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The purpose of this study is to explore South African and Italian consumers' attitude toward online wine purchasing. In detail, through the application of the technology acceptance model (TAM), this research intends to explain the antecedents of consumers actual online purchasing of wine in South Africa and Italy.

Two questionnaire-based surveys were conducted, yielding a sample of 190 consumers in South Africa and 179 in Italy. Data were analyzed through several techniques including t-tests, principal component factor analyses, and binary logistic regressions.

Overall, the findings show that South African and Italian online wine consumers are more similar than the offline wine consumers. However, perceived usefulness has an impact on the use of the online channel to purchase wine in Italy but not in South Africa, whereas perceived complexity has an effect in South Africa but not in Italy.

This study adopts a convenience sampling technique, suggesting that the used samples are not representative of the whole population. Moreover, TAM offers a simple and clear understanding of the actual use of wine e-commerce but overlooks other potential explanatory factors.

Targeting online wine consumers in South Africa and Italy opens up the opportunity for using cross-national highly standardized product and communication strategies. However, different approaches are required to convert offline wine consumers to online wine consumers in South Africa and Italy.

This is the first cross-national study investigating consumers' attitude toward online wine purchasing in South Africa and Italy. Moreover, it offers a comparison of online and offline wine consumers in the two countries. In addition, the research offers a new point of view over consumers of Italy and South Africa, two important countries in terms of wine production and consumption that can be very beneficial for wineries owners and managers.

Southern Italy (2) is a multiform and atypical system in the Italian tourist economy. According to a general image, one of its main features is the extensiveness and quality of the region's natural resources, especially the coastal areas, attractions which traditionally make the macroregion known essentially as a destination for “sun&sea” holidays. In recent years, moreover, due to growing and widespread awareness for environmental quality and for cultural factors, this image seems to have acquired new impulse and new occasions of interest. The wealth of particularly important historical, artistic and archaeological attractions (Magna Graecia, Roman and Arab‐Byzantine influences, the Baroque, etc); the diffusion and, often, the persistence of social‐cultural traditions that resist the influence of modernisation, are today—just as they were at the time of the Grand Tour—factors of strong appeal for the Southern regions. Today, the “capital cities” in Southern Italy are the main historical destinations of the early years of tourism, especially for foreign demand: besides Naples and Palermo, cities such as Taormina, Sorrento, Capri and Ischia, or destinations of cultural tourism such as Agrigento and Siracusa stand out.

This paper aims to assess gender bias in Italian university student mobility controlling for the field of study. It uses data from the Italian National Student Archive (Anagrafe Nazionale degli Studenti – ANS) for the cohort of freshmen enrolled in the 2017 academic year. The macro-regional comparison unfolds across the following areas: North and Centre, Southern Italy and main Islands (Sicily and Sardinia).

The analysis is firstly carried out at the national level, and secondly, it focusses on macro-geographical areas. University mobility choices are thus investigated from a gender perspective, conditioning upon other theoretically relevant characteristics collected for the prospective first-year university student population enrolled in 2017. The authors analyse data in a regression setting (logit models) within the multilevel framework, which considers students at level 1 and the field of study at level 2. Gender differences in the propensity to be a mover – conditional upon the choice of the field of study – were captured by introducing random intercepts to account for clustering of students in fields of study and random slopes to allow the gender effect to differ among them.

Findings show that university student mobility in Italy leads evidence of gender bias. This has been detected using a multilevel random slope approach that allowed the authors to jointly estimate a slope parameter for gender within each field of study. Moreover, using a regression setting allowed the authors to control for heterogeneity in geographical, educational and socio-demographic characteristics across students. In line with previous empirical findings, the authors' data highlight the presence of a relevant mobility flow of university students from the South toward the North-Centre of Italy and lower mobility of female students compared to male students from the South and Islands.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, there are no studies in Italy, which investigate if families' investment in higher education in terms of selection of no-local universities are affected by gender bias and if geographical differences in this behaviour between macro-areas are in place. Thus, investigating students' choices in tertiary education allows the authors to shed light on the presence of gender bias in families' education strategies addressed to increase the endowment of students' assets for future job opportunities.

This study offers a focus on the income dynamics of the sector, analyzing the evolution of the main profitability indicators (ROE, ROA, ROI and ROS) of 457 Italian companies in the 2008–2020 period. So, it is possible to verify the reactivity to the global financial crisis that began in 2008 and the first indications on the 2020 pandemic.

The analysis uses descriptive statistics tools and the ANOVA method of analysis of variance completed by Tukey's test, useful for identifying the existence of significant differences between geographical macro-areas of the country.

