Ericka Costa

Social impact measurement: why do stakeholders matter?

Purpose – This paper aims to discuss the notion of social impact of social impact measurement in social enterprises by supporting the multiple-constituency theory as a contribution to this under-theorised issue. Moreover, the paper proposes the stakeholder-based approach as the most appropriate solution for selection among metrics related to the growing number of social impact measurements. Design/methodology/approach – The paper proposes a review of social impact measurement studies by considering contributions from both academia and practitioners, while providing a reassessment and conceptualisation of this issue in terms of the multiple-constituency theory. Findings – The paper criticises the “golden standard approach” to social impact measurement according to which social enterprises have to find one standardised metric capable of determining an organisation’s real impact. The golden standard approach promotes a more “political view” of social enterprises, according to which multiple stakeholders set ...

Mandatory Disclosure about Environmental and Employee Matters in the Reports of Italian-Listed Corporate Groups

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the impact of Italian Legislative Decree 32/2007 – following the 2003/51 European Directive – and the disclosure of environmental and employee matters in terms of overall volume, completeness of information, presence of bad/good news and target-oriented information. Content analysis has been applied to all Italian corporate groups that made public both the consolidated annual report and the stand-alone social and environmental report in 2005 and in 2010, for a total of 96 reports. The results show that despite the overall increase in sentences devoted to environmental and employee matters, the completeness of the information has not substantially improved, indicating that the 2007 regulation has been ineffective. The Italian experience could provide useful insights for European regulators. Such insights may inform policy recommendations to design a mandated social and environmental accountability process with the potential of providing information to societal stakeholders while facilitating accountability.

Toward an Integrated Accountability Model for Nonprofit Organizations

Abstract Purpose By contributing to the burgeoning debate regarding “for what” nonprofit organizations should be accountable, this article aims to develop and present an Integrated Accountability Model (IAM) that considers three dimensions of accountability. Methodology/approach After highlighting the limits of conventional accounting for NPOs and reframing the role of profit within them, the article presents a complete literature review on “to whom” and “for what” NPOs have to be accountable while further developing the IAM of integrated accountability. Findings The integrated accountability model developed in this article proposes three categories of NPO accountability: (i) the economic and financial dimension or the capability/ability to be economically sustainable in the long term; (ii) the mission-related dimension or the raison d’etre of an NPO, that is, the purpose for which the NPO has been set up, its mission; and (iii) the social-related dimension or the relationship with the stakeholders, that is the impact of NPO activities on its stakeholders in terms of the social contract between them. Originality/value Broadly, this article makes a contribution to the literature on accountability for NPOs. In particular it sheds light on two points: the importance of separating the mission-related dimension from the social-related one and the potential to open avenues for expansion of the IAM model to for-profit organizations.

Content Analysis of Social and Environmental Reports of Italian Cooperative Banks: Methodological Issues

Abstract This paper focuses on content analysis techniques for evaluating the role of non-narrative/visual disclosure in corporate social and environmental reports. The research examines 98 reports from Italian Cooperative Banks using different content analysis techniques to define stakeholder prioritisation, i.e. the total volume of disclosure for each stakeholder. The collected empirical data are used as a tool to address a methodological issue regarding the most appropriate method of quantification in content analysis. The first content analysis performed is based on narrative count, while the second analysis investigates visual count (pictures, graphs, and tables). The final investigation reveals that in determining stakeholder prioritisation, it is possible to neutrally apply content analysis based on narrative or visual counts. However, when discriminating among different categories of stakeholders, the use of narrative as opposed to visual content analysis produced diverse results. The research also found a massive occurrence of visuals in corporate social and environmental reports, which consequently implies that visual disclosure cannot and should not be ignored in content analysis studies.

Consumers’ willingness to pay for green cars: a discrete choice analysis in Italy

In September 2015, the Volkswagen Group was involved in a massive scandal regarding vehicles’ emissions of substances harmful to the environment. This scandal, known as Dieselgate, caused a commotion in the automotive sector and raised the question of whether or not there exists consumer demand for cleaner cars. This paper aims to investigate consumers’ willingness to pay a premium price for lower CO2 emitting cars. To do so, it adopts a discrete choice methodological approach and an exploratory survey involving 278 potential Italian car buyers. The results provide strong support for the primary hypothesis of the research that consumers are willing to pay more for cleaner vehicles, as expressed by a positive marginal willingness to pay for lower emissions. Potential car buyers indeed appear willing to pay a price premium of about € 2100 for a 20% CO2 reduction per kilometre from the current standard level that car industry has to comply with. In particular, we estimate a willingness to pay approximately € 88 for 1-g of CO2 reduction per kilometre (with a 95% confidence interval ranging between € 54 and € 122).

