Alessandra Allini

The board's role in risk disclosure: an exploratory study of Italian listed state-owned enterprises

The determinants of risk disclosure in the annual reports of listed state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have yet to be fully explored. This paper examines the potential impact of the composition of the boards of directors and other company-specific features on risk disclosure levels. The presence of women on a board made a significant difference to risk disclosure, as did the age of board members. Board directors having an accounting or finance/business qualification affected risk disclosure negatively; company size and an internet visibility were positively related to risk disclosure. Although an Italian study, the lessons here will have application to academia and to practitioners, policy-makers and standard-setters worldwide.

Do Corporate Governance Characteristics Affect Non-Financial Risk Disclosure in Government-Owned Companies? The Italian Experience

While a considerable amount of research has already been carried out into the corporate governance determinants of non-financial risk disclosure in companies in the private sector, such determinants in the annual reports of listed Governmentowned Companies (LGCs) have yet to be investigated fully. This study attempts to complete the picture. Italian LGCs have been selected for analysis and agency theory has been applied in the public sector under the accountability paradigm. The research investigates whether non-financial risk disclosure provided in the Management Commentary (MC) of Italian LGCs may be affected by ownership concentration, corporate governance mechanisms and company-specific features. The issue is of particular importance in a country where Government intervention has significantly affected its economic development since the nineteenth century. Our findings show that there is a relationship between the level of non-financial risk disclosure and Board diversity, leverage and sector. Our findings also reveal some useful insights concerning policy makers and standard setters.

The Factors Motivating Voluntary Disclosure of Carbon Information: Evidence Based on Italian Listed Companies:

The purpose of this research is to examine how environmental committees, institutional shareholdings, and board independence affect managerial carbon disclosure decisions, particularly those of firms belonging to highly polluting industries. We focus on Italian firms that operate in a code law environment but that have the option either to adopt the unitary corporate structure prevalent in common law countries or to retain the dual corporate structure used in code law countries. We use weighted and unweighted carbon disclosure indexes based on the Kyoto Protocol requirements. The findings show that all factors greatly affect voluntary carbon disclosure and that their impact is especially strong for firms in highly polluting industries. This study has important implications for managers and regulators.

Impact of Accounting Traditions, Ownership and Governance Structures on Financial Reporting by Italian Firms

Institutional differences across countries present special challenges to achieve uniformity or at least harmony in financial reporting across countries. We evaluate in this paper how accounting traditions, ownership and governance structures of Italian companies affect implementation of the European Union mandated International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by Italian companies. This evaluation will enable investors, especially international investors, to have a better understanding of financial reporting by Italian companies and it will also highlight the problems and issues facing Italian companies to implement IFRS.

The Evolution of Non-Financial Disclosure in a European Perspective

The propensity to disclose information about corporate non-financial performance has grown across Europe as a result both of Regulation no. 1606/2002 and higher market sensitivity to enterprises adopting socially responsible policies. This study starts with a through examination of the theoretical literature on the subject. In the second part of the study, starting from the European Commission guidelines on the subject, a survey hasbeen made so to group European countries in three categories with respect to their actual degree of compliance, with both the updating process required by EU directives and other regulations concerning mandatory non-financial disclosure at national level, if any. Starting from the results of the empirical evidence, looking at investors as primary category of stakeholders and considering listed company, a statistical analysis has been conducted in order to verify whether there is a correlation between the development of local financial markets and the position assumed by regulatory agencies on non-financial information.

Users’ legitimacy perceptions about standard-setting processes

Standard-setting institutions require legitimacy to survive. Prior research infers their legitimacy mainly from the characteristics of standard-setting processes rather than from the legitimacy judgments of important constituencies. Using a survey of financial analysts, we quantitatively assess users’ perceptions about the characteristics of standard-setting processes, the relationships between these characteristics and legitimacy perceptions, and users’ legitimacy perceptions. Our first contribution is to use a sample of sophisticated financial statement users to empirically examine the theoretical proposition that users’ legitimacy perceptions could be a function of the perceived characteristics of standard-setting processes. We find that users’ perceptions about the characteristics of standard-setting processes affect the legitimacy they attribute to these processes. A combination of pragmatic, moral and cognitive legitimacies are at play in such legitimacy assessments. Our second contribution is to point out the importance of separately investigating various types of legitimacy, as users’ perceptions about them vary. Lastly, our third contribution is to highlight that the distinction between users’ perceptions of the characteristics of standard-setting processes and their legitimacy perceptions is not always clear-cut and that there are multiple interrelations among these concepts.

La disclosure nei Piani della Performance delle università italiane. Intenti simbolici verso approcci sostanziali di legittimazione

This research focuses on the Performance Plans drawn up by Italian universities, to understand whether the information conveyed in this documents are able to achieve increasing transparency and greater accountability - fulfilling the willingness expressed by recent regulatory attempts - or if, conversely, they constitute a mere symbolic compliance effort. The study embraces the legitimacy framework and relies upon a meaning oriented content analysis of 66 Performance Plans. The main findings show little strategic value underlying Performance Plans, as well as the persistence of certain information gaps on key areas of strategic importance, offering a noteworthy contribution not restricted to the academic debate, but valuable for policy makers and practitioners.

Controlling innovation and innovating control: insights from a knowledge intensive network

The purpose of this paper is to deepen the countervailing relationship between control and innovation in knowledge-intensive complex organizations. It adopts a middle range theory perspective (Broadbent and Laughlin, 2013) to explore how control systems and innovation dynamics interact and shape each other in the contexts of high complexity and intensive knowledge creation.,The paper employs single case study of a research-intensive biotech network located in Southern Italy, focusing on the change in the management accounting practices fostered by evolving environmental conditions and regulations that the network has faced in recent years.,The paper finds out how successful organizational changes are facilitated by the implementation of innovative control devices, favoring informal collaborative relationships, which in turn contribute to further innovate and to share knowledge and capabilities within the organization.,The findings are relevant to all organizations involved in complex processes of co-production of knowledge and innovation. They allow for unpacking the “black box” of the interplay between innovation and control, which is becoming increasingly central to these organizations and to policy makers.,The value of the study lies in its ability to depict how contrasting and molding forces in control systems and innovation dynamics contribute to re-shape a complex organizational setting. The study offers a newer perspective of analysis to interpret the role of control systems in innovative networks, thus contributing to the growing academic debate on the antecedents and facilitators of knowledge sharing and knowledge integration.