Alessandra Rigolini

Relational capital disclosure, corporate reporting and company performance Evidence from Europe

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the content of relational capital disclosure (RCD) information communicated by a sample of European listed companies. It also investigates the links between RCD and certain corporate financial performance indicators. Design/methodology/approach – This research did a cross-country analysis on a sample of 80 companies and a content analysis based on 51 items inherent to the relational capital (RC) framework of mandatory and voluntary reports. An RCD index has been used in certain bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses to investigate whether RCD is positively correlated to particular indicators adopted as proxies for measuring company performance. Findings – The results show that RCD supports statistically significant relationships with revenues, net operating cash flow and capital expenditures. In contrast, there is no statistically significant association with enterprise value. Research limitations/implications – This study evaluates the informatio...

The relationships between CEO characteristics and strategic risk-taking in family firms

Abstract We examine the influences of chief executive officer (CEO) personal characteristics on family firms’ strategic risk-taking. Building on upper echelons theory, we investigate the influences of CEO family relationships, the CEO professional education, other career experiences, tenure, and career horizon have on the risk level a company takes. By analyzing a sample of 107 Italian family firms listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, we find that company’s risk-taking significantly and negatively relates to CEO family relationship and professional education, but positively to CEO career horizon. This provides support to the argument that such CEO personal characteristics are key factors in explaining differences in risk-taking among family firms. Further, our analysis of control variables shows that family firms’ risk-taking relates positively to board size and negatively to company size. These results suggest that company and board characteristics also significantly influence the risk levels taken by a company.

Women on Board in Italy: The Pressure of Public Policies

In Italy, the so-called Golfo Mosca Law was implemented in 2012. Since its introduction, Italy has been among the countries making the most significant progress in terms of getting women on corporate boards. This law is characterised by a strong pressure through a sanction system, but it has a temporary validity. The aim of this chapter is to show the development of the gender balance initiatives and the effect of the quota law on boards in Italy. In order to understand the progress of the gender public policies in Italy, we also show the development of Italy’s political and economic environment, and we present the main characteristics of the corporate governance system.