1,720,964 research outputs found
Corporate Governance and Sustainability: The role of the board of directors
Full text linkIl contesto economico-sociale contemporaneo, caratterizzato da conflitti, cambiamento climatico, disuguaglianze, ecc., pone più che mai l’accento sull’importanza delle tematiche ambientali e sociali. Le aziende sono chiamate a rispondere a tali sfide, operando in un’ottica sostenibile che affianchi all’obiettivo di massimizzazione del profitto quello di creazione di valore per la società. Negli ultimi decenni l’attenzione accademica sul tema della sostenibilità aziendale è cresciuta esponenzialmente e un ampio filone della letteratura manageriale si è concentrato sull’analisi dei drivers che spingono le aziende ad essere più sostenibili. Tra questi, il consiglio di amministrazione (CdA) riveste un ruolo di prim’ordine. Infatti, data la sua triplice funzione, strategica, di controllo e di networking, il CdA contribuisce (ai) ed è responsabile dei risultati aziendale. Sebbene molti studi abbiano analizzato la relazione tra CdA e performance aziendali, focalizzandosi in particolare sulle caratteristiche del consiglio in termini di composizione e struttura, i risultati sono inconcludenti e lasciano il dibattito aperto. Questa tesi, costituita da tre articoli, contribuisce a tale dibattito analizzando la relazione tra CdA e sostenibilità da varie prospettive. In primo luogo, in linea con la letteratura emergente sullo corporate purpose, la tesi si focalizza sull’importanza di definire uno scopo che vada al di là della sola massimizzazione del profitto per guidare l’azienda verso una reale transizione sostenibile, evidenziando il ruolo chiave del CdA in tal senso. Pertanto, nel primo articolo si analizza la relazione tra le caratteristiche del CdA e l’adozione di uno scopo sociale. In secondo luogo, la tesi intende contribuire al dibattito accademico sulla relazione tra CdA e performance di sostenibilità. In particolare, nel secondo articolo si esplora una caratteristica del CdA poco esaminata in letteratura, ossia l’esperienza in materia di sostenibilità degli amministratori, e si esaminano le condizioni affinché tale esperienza conduca ad una migliore performance di sostenibilità, evidenziando l’effetto moderatore dell’età del CdA. Infine, la tesi esplora la sostenibilità aziendale come meccanismo in grado di spiegare la relazione tra le caratteristiche del CdA e la performance finanziaria. A tal fine, il terzo articolo esamina gli interlocking directorates quali fonti di networking per l’azienda e analizza il loro impatto sulla performance finanziaria, mostrando che la sostenibilità aziendale svolga un ruolo di mediatore in tale relazione.The contemporary socio-economic context, marked by conflicts, climate change, inequalities, etc., underscores the importance of environmental and social issues more than ever. In response to these challenges, companies are urged to adopt a sustainability-focused approach that pairs the objective of profit maximization with societal value creation. Over the past decades, academic interest in corporate sustainability has grown exponentially, and a large strand of management literature has focused on the analysis of drivers pushing companies towards more sustainable practices and increased sustainability performance. Among these factors, the board of directors (BoD) plays a prominent role. Indeed, given its threefold function of strategic planning, control, and networking, the BoD contributes to, and is responsible for, corporate performance. While many studies have analyzed the relationship between the BoD and corporate sustainability, the results have been inconclusive, leaving room for further investigation. This thesis, consisting of three articles, contributes to this ongoing discussion by examining the relationship between the BoD and sustainability from various perspectives. First, aligning with the emerging literature on corporate purpose, the thesis emphasizes the need for a purpose that extends beyond mere profit maximization to guide the company towards a sustainable transition, highlighting the critical role of the BoD in this regard. Accordingly, the first article delves into the relationship between the BoD characteristics and the adoption of a social purpose. Second, the thesis aims to contribute to the debate on the association between BoD and sustainability performance. Specifically, the second article investigates an under-explored BoD characteristic, namely the board sustainability-related experience, and examines the boundary conditions that permit it to drive enhanced sustainability performance, highlighting the contingency effect of the BoD age. Finally, the thesis explores corporate sustainability as a mechanism that can explain the link between board characteristics and financial performance. In this context, the third article examines interlocking directorates as networking sources for the focal firm and analyzes their impact on corporate financial performance, showing that corporate sustainability mediates this relationship
Do Board Characteristics Affect the Adoption of Purpose-Driven Strategies? Evidence from EU firms
No full textThe debate around corporate purpose in the modern economic system has gained considerable momentum in the last decade, and the growing awareness of the social role played by firms has triggered an urgent call to pursue purpose-driven strategies (PDSs), i.e., strategies aimed at satisfying one or more societal needs other than profit maximization. Since the board of directors plays a key role in defining the corporate purpose and supporting decision-making in the definition of strategies, it is fair to assume that the characteristics of the board can impact the adoption of PDSs. However, the relationship between the board and PDSs has not yet been examined. Our study aims to fill this gap by investigating whether and which specific board characteristics influence the adoption of PDSs. To this end, we employed propensity score matching and logistic regression methods to analyze a sample of 580 European firms. Results show that board independence, network size, gender diversity, and education positively affect the adoption of PDSs, while the impact of directors’ age and board tenure is negative. In addition to contributing to research by connecting the board literature with the corporate purpose literature, our results provide practical implications for directors and investors
Governance e Purpose: le caratteristiche del CdA impattano sull’adozione di un purpose sociale?
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Banks responding to the digital surge through Open Innovation: Stock market performance effects of M&As with fintech firms
No full textThe rise of digitalization and advancements in information technology are changing the business environment in a radical manner. In the banking sector specifically, in response to these recent trends and embracing the Open Innovation (OI) framework, banks increasingly seek mergers and acquisitions (M&As) with fintech firms. Since it is unclear what is the impact of these M&A transactions, this research investigates their effect on an acquiring bank's future profits. To this end, the study applies an event study methodology to measure the stock market reaction to the announcements of M&A operations. In addition to advancing scientific knowledge about the effects brought about by fintech M&As on a bank's future profits, and more broadly shedding light on the boundary conditions that make OI practices beneficial for organizations, the findings of this study are also relevant for managers because they provide preliminary advice on which acquisitions are more beneficial for banks
Sustainable governance: board sustainability experience and the interplay with board age for firm sustainability
Full text linkThe growing emphasis on sustainability in the business landscape has prompted scholars and industry practitioners to explore the role of corporate governance, particularly the board of directors, in promoting corporate sustainability. Companies are called upon to operate ethically and to redefine their objectives beyond mere economic pursuits to create social impacts that contribute to sustainability challenges. Corporate governance plays a key role in this regard, as it defines the purpose and ethical orientation of the firm, thereby shaping its sustainability. While previous research has primarily focused on observable board characteristics, this study delves into a critical yet underexplored aspect of sustainable boards, i.e., the sustainability experience. Drawing on the upper echelon and resource dependency theories, our research examines how the sustainability experience of board members influences a firm's sustainability performance, investigating the moderating effect of board age. We analyzed European listed companies from 2014 to 2020, and our findings show that the effect of board sustainability experience on firm performance is contingent on board age. Specifically, our results show that younger boards amplify the positive effect of sustainability experience, while for older boards, this effect diminishes, up to the point of being completely mitigated, highlighting a potential misalignment between sustainability efforts and ethical business conduct. This study is pioneering in investigating the joint effects of board sustainability experience and board age on a firm's sustainability, thus, providing valuable contributions to theory and practical recommendations for firms in director recruitment, as well as recommendations for regulatory practices
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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