Purpose: The Internet of Things is the networked connection of people, processes, data and things, which together are able to achieve more relevant and valuable connections than ever before. In this framework, every aspect of economic and social life will be related via sensors and software to an Internet of Things platform, and the resulting data continuously flow into big data at every node. In order to provide a better understanding of this smart infrastructure, the aim of this paper is to investigate the Internet of Things through a revised theory of the topic, examining the period from 1985 to 2015, with the purpose of identifying the new opportunities offered by the Internet of Things to the economic-system and learn how to manage them. Design/methodology/approach: The Internet of Things was analysed by applying a qualitative method with a single method approach to the existing literature. We developed the research by studying national and international literature and, by running four key words (Internet of Things, Energy Internet, Communications Internet and Logistics Internet) through two databases (Google Scholar and EBSCO), we obtained a range of scientific contributions that could complement the literature review. The research sources are of a secondary nature.Originality/value: The Internet of Things can connect everything to everyone in an integrated global network. This network promises efficiency and social and individual benefits by quantifying and monitoring previously measureless qualities. The analysis of the literature review on the Internet of Things is, therefore, a way to fully appreciate the characteristics, opportunities, possible applications, risks and potential issues linked to the topic.Practical implications: Through our theory, our aim is to contribute towards identifying the main features, fields of application and corresponding potential applications for the Internet of Things, offering new ideas for further analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how universities develop and support student entrepreneurship. We did a preliminary Systematic Literature Review (SRL) on scientific articles regarding student entrepreneurship published during the last twenty years. Our findings emphasize three main research areas, emerging from a cluster analysis: (i) student entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intention; (ii) university support for entrepreneurship; (iii) entrepreneurship education and learning. Particularly, our study points out that the new paradigm of the entrepreneurial university overcame the classical university model through the introduction of many innovations to foster student entrepreneurship. This paper provides an SLR on university role in fostering student entrepreneurship and it is useful for the academic and professional community. Additionally, it is original because it highlights the future directions of entrepreneurship and the main innovations adopted by universities to help students in the development of entrepreneurial initiatives.

The present empirical paper aims to investigate the effect of a long-term company culture in terms of economic performance and firm value. Is it possible to track the cumulative knowledge (passed from father to son) into firm economic returns? The survey tests the hypothesis that the more experienced companies (higher firm age) will perform better than the others considering a set of performance indicators on a four years pattern (from firm value to EVA and VAIC). Comparing firm longevity with the performance indicators, but also monitoring many other corporate governance or ownership indicators, on a panel dataset of the top Italian wine companies. This methodology results in a deep analysis of the Italian wine business – family buy-out strategies, cooperatives. Family firms represent 42% of the panel, with more than 200 years of experience, a larger presence of women on board, a higher average age of the directors and a higher propensity to the production of grapes. The research findings support the hypothesis that a family firm add value over the generations through generating an internal cumulative knowledge process and a strong brand image. In addition, the presence of an external CEO is positively influencing performance (the Most Trusted Advisor). Firm value increases along with the number of family members within the board, to support the family logic and the social capital theories

This paper aims at identifying which factors should be considered in the building of an economic evaluation model for the private label brand. In fact, some specific characteristics of private label, with respect to industrial brand, make unusable the consolidated models available. The results of the paper are the definition of some specific factors of private label, the assumptions about how these features impact on the traditional economic evaluation models and how these could be included in a model. Because of the complexity of the topic, the hypothesis is to build a model of synthesis, made of two parts: one part for a Financial-Based evaluation of Brand Equity, with the addition of some specific factors and indicators to the traditional formulas, while the other part is for a Consumer-based evaluation of Brand Equity, thanks to an index that summarizes the strength of private label brands from the consumer perspective. The private label economic evaluation has some relevant managerial implications on the retail system, on the vertical supply chain relationships and on the understanding of the strategic nature of this asset.

Family business is one of the most common governance systems worldwide and it is very successful in industries with strong cultural traditions, as the wine business. The literature still disagrees on whether the familiar corporate structure increases performance or not. Our empirical paper aims to investigate the effect of a long-term company culture in terms of economic performance and firm value. Is it possible to track the cumulative knowledge (passed from father to son) into firm economic returns? Using a qualitative and a quantitative research approach, the survey tests the hypothesis that the more experienced companies (higher firm age) will perform better than the others considering a set of performance indicators on a four years pattern (from firm value to EVA and VAIC). Comparing firm longevity with the performance indicators, but also monitoring many other corporate governance or ownership indicators, on a panel dataset of the top Italian wine companies, developing the statistical models of regression and correlation to verify the relationship between performance indicators and a set of corporate governance/ownership variables. This methodology results in a deep analysis of the Italian wine business, that also describes the family buy-out strategy and the cooperative ownership structure (which could be considered somehow a micro-families aggregative model). Proper family firms represent 42% of the panel, with more than 200 years of experience, a larger presence of women on board, a higher average age of the directors and a higher propensity to the production of grapes. Moreover, they have the greatest longevity and perform better than the other two groups, non-family firms and cooperatives.