Laura Broccardo

The family variable in the French and Italian wine sector

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight the differences in terms of economic and financial performance, between family firms (FFs) and non-family firms (NFFs) in the wine sector in Italy and France, where this sector is one of the most representative national economic activities. Design/methodology/approach – This study is based on a sample of Italian and France companies operating in the wine sector. The sample, including medium and large firms, includes 288 FFs and 302 NFFs, for a total of 590 firms. Amadeus database represents the data source. According to Astrachan and Kolenko (1994), a firm is classified as a FF if family had to own over 50 per cent of the business in a private company or more than 10 per cent of a public company. Findings – This study confirms that the family variable is relevant to achieve good economic and financial performance, and endow firms with different features. In terms of economic performance, FFs both in Italy and France outperform in. terms of return on equi...

Family Italian listed firms: Comparison in performances and identification of two main configurations

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to underscore the impact of the family variable on performance. The authors were interested in understanding whether the differences between Family Firms (FFs) and Non-Family Firms (NFFs), on the one hand, and between large FFs and medium-sized FFs, on the other, were reflected in the performance achieved. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper a sample of 80 industrial companies listed on the Italian Stock Market (FTSE MIB and STAR indexes) were considered, and mixed criteria to distinguish FFs and NFFs (Smyrnios-Romano et al., 1998) were used. The empirical method allowed the development of some research hypotheses by exploiting the Pearson correlation. Findings – There are two main categories of FFs, which correspond to two different strategic and organizational categories, namely, the FFs listed on the large capitalized companies index (FTSE MIB) and the FFs listed on the medium-capitalized companies index (STAR). Each kind of FFs (large FFs and medium-sized...

The use and design of the BSC in the health care sector: A systematic literature review for Italy, Spain, and Portugal

The aim of this paper is to gain a better understanding of how the balanced scorecard (BSC) has evolved in Spain, Italy, and Portugal. It reviews all the articles on the BSC in the health care sector written between 1992 and 2015 by Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese authors and published in Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese as well as in English. Our study first shows the state of knowledge on BSC in health care for a homogeneous group of Southern European countries. Second, it uncovers the perspectives, indicators, and generation used in the countries under observation to reveal the extent to which this management tool has evolved. Third, it analyses international variations in design and use within the health care context, especially in the United States. Moreover, it also highlights a number of important issues. The BSC is in its early stage of development in these 3 countries, which do not use it as a tool to implement strategy and align all of the elements that help integrate the organization.

Two models of family firms in dividends and investments policy

The purpose of our research is to verify the role of the family variable in the dividends policy and investments one, distinguishing family firms (FFs) and non-family firms (NFFs) and between large FFs (FFs listed in FTSE MIB index) and medium-sized FFs (FFs listed in STAR index), in terms of dividends and investments policies adopted. Medium-sized FFs have a weaker dividends distribution policy than large FFs, due to a high interest in saving the liquidity in order to finance the attractive investment opportunities. Large FFs are interested in a stronger dividends policy, in order to attract new shareholders and reward the old ones, more than with large NFFs. FFs have a stronger investments policy compared with NFFs and this difference is more evident in medium-sized companies. The medium-sized FF can take advantage of the power of the family to maintain a continuous growth and development of the business, even when liquidity is restricted.

Management control systems in family businesses: Do women matter? Evidence from the Italian food sector

The aim of the project was to investigate medium-size family firms in Italy operating in the food sector, which is crucial for the national economy as it ranks second after the metal and mechanical engineering industries. Special attention was paid to whether the presence of women in top managerial positions had any significant effect on the strategic orientation of family firms (FFs), in terms of strategy formulation and implementation of management control systems. The results of empirical analysis using a sample of family businesses show that gender diversity in top managerial positions can benefit strategic orientation, as FFs are more likely to formulate and implement strategy through advanced management control tools.

