Quo Vadis?

The metaphorical meanings of the expression Quo vadis? are often associated with uncertainty and doubts around the path to take, as well as about one’s role and identity. In short, Quo vadis? is a question that invites deep reflection on direction and purpose. These interpretations aptly capture the ongoing reflections on the future of marketing, particularly in light of the role that big data (Wedel and Kannan, 2016) and generative artificial intelligence are playing in reshaping its tools, approaches, skills, and processes. Such reflections range from enthusiasm for the enormous capacity of ...

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2025-12-19 Alberto Grando

The glass half full of Italian innovation

One of the key recommendations highlighted in the Report on the Future of European Competitiveness (Draghi, 2024) stresses the need to “bridge the innovation gap,” particularly with respect to the United States. The report notes that “in Europe, innovative digital firms are unable to scale or attract financing, resulting in a significant gap in later-stage investment between the EU and the United States.” Among the various obstacles hindering innovation, the document also points out that Europe lacks a sufficient number of academic institutions capable of achieving top levels of excellence, ...

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2025-09-18 Giuseppe Soda

Grounded leadership for uncertain times

"Life is the continuous search for the new and the improbable, the only way to survive." Ernesto Illy In July 2025, I was invited to participate in a panel discussion organized by the Ernesto Illy Foundation, one of the initiatives marking the centenary of the entrepreneur’s birth. On that occasion, the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, commemorated him for his ethical integrity, sense of responsibility toward the community, and passion for innovation and research. My task was to reflect on the conception of leadership embodied by Ernesto Illy. In this article, I set out to reconstruct ...

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2025-06-16 Stefano Caselli

Rethinking enterprise, reviving Europe

What choices are businesses facing today? How can we, as a School of Management, help businesses, entrepreneurs, and managers, during this unprecedented time? Five years after the pandemic and three years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, companies are now contending with a storm of tariffs. These tariffs not only jeopardize revenues, but also the very way companies operate in the marketplace. While the Covid pandemic exposed the interdependence of production chains, leading to logistical gridlock, the tariff virus makes this reality even more evident. Illustrating this point, The Wall Street ...

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2025-03-28 Sandro Castaldo

How to Gain Maximum Trust

We are experiencing a period of tremendous economic and social uncertainty, marked by international political tensions and stagnant consumption. Despite a slowdown in inflation, rising consumer prices over the past three years have eroded household purchasing power, already under pressure from high energy costs and rising financing costs. In this unpredictable environment, characterized by instability and limited consumer spending capacity, demand is shifting towards savings. This trend is reflected in the rapid expansion of convenience-oriented retailers. Across Europe, as discount stores continue ...

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2024-12-23 Sandro Castaldo

In Search of Impact

How can we improve the impact of scientific research on management practice and create real value for business and society, while avoiding the “ivory tower” isolation effect of academia? This question is one of the overarching challenges facing many of today’s management disciplines. Indeed, the most innovative and rapidly developing economies are the ones that are able to produce high-impact research. For this reason, the need for a closer dialogue between academic research and management practice is now widely recognized, not only by academics and research centers, but also by European ...

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2024-10-17 Francesco Billari

Building the Future with Demography

Think future, build future. The strategies of companies, institutions, and corporations are based on approaches that project today onto tomorrow. Among these, one approach remains underutilized: the analysis of change through the lens of demography. Although demographic change may seem slow and almost imperceptible, this very phenomenon is one of the most powerful forces shaping our economic, social, and political future – a true megatrend. To envision the future and build a sustainable tomorrow, it is essential to adopt a demographic perspective. By starting with demography and then exploring ...

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2024-07-15 Sandro Castaldo

Trusted Sustainability

In recent years, sustainability has become a growing strategic priority for companies. This is the result of increased community and institutional attention to issues related not only to environmental sustainability, but also to diversity, inclusion, and a growing focus on fair and equitable treatment of employees and suppliers within the supply chain. According to the stakeholder view, a company should not only prioritize the economic interests and expectations of its internal stakeholders (primarily shareholders), but also strive to satisfy a broader range of stakeholders – such as employees, ...

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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, ...

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