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This article provides a research program for the field of business models. It focusses specifically on 4th stage research, which is concerned with the performative notions of business models to which six conceptual avenues for further research are depicted.

Public private partnerships (PPPs) are a well-known instrument used worldwide by public administration (PA) to build public infrastructure using private knowhow and financial resources, and sharing risks. In recent years, PPPs have been widely adopted to develop energy efficiency projects between public and private sectors. In this context, a successful project requires a contractual arrangement based on energy performance contracting (EPC) that balances the interests of the two parties. This paper aims to answer two questions: how to share the benefits between the contractual parties and reach an optimal long-term contractual agreement; and which type of contract ensures a consistent risk transfer to the private partner, allowing the PA an “off balance” accounting treatment. The research questions are answered through the development of a mathematical equation able to calculate the optimal percentage of benefits sharing between partners in a long-term contractual agreement. The results are tested with a simulation based on a case study about the energy efficiency project of an Italian hospital. The paper is innovative because it provides suggestions to improve the EPC-PPP contractual structure and realize a balanced agreement between the public and private partners. Moreover, it analyzes the different allocation of risks in EPC contracts to identify the implication for the PA in terms of on-off balance accounting treatment in energy efficiency investment. We show how a successful long-term EPC-PPP can benefit from a mixed contractual structure in which profit-sharing percentage changes during the contract’s life to ensure the same net present value (NPV) to both public and private partners. This paper supports public decision making in order to choose contracts that are able to transfer energy and management risks. Moreover, it helps to understand the balance between public and private interests in a long-term EPC-PPP contract.

Account manipulation has been the subject of accounting discussions not only in the U.S. but across the world, especially during times of financial crises. This paper investigates the impact of the recent financial crisis on account manipulation probability by adopting the Beneish Model (1999, 2013) of eight performance ratios. The analysis has been conducted using the Top 5,000 Non-Listed Stock Italian Companies (Società Per Azioni) ranked by revenues during the time period 2005-2012. We use the AIDA Bureau Van Dijk database. We test the existence of earnings management (EM) within the Top Non-Listed Stock Italian Companies through a comparison between the pre-crisis period (2005-2008) and the crisis period (2009-2012). Our findings show that the number of firms with a higher likelihood of earnings manipulation decreases by 4.53% from the pre-crisis to crisis period. As a consequence, we argue that EM increases when the crisis is weak while EM decreases during the crisis period.