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Evaluating the determinants of environmental, social and governance (ESG) score is significant for topic for academics and regulators and companies. Despite its importance, little attention has been paid to non‐financial strategy disclosure and how to communicate non‐financial information. However, in the recent years, attention to the topic has considerably increased as demonstrated, in the European context, by the introduction of the non‐financial reporting directive in 2014. Therefore, it is important to analyse how the quantity and quality of disclosure influence the ESG score. To explore this relationship, a configurational analysis aimed at 31 Italian listed companies was studied by fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis. The results showed that there were three path types driving the ESG score and that integrated reporting played a highly significant role in promoting a high ESG score. Specifically, we show the importance of assessing the combinations of quality and quantity disclosures for ESG score through configurational thinking. These results provide a first theoretical basis for the effectiveness of disclosure measurements on ESG score, charting the future direction for environmental management studies.

PurposeThis article analyses the new venture creation by patient innovators in 40 countries examining the effects of the four macro-level factors on entrepreneurship, adding a fifth sector-specific (healthcare) factor.Design/methodology/approachBy applying the statistical tool of principal component analysis, we find a clustering behavior of health user entrepreneurs across countries, indicating that common macro-level conditions affect this phenomenon in a nonlinear way.FindingsHealthy user innovators are more likely to become entrepreneurs in those countries where creativity, economic opportunities and business environment are increasing from the lower level until a certain threshold. After that level, user entrepreneurship seems to be not relevant.Originality/valueWe contribute to the extant literature about macro-level determinants of entrepreneurship by exploring how much such conditions impact on the decision to create new firm by user innovators.

Purpose Organisations rarely adopted integrated processes for developing sustainability reports, although the literature and the business context recommend them for efficient reporting to describe the economic, environmental and/or social impacts of organisational activities. Based on system dynamics, this paper aims to propose an integrated process for producing sustainability reports. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted action research involving a multi-utility enterprise. This company offers a wide range of public services covering integrated water utilities, environmental hygiene service, transport and mobility and cemeterial management. Findings The main steps of a process for defining and representing integrated sustainability reports are described, giving a concrete practical example of how the procedure can be applied to a multi-utility company. Originality/value System dynamics used as the major contributor to developing integrated sustainability reports also takes into account the nonlinear behaviour of complex systems. Results and implications are assessed from an integrated thinking and reporting perspective.

Although the concept of smart cities has been largely discussed in the literature for over almost three decades, there is still a need to better understand the entrepreneurial aspects surrounding smart cities. This study aims to explore the evolutionary trends of research in the field of Smart Cities, and specifically, to unveil the entrepreneurial aspects prevailing in the literature. With the support of bibliometric analysis and social network analysis tools this paper identifies the foundations and most active areas on smart cities research over the past 20 years. It also scrutinizes and highlights the entrepreneurial aspects prevailing in the smart cities body of knowledge. It provides a critique of the current state-of–the-art of entrepreneurial research in the smart cities future research directions by analyzing the collaboration among the authors and the relation between the knowledge creation and the impact of its results.

The paper is part of what we can call “post New Public Management (NPM) studies” which denounce that the policies of austerity and competition have made local public transport fragmented and less attractive for customers. These studies that indicate the need for greater coordination within this sector as a condition of social and environmental, and not only financial, sustainability are increasingly numerous. We show how the public transport legislative evolution in UK (more strictly Great Britain) has aimed towards the assurance of more coordination into a fragmented sector. However in its last stage, the Bus Services Act 2017, we find not only more incentives to increase coordination but the ‘rehabilitation’ of a contested concept such as the integrated transport planning. Specifically, we show that the ‘rehabilitation’ of the integrated transport planning did not happen immediately but gradually over the years through several reforms. During this transition, both negative and positive aspects, and the tensions between competitive mechanisms and coordination mechanisms have lived together. This tension demonstrates the challenge of finding an appropriate role for public and private actors to make public transport fully sustainable. The case of Great Britain shows that transport sustainability must be found in a mix of mechanisms: not only market and partnership but also hierarchical mechanisms, such as an integrated and coordinated planning.

Our study adopts a reliable and widely acknowledged model to detect accounts manipulation in order to assess the impact of the financial crisis on Italian and Spanish listed companies’ propensity to manage their earnings. The analysis is conducted on 565 publicly traded companies on the Italian and Spanish financial markets during the time period 2005-2013. We find a lower propensity to manipulate earnings in both countries during the pre-crisis period (2005-2008) as suggested by a decrease in the number of high-risk manipulators until 2008 included. With the spread of the financial crisis, companies become more manipulators. We believe that the reason for this is to avoid giving bad news to markets, investors, and lenders after that the crisis may have impacted too negatively on firms’ performance indicators and financial equilibrium. Our empirical results provide various implications for further studies related to managements’ incentives concurrently with security offerings.

