Modularity approach to improve the competitiveness of tourism businesses: Empirical evidence from case studies

Pasquale del Vecchio, PhD, is a Researcher and Lecturer at the Department of Engineering for Innovation of the University of Salento, Italy. In 2007, he was a Visiting PhD Student at the Center for Business Intelligence – MIT Sloan School of Management (USA). His research field concerns the issues of user-driven innovation and open innovation with a specific focus on the phenomenon of virtual communities of customers. Currently, he is involved in a project related to the development of a tourist-integrated system for the regional smart specialization as well as in a research venue focused on technology-driven entrepreneurship.

Giustina Secundo is a Senior Researcher and an Assistant Professor in Management Engineering at the University of Salento (Lecce, Italy). Her research interest regards intellectual capital, academic entrepreneurship, innovation management and knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship. Her research appeared in Journal of Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management Research & Practices, Measuring Business Excellence, Journal of Management Development. She is a Lecturer of Project Management at the Department of Engineering for Innovation of the University of Salento since 2001. She is a Member of the Project Management Institute. Across 2014 and 2015, she has been a Visiting Researcher at the Innovation Insights Hub, University of the Arts London (UK).

Giuseppina Passiante is a Full Professor of Innovation Management and Technology Entrepreneurship at the University of Salento. Currently her research fields concern technology entrepreneurship, and more specifically the experiential learning environment encouraging enterprise and entrepreneurship capabilities, skills, and competencies. She is also an expert in knowledge-based organizations and local systems, ITs and clusters approach, complexity in economic systems. In these research fields, she has published several books and about 100 papers. She is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management and coordinator of the International PhD programs on Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Salento (Italy).