Andrea Venturelli

A research template to evaluate the degree of accountability of integrated reporting: a case study

Purpose The scope of the study is to analyze an Italian family firm operating in the transformation and marketing of durum wheat to investigate the degree of accountability of the integrated reporting (IR) disclosed by the organization. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses a case study approach proposing a specific research template to evaluate the implementation of IR depicting the role of three main dimensions: stakeholder involvement, business model and integration. Findings The paper enriches theoretical conceptualization of the implementation of IR proposing a new conceptual model that adds empirical findings to the literature on IR and at the same time addresses the call for studies of Dumay et al. (2016) to engage more with practice and development on IR. Research limitations/implications The use of a specific research framework constitutes both the main strength of the paper and also its main limit, as the dimensions of the framework have been chosen by the authors, and the observations and conclusions are based on the authors’ analysis under an interpretative approach. Practical implications The implementation of the same research framework to other organizational IR documents could allow comparisons to be expressed on the quality of the IR disclosed by different organizations and on the same organization in different periods of time. Originality/value The main originality of this paper is the creation and the employment of a specific template to analyze the degree of accountability of the case study selected representing a non-listed Italian company operating in the food industry.

Measuring intellectual capital in a firm belonging to a strategic alliance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a method to measure intellectual capital (IC) in firms involved in strategic alliances, an area that has received scant attention in the literature, as existing research is focused mainly on organizational level mainly and increasingly on macro-level unit such as regions or nations. There are very few works at the meso-level (i.e. alliances, clusters), and the paper aims to fill this void, by providing researchers and practitioners with a tool capable of combining measurement and management aims, developed at organizational level with the active participation of the researchers. Design/methodology/approach – The method of analysis is based on a model formalized through a fuzzy expert system (FES). The FES are able to merge the capabilities of an expert system to simulate the decision-making process with the vagueness typical of human reasoning, maintaining the ability to still have a numeric value as a response. Its construction requires the participation ...

Management by objectives and corporate social responsibility disclosure: First results from Italy

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between remuneration for the achievement of objectives and sustainability, and – more specifically – the amount of attention that listed companies in Italy devote to defining, and consequently to communicating externally, sustainability as a criterion in establishing the wage levels of managers and directors. Design/methodology/approach - – It was decided to ascertain whether the quality of information regarding sustainability provided in connection with the remuneration policies of listed companies tallies with the general quality of information regarding sustainability provided through companies’ main (obligatory and voluntary) reporting procedures. Findings - – The results of this research show that the inconsistency between the information provided in voluntary and obligatory reports (between reports on sustainability and remuneration reports) extends to the levels of information provided in the two types of obligatory report (the reports on remuneration and on management); there is also a discrepancy between the levels of information provided in these reports and the evaluation of that information by an external assessor. Research limitations/implications - – One of the limitations of this research is that as the data examined were gleaned from public documents, it is not necessarily an accurate reflection of all the information that firms have at their disposal on questions of sustainability and remuneration policies. The existence of internal documents containing other information, and therefore leading to different results, cannot be ruled out. Originality/value - – This study is the first in Italy to examine the question of how limited companies report issues relating to management by objectives-corporate social responsibility. It does this through the introduction of a mixed system for ESG information, which counteracts the subjective limitations of the internal evaluation provided by the research group by adding in the authoritative evaluations of an external assessor.

Intangibles and Value Creation in Network Agreements: analysis of Italian firms

In the last few years, there has been an increase in interest of European policymakers in promoting SMEs, assigning a key strategic role to networks as a means of improving levels of innovation and internationalization in SMEs. This led the Italian parliament to introduce legislation - with Law 33/2009 - for network agreements, which are a form of strategic alliances, largely used for intangible purposes. The aim of this work is to do an explorative study in order to ascertain to what extent the use of network agreements has contributed to increasing intangible resources in Italian firms and whether there is a correlation between the creation of intangibles and value creation in terms of improved financial performance of firms. From the analysis emerged that network agreements have a positive effect on the ability of Italian firms to create intangible resources, and there is a positive correlation between the increase in intangibles and value creation.