This paper investigates the phenomenon of accounting harmonization among Italian and Spanish entities that adopt IAS/IFRS, focusing on the cash flow reporting practices (IAS 7). We provide empirical evidence at the European level by analysing the accounting harmonization of IAS 7 adoption. Specifically, by using the C index of Van der Tas, we analyse the Cash Flow Statements (CFSs) published in 2020 of the largest companies that operate in Italy and Spain, respectively listed in FTSE MIB40 and IBEX35. Overall, the empirical findings indicate great levels of harmonization in applying IAS 7 emerged by the analysis of CFSs in the annual reports of 2020. Italian and Spanish companies show similar results on IAS 7 harmonization. The level of harmonization could be improved in the future across different companies of various EU countries, necessitating further work by the IASB to reduce alternative methods allowed in IAS/IFRS standards. The aim of this work is to investigate how IAS 7 allows different options for reporting entities’ cash flows as well as to verify the level of harmonization of the largest Italian and Spanish groups. Finally, we address solutions to make CFSs more comparable among entities that belong in different EU countries.

PurposeThis study aims to contribute to international doctrine by testing how environmental social governance (ESG) pillars can affect marketing performance in the pharmaceutical industry.Design/methodology/approachThe authors follow a pioneering approach, using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis and data from the largest European listed companies belonging to the pharmaceutical industry in 2019. Specifically, the authors contribute to international doctrine by testing how ESG pillars can affect marketing performance by presenting two configurational paths that may help to clarify not only the individual role of the pillars but also how their interrelationships predict marketing performance.FindingsThe results identify two different causal configurations that lead to higher marketing performance. These configurations allow us to think more carefully about the role of ESG pillars in the pharmaceutical sector. These results could help managers reflect upon and justify their choice to invest in specific ESG pillars, highlighting the importance of the governance pillar.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to use configurational analysis to investigate combinations of ESG pillars that lead firms to achieve higher levels of marketing performance.

The research aims to focus on the current application of fair value and, specifically, on the current adoption of the RC and the chance to find a more uniform technical definition of the RC, in the perspective that the IPSASB approach in relation to the RC appears sometimes contradictory. Premised of this technical framework, the research is conducted on the investigation of the adoption of fair value for tangible assets exploring the current adoption of RC by the 74 governments examined in the International Public Sector Financial Accountability Index.

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 &ldquo, off balance&rdquo, 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&rsquo, 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.

We investigate the relationship between family management and innovation investment propensity in family firms through analyzing the effect of two innovation impulses: demand-pull and technology-push. Extending the technology-push/demand-pull framework to the context of family firms, and adopting a direct measure of firms’ innovation investment propensity, we test our hypotheses on a sample of 1093 Italian small and medium-sized family firms. Our results show that both the demand-pull and technology-push innovation impulses moderate the relationship between family management and the firms’ propensity to invest in innovation, reducing the negative effect exerted by family management on family firms’ innovation investment propensity. Moreover, our evidence shows that family firms’ innovation investments are more sensitive to the demand-pull than the technology-push impulse. Overall, our findings suggest to practitioners and policymakers that family firm innovation impulses are important contingencies that need to be taken into account when making innovation investment decisions.

The most important element of the Cash Flow Statement is not the change in a stock financial resource between the beginning and end of the period, which can be found in the balance sheet, regardless of the financial resources that are referenced (cash or net working capital), but, rather, it is represented by the individual types of change and related causes (Allegrini et al. 2014).

The contributions of “value relevance” can be collected from macro-area of earnings quality studies, i.e., those studies aimed at appreciating the quality and usefulness of financial statements and related accounting information.

Companies prepare Cash Flow Statements according to the accounting standards requirements. A broad discussion has been raised regarding its usefulness to companies for investors. The big issue to be addressed is: What about the importance of cash flow from the investors’ perspective, specifically, the reflection of operating cash flow (OCF) information content on a company’s market value?

Many jurisdictions have obliged the disclosure of a Cash Flow Statement as a separate quantitative report of the financial statements (Akbar et al. 2011). In the USA in 1973, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) specified rules that made it mandatory under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP) to disclose sources and uses of funds, but the definition of “funds” was not clear.

In the past, the Cash Flow Statement has always been an accompanying document to the traditional financial statements, acting as a stand-alone document with the aim of highlighting the level of liquidity and solvency, which is of particular importance for those outsiders who have provided capital.

This study analyzes the factors associated with the implementation of environmental risk indicators (ERIs) among organizations. According to studies that show the relevance of management accounting tools for managing risk, we measure the level of ERI implementation across organizations by analyzing the presence of environmental performance indicators in corporate social responsibility reports and on corporate web sites. The analysis is based on data gathered from 72 Italian listed manufacturing companies for the year 2015. The empirical findings suggest that ERI implementation is positively driven primarily by the following variables: the presence of a chief risk officer, the level of environmental risk score, and firm complexity. In contrast, the number of independent directors on the board does not affect ERI implementation.

