124,601 research outputs found
Responsabilità Sociale di Impresa e Rischio. La relazione tra Performance Sociale e Costo del Debito
No full textThis paper investigates
the link between corporate social performance and cost of debt financing. The literature on the determinants of the cost of debt
generally documents a negative association between measures of the firm's risk and its cost of debt. The literature on Corporate
Social Responsibility, instead, presents risk reduction as one of the potential benefits related to these investments. Thanks to that
effect, therefore, an efficient market should recognize a ‘ethical financial premium’ to socially responsible firms, corresponding to a
less cost of debt financing. In order to test this hypothesis, the developed model investigates the relation between firms’ RSI
performance (measured through the SAM index) and their cost of debt. Potentially confounding factors were also analysed.
Employing a unique data set of 332 firms over a time period of five years we find some evidence that there is no ‘ethical financial
premium’ for improved corporate social responsibility in term of cost of debt applied by banks and financial institutions to the
company. Instead, the results document a positive relation between the RSI performance proxy and the cost of debt, demonstrating
that RSI is not considered a value driver with an impact on the firm’s risk profile, but a sort of waste of resources that can
negatively affect the performance of the firm, independently from the country in which the firm operates
Ripensare l'azienda. Approcci generalisti e specialisti tra momenti, funzioni, settori. Con CD-ROM
No full textThe Agency Problem, Financial Performance and Corruption: Country, Industry and Firm Level Perspectives
No full textThis paper studies the relationship between the agency problem, financial performance and corruption from country, industry and firm level perspectives. First, we observe that companies operating in countries with a high level of corruption tend to display relatively low returns. Second, in an industry-by-industry context, we find that the negative relationship between corruption and average stock returns is stronger in specific industries, which
we define as ‘corruption sensitive’. Third, at the firm level, we show that agency problems are exacerbated in corruption-sensitive industries. Our study builds on the existing literature in three main areas. First, it proposes a novel macro-based approach aimed at identifying corruption-sensitive industries. Second, it provides evidence supporting that corruption exacerbates agency conflicts. Third, it provides evidence on the generalizability of standard corporate governance predictions to companies operating in corruption-sensitive industries
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe 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
Corporate Governance and Diversity in Boardrooms: Empirical Insights into the Impact on Firm Performance
No full textThe book aims to analyze the corporate board diversity in all its features, focusing on the impact that the various aspects of diversity have on the performance of the firm.
An increasing attention towards corporate board diversity has been given worldwide due to: i) the new requirements asked by several legislators, ii) the corporate failures and scandals occurred in the last years, especially after the 2000s, and iii) the increasing role of institutional investors in the most recent decades. Academics and practitioners have started to question the role of the board within the firm, analyzing where and when the board could not be effective at monitoring managers and at protecting the shareholders’ interests. The studies concerning the role of the board and its features have been conducted under several perspectives and theories, but no convergent results have been achieved yet. Specifically, the board diversity has been analyzed considering single specific aspects of diversity (such as gender, age, and educational level) in relation with the performance of the firm. The aim of this book is to provide a review of the types of diversity and to show the main results in terms of impact on the firm, proposed by existing literature. Moreover, the book develops an innovative approach addressed to simultaneously include all diversity features in a single conceptual framework. Finally, in order to test this model, the study presents an empirical investigation conducted on a sample of European companies, over a period of nine years. Specifically, the relationship between the diversity of the board, given by all the diversity elements (gender, age, background, level of education, nationality, role in board, directorship experience, and independence) and the performance of the firm is tested using a panel data estimation model. For the diversity aspects, indexes of diversity have been created. The firm’s performance is tested through both a market-based measure, the Tobin’s Q, and some accounting measures, namely ROE and ROA. The findings are useful primarily for academics because they enrich the existing literature with a deep study of the diversity across the European context. Nonetheless, since the work provides also evidence of the effects of the overall level of diversity on the firm performance, it can be a useful source for practitioners, too
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Shattering the glass ceiling: Female leadership and acquisitiveness in family and nonfamily firms
No full textThis research investigates the impact of female CEOs on mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in family and nonfamily firms. With a sample of 165 Italian listed companies engaged in M&As from 2011 to 2016, the study explores whether CEO gender impacts on firm's acquisitiveness in family and nonfamily firms. Findings indicate that having a female CEO is associated with lower acquisitiveness overall. However, this trend is not consistently observed in family firms, challenging conventional assumptions. This research contributes to understanding the nuanced dynamics of female leadership and M&As, shedding light on the role of CEO gender in distinct ownership contexts
Diversity in Boardrooms and Firm Performance: The Role of Tenure and Educational Level of Board Members
No full textDiversity on corporate boards has been studied from different perspectives in recent decades. The present study aims at investigating the impact on firm performance of two demographic diversity traits in boardrooms: tenure and educational diversity. The extant literature does not provide aligned findings on this topic, thus further research is still needed. The authors hypothesize that both tenure and educational diversity of board members have a positive effect on firm performance. To measure firm performance two dependent variables are used, applying two models for each hypothesis investigated Tobin’s Q and return on assets. The study is conducted using sample data of 187 listed firms within the European area, covering a 9-year period, from 2010 to 2018. Diversity dimensions are measured through indexes constructed on the basis of the mix among the directors in terms of educational level and tenure. The outcomes highlight a significant and positive relationship between tenure diversity on corporate boards and firm performance. In terms of the impact of educational diversity, no evidence indicating a positive effect on firm performance is found. The research carried out is unique because it considers two personal attributes of diversity calculating diversity indexes and measuring their impact on the firm’s performance. The econometric approach used has not been extensively applied in previous research. In fact, the majority of previous empirical studies have measured diversity through percentages or dummy variables, depending on the type of diversity aspect being analyzed, and then used it as the independent variable
Does ESG Disclosure Influence Firm Performance?
No full textThis study aims to analyze the impact of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure on the firm performance, given the stakeholders' increasing attention to the firm's ESG practices. Looking at the European context, the Directive 2014/95/EU and its update encouraged European large companies to provide disclosure about their socially responsible practices. Acting within the Agency and Signaling theory frameworks, this paper focuses on the Italian situation where the Legislative Decree 254/2016 implemented the European Directive and forced the largest firms (those with more than 500 employees) to disclose comprehensive information about their social and environmental activities starting from 2017. By applying a panel regression analysis, using a sample of the largest Italian listed companies, and considering a time span of 10 years (from 2011 to 2020), this study finds that there is a positive relationship between environmental, social, and governance disclosure and firm performance, measured by EBIT. Our findings will help firms' stakeholders, decision-makers, policymakers, as well as academics, to improve their awareness of the impact of ESG disclosure on the performance of the firm, both as a comprehensive factor and individually by pillar. The findings, which support the positive relationship between ESG disclosure and firm performance, should incentivize managers to invest in CSR practices
Do female directors on corporate boards make a difference in family owned business?
No full textThis paper investigates how the presence of female directors on corporate boards impacts the performance of family firms. This study enriches the literature on gender diversity on corporate boards and its effects on firm performance by focusing on a country in which family businesses are dominant. The empirical analysis is conducted on a sample of 165 Italian-listed firms from 2011 to 2016, representing the period during which the mandatory gender quota law was introduced and implemented in Italy. The results show a positive relationship between the presence of women on corporate boards and firm performance, specifically in family owned businesses. These findings lead to the conclusion that female directors do not have a negative impact on firm performance. And, given the domination of family businesses and a mandatory gender quota law in Italy, this study makes a regulatory and performance assessment not previously examined in the literature
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