The results show positive dynamics in a sector that has been able to absorb the negative consequences of the great global crisis, improving its profitability over the years, albeit with differences in the macro-regions of Italy.

The study considers only the companies that survived the crisis, so, presumably, the strongest. In the future, other ratios should be considered to have a more complete view. It is a quantitative study based on the financial report data that neglects other important economic factors.

Public policies might use this study for a better intervention in support of the sector. Besides, internal management may compare company outcomes with average sector outcomes to identify improvement prospects.

The research represents a significant basis considering the risks deriving from the supply of low-cost Asian products that could significantly affect the profitability of Italian companies in the future.

The study contributes to the literature by providing a quantitative analysis of the dynamics of the sector, through the comparative information that may be deduced of balanced sheets in the course of the years.

This paper aims to show the economic impact of congress tourism and the sectors involved. In South Tyrol congress tourism may be considered niche tourism. It does not concern the South Tyrolean valleys, where tourist impact is high, but only the main towns.

The study consists of a quantitative analysis. A questionnaire has been drawn up and handed over to conference attendees during the last day of their presence at the event. The questionnaire is structured in three main parts: characteristics of the conference delegates and their stay, expenses related to the conference, and other expenses. The second and third sections aim at detailing expenditure and subdividing it into the following items: registration fees, transport, accommodation, food and drink, goods and services, cultural activities, sports and entertainment.

In South Tyrol the average total expenditure of congress delegates per day is higher than that of a traditional tourist. It must be considered that non‐event‐related expenses are very often included in the registration fees under the item “social programme”. As a consequence the total expenses are in fact higher. The question of registration fees actually plays a very important role, as it is a financially rather relevant item from which the destination normally benefits almost in full.

The survey succeeds in analysing the expenditure of conference delegates not only for board and lodging but also for leisure activities, as well as for the purchase of other goods and services like cultural, sports and entertainment activities during their conference stay in the region of South Tyrol.

This article seeks to explain why the public provision of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services in Reggio di Calabria – the largest city of the Calabria region in Southern Italy – has remained among the lowest in the country, failing to respond to the growing local demand for such services. Most of the limited formal supply of ECEC services currently available in the city is almost exclusively provided, for a fee, by private – until recently unregulated – day care centres, whereas households who cannot afford them must still rely on family care.

Based on original research findings, the article explains how such a supply configuration is the result of several concurrent factors – structural, institutional and cultural, on both the demand and the supply side of the service relation – and has been conditioned by both national and local specificities.

The complex interplay of these factors accounts not only for the enduring absence of an adequate public provision of ECEC services in the city and its region but also for the reproduction of an “unsupported” familistic model of care, while a loosely regulated private supply answers the growing demand coming from the working women who can afford it.

The lack of public ECEC, which was significantly aggravated by the 2008 financial crisis, represents a major constraint for women's emancipation and social justice in an already difficult socio-economic context.

The article provides in-depth knowledge on the enduring deficit of public ECEC services in a region and city that are little studied, together with a contextualized interpretation of its causes and implications.

The threats, the potential enemies, the risks and, consequently, the strategies used in each context to face them have all changed. The comparison by countries between futures civil and military elite shows us the palpable differences that exist among both worlds in these questions. Broadly speaking, a very intense inclination among the university students toward the human security could be detected while the cadets are more inclined toward the hard security. Undoubtedly, such a redefinition and adaptation of military missions to the new demands of a globalised world will eventually take precedence.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of firms’ survival during crisis in the Italian automotive value chain.

The authors propose a survival analysis, based on a dichotomic model, in which supply chain features, technical efficiency (TE) and ratings are included as explanatory variables with other controls.

TE and financial health positively influence survival. Some supply chain variables are significant such as direct supply, geographical location and outsourcing level, whereas the proximity to the national carmaker is insignificant.

The main limitation of the study is the lack of qualitative data related to supply management practice in the automotive industry.

The study combine supply chain aspects with firms’ survival, TE and financial ratings.

The analysis of the interactions between the criminal economy and the financial markets has not yet been systematically studied by the economists. This study belongs to a current research interested in this area, ie the economic analysis of money laundering. The work is organised as follows.

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the literature regarding the effect of country of origin on consumer perceptions of products and services. Results reveal that consumer perceptions differ significantly on the basis of product/service and country of origin. The country of origin may be an important element in the perceptions consumers have of products and services especially where little other information is known. However, the question of how much influence the country of origin provides in product and service evaluations remains unanswered and a number of other major issues have yet to be resolved. Directions for future research are developed.