Italian Economia Aziendale as a Model Inspired by Catholic Humanism

The ongoing global economic and financial crisis has exposed the risks of considering market and business organizations only as instruments for creating economic wealth while disregarding their role in ethics and values. Christian Humanism based on Catholic Social Teaching (CST) could provide a useful contribution in a rethinking of the role of values in business organizations and markets because CST proposes an anthropological view that involves thinking of the marketplace as a community of persons with the aim of participating in the Common Good (CG) of society. In the light of the CST tradition, this article investigates the thinking of some of the historical scholars of the Italian Economia Aziendale (EA), by focusing on the concept of azienda, in order to reinterpret the role of business organizations in society in a more humanistic way. By linking CST and EA, the dichotomy between for-profit and not-for-profit organizations and the stereotype of the so-called business amorality that has, for a long time, driven business managers can be transcended. The conclusions imply a forward-looking application of the ethical concepts embedded in the Italian science of EA.

Steps towards Collective Sustainability in Biomedical Research

The optimism surrounding multistakeholder research initiatives does not match the clear view of policies that are needed to exploit the potential of these collaborations. Here we propose some action items that stem from the integration between research advancements with the perspectives of patient-advocacy organizations, academia, and industry.

Financial and Sustainability Reporting: An Empirical Investigation of Their Relationship in the Italian Context

“Integrated reporting ” has gained prominence during the last few years. Investors have required more information also about how sustainability issues and initiatives are expected to contribute to the long-term growth strategy of a business. This communication, which should be provided by top management, leads toward the convergence of sustainability and financial reporting into a single “narrative.” Both financial reporting and non-financial reporting together provide all stakeholders with a comprehensive view of the position and performance of a company. This process has also been encouraged by some European regulations. However, despite these, social and environmental information is still disclosed differently in consolidated annual reports and social–environmental reports. The present work focuses on such differences of content. The analysis regards both (mandatory) consolidated annual reports and (voluntary) stand-alone social–environmental reports prepared by Italian-listed corporate groups for two different accounting periods (both before and after the implementation of Directive 2003/51/EC). The final results show relevant and persistent differences in the disclosure of environmental and employee matters between financial and sustainability reporting.

Management control system and strategy: the transforming role of implementation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to encourage a discussion of the implementation of management control systems (MCSs) in the MCS-strategy relationship. Borrowing from the literature on software development, the authors propose two archetypes of MCS implementation – waterfall and agile – and employ them to understand how the MCS-strategy fit unfolds over time. Design/methodology/approach The authors empirically ground the archetypes on two exploratory case studies based on the collection of extensive qualitative data. Findings The authors show that MCSs change not only in relation to strategy, but also in response to an autonomous source: implementation. These two implementation archetypes differ in their degrees of specification, in the ways in which the transitions among their implementation phases occur and in the sources and ways in which their feedback loops affect the MCSs; however, both shed light on the dynamic dimension of fit and show that the fit should be assessed over time. Research limitations/implications The two archetypes are derived from two exploratory cases. Further research may both strengthen the framework by testing the validity of the archetypes for a wider set of empirical cases and enrich the framework by investigating the determinants of agile and waterfall MCS implementation. Practical implications The introduction of MCS implementation to the determinants of fit or misfit provides practitioners with a further interpretation and an action driver for fit or misfit. MCS implementation should be coordinated with the pace of change of strategy and should be changed in relation to the possibility for an organisation to move from a process- to a people-centred system (or vice versa). Originality/value The authors propose two archetypes of MCS implementation, both of which support the empirical interpretation and theoretical reconceptualisation of the concept of the MCS-strategy fit in terms of dynamic fit.

Climate Change Performance Measurement, Control and Accountability in English Local Authority Areas

quitous SEA papers using content analysis tend to ignore the mainstream literature as well. This latter literature is neatly introduced and summarised in this paper where the increasing concern to develop non-financial disclosure in annual reports is seen as part of a process of increasing reporting quality to investors. The introductory sections of the paper review ways of capturing disclosure around two approaches: what they call ‘subjective analysts disclosure quality rankings’ and ‘researcher constructed disclosure indices where the amount of disclosure is used as a proxy for disclosure quality’ (p. 207, emphasis added). These latter it then splits between ‘semi-objective approaches’ which it again splits (usefully) into ‘partial’ forms of content analysis; holistic forms of content analysis (which use the whole text) and textual analysis comprising readability studies and linguistic analysis. The methods and some of the associated literature are then reviewed under these headings. The core of the paper is a report on a more detailed and rigorous (and mechanised) approach to this process using the software package NUD∗IST. In a clear and concise manner, the method they develop and the procedures they employ to derive their own data is articulated carefully along with tips and guidance on the ways to make the process easier and more reliable. Given the ubiquity of content analysis in SEA, it may be about time we went beyond Milne and Adler (1999) and this paper is one which might just help us do it.