The role of diversity in organizations has been widely discussed in recent decades; nevertheless, both theoretical perspectives and empirical results appear conflicting and inconsistent. Scholars identify many possible reasons such as the definition of diversity, theoretical perspectives, variables, and methodological approaches; this study focuses on the methodological issue of assessing variety. To evaluate the role of diversity, most studies adopt static approaches and refer to the classical univariate indices; this research shows their limitations and stresses the importance of treating diversity with a multivariate dynamic approach. Taking advantage of functional data analysis and some recent ecological studies, this dual gap of the organizational literature is addressed by proposing a new methodological approach for measuring and monitoring diversity in organizations. We illustrate an application of this method by using a real dataset concerning the workforce diversity of the “Corporation For National And Community Service Overview” within the project “Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment Program (FEORP)” of the Government of the United States of America. The goal of this research is to provide human resources specialists, policy makers, and scholars with additional techniques to improve the understanding of the dynamics of workforce diversity and minority employment within organizations.

The university modernization process has introduced a new concept of such institutions: the "Smarter University". According to this concept, the new role of universities in modern society consists not only of cooperation with other actors focusing on social, cultural and economic activities but also the wide use of web-based technologies to support traditional teaching and research, as well as engagement and social interaction (Coccoli et al., 2014). The Smarter University model is the result of technological innovations and, in particular, digital tools that facilitate interconnection, networking and sharing be-tween individuals and groups (Coccoli et al., 2014) and increase the ability of uni-versities to contribute to economic and social development. The new concept of the university has attracted research attention aimed at finding appropriate models to measure the performance of such institutions. In this paper, we develop a model to measure the contribution of smarter universities to social, economic and cultural development. We adopt an integrated approach that links performance measurement to the smart university’s mission and its new business model.

Purpose Application of operations management in healthcare is particularly promising to improve the overall organisational performance, although the Italian system is behind in introducing related techniques and methods. One of the recent experiments in healthcare is the implementation of “Lean Thinking”. The purpose of this paper is to investigate which exogenous forces are driving knowledge transfer on Lean, both in the private and public healthcare sectors. Design/methodology/approach Informed by institutional sociology (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Powell and DiMaggio, 1991), the paper builds on the case study methodology (Yin, 2013) to elucidate the environmental pressures that are encouraging the adoption of Lean thinking by Italian hospitals and Local Health Authorities. Findings The study highlights the economic, coercive, mimetic and normative pressures that are triggering the adoption of Lean thinking in the Italian National Health System (INHS). At the same time, the authors reveal the pivotal importance and innovative roles played by diverse prominent key-actors in the different organisations investigated. Originality/value Considering that little is known to date regarding which exogenous forces are driving the transfer of knowledge on Lean, especially in the public healthcare sector, the paper allows scholars to focus on patterns of isomorphic change and will facilitate managers and policy makers to understand exogenous factors stimulating the transfer of Lean thinking and the subsequent innovation within health organisations and systems.

PurposeIn the process of harmonizing International Accounting Standards (IAS/IFRS), scholars and standard setters still need to overcome unresolved issues related to both goodwill duration and accounting recognition. This paper aims to compare the academic background on goodwill with current IAS. Specifically, the goal is to criticize existing practices and advance a revision of accounting for goodwill.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a review of the relevant literature on notions, theories and accounting approaches on goodwill and on an investigation of IAS/IFRS on accounting for goodwill. By critically integrating literature and practices, the authors provide implications for a revision of IAS.FindingsThe findings show the two main internally coherent theoretical approaches and the incoherence in current goodwill accounting standards. The paper contributes to the debate on accounting for goodwill by suggesting new conceptual arguments in relation to the controversies related to its accounting treatment.Practical implicationsThe findings offer insights and guidelines that can help standard setters revise current accounting standards. Inter alia, standards setters should revisit issues related to goodwill evaluation and record limitations in future debates to find better solutions.Originality/valueThis study shows the incoherence of current accounting standards. Furthermore, the findings contradict the general opinion that, in current IAS, goodwill can be recognized only if acquired in business combinations and not if internally generated. Thereby, the authors suggest to shift the international accounting standards board focus from the preference between amortization and impairment to the coherence of goodwill accounting approaches.

The aim of the paper is to analyse the interaction effect corruption play in the relation between ownership structure and firm performance. This paper analyses whether and how the Corruption Perception Index affects the relationship between corporate performance and ownership structure in 2,035 firms operating in eight European countries (Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, Finland, The Netherland, Italy, and Spain) during 2010-2017 period (10,915 firm year observations). Our findings show that level of corruption perceived by investors is relevant to the relationship between ownership concentration and firm performance. This result suggests that institutional context variables should be taken into consideration from corporate governance scholars in their empirical investigations. The contribution of the paper is twofold: first, our results evidence the relevant role played by the interaction effects between firm-level and country-level variables; second, it suggests important managerial and policy implications related to the interaction between internal and external corporate governance mechanisms.