Management control practices and benefits: evidence from Italian family and non-family firms

The importance of management accounting systems to the running of an organisation is widely recognised, even though these tools are not uniformly adopted by companies, with significant differences seen between small and large enterprises, family and non-family firms. The research was conducted through an empirical analysis of a sample of small and medium-sized Italian family and non-family firms, with the aim of investigating the different types of management control systems implemented. Furthermore, seeking to fill the existing gap in the literature, the paper focuses on the benefits perceived by the users of these systems. The results show that, both in family and non-family firms, a considerable percentage of managers gained significant benefits, especially as regards decision-making processes, business growth, business innovation and performance improvement. The article may have some theoretical implications as it may be considered a development in research studies on management control systems and family business management.

Management control in Italian SMEs

The main goal of this research is to investigate management and implications issues with regard to performance measurement systems (PMSs) in small and medium firms (SMEs) in Italy. In particular, the aim is to comprehensively understand the use of management accounting tools in Italian SMEs. Indeed, appropriate managerial tools are relevant in firm management, especially for the improvement and growth of firms in this turbulent international scenario. The focus is on SMEs - in some countries such as Italy, small and medium firms play an important role; however, mainstream studies in management literature focus more on large firms. The method used to conduct this study is a survey that collected a high level of data on PMSs. The sample includes 309 Italian SMEs. The main findings concern the use and adoption of management control tools. In addition, the analysis of management issues is based on both major national and international literature and empirical evidence and adopts the newly emerging beyond budgeting theory. Finally, this study contributes to a better understanding of the behaviour of SMEs with regard to the management and control of their performance. In particular, this research highlights that budgets are still an important managerial tool for SMEs.

Budgeting process: an Italian survey in family and non-family firms

The aim of this study is to test the beyond budgeting theory and to investigate the characteristics in the adoption of the budgeting process by Italian listed firms, verifying the presence of a systematic use and trying to understand if it is yet considered useful to help companies to improve performance and to reach their goals. In addition, we distinguish between family firms and non-family firms, in order to understand if there is a significant difference in their use of managerial systems, due to the corresponding features in corporate governance. This study shows the budget is yet a fundamental tool in the Italian listed firms, even if in FFs it is used preferable as a guide to support the short-run decision making process and not always as a tool to make managers responsible. In any case, budget needs to be joined by other tools to overcome its limitations.

The financial leverage in medium-sized companies: an Italian survey

The aim of our work is to highlight the impact of a series of company variables on the financial leverage in a medium-sized company. It permits to evaluate the effect of several decisions on the financial leverage, making them more aware. The sample is composed of all Italian medium-sized companies belong to the manufacturing food and beverage sector, extracted by Amadeus. The sample is composed of 4,705 firms, and the observed period was 2010-2011-2012-2013. It emerged a moderate correlation between liabilities and fixed assets. In addition, fixed assets have not been properly funded by permanent capital, creating probable financial tensions. In addition, we verified the companys attitude to repay debts, thanks to its core business: it emerged a strong and a moderate correlation between liabilities and revenues, decreasing each year; indeed, the core business, thanks to its attitude in generating cash, is useful to pay debts.

Influence of internationalization on management accounting tools: evidences from Italian firms

This paper aims at analyzing the diffusion of management accounting tools in Italian manufacturing firms. More specifically, this paper investigates, with an exploratory purpose, the role of internationalization. The elimination of trade barriers, the markets globalization and the environmental turbulences affected company strategies. The search for new partners, new clients and new suppliers from foreign countries are only some of recently Italian firms’ trends due to the up-above phenomena. The research is based on the qualitative data analysis collected through a survey by questionnaire. In particular, 264 questionnaires of Italian manufacturing companies were analyzed. The results of this paper provide empirical evidence on a high positive correlation between the increasing foreign client percentage and the management control tools, activity-based costing and target costing in particular. In the range of internationalization contingency variables, this exploratory study considered only the impact of foreign customers. Further researches can involve other factors as foreign suppliers, joint-ventures, and technological exchanges. This paper contributes to analyse the impact of internationalization, a contingency variable today not fully investigated in management accounting system researches. In fact, managerial control systems and management accounting systems can be considered as key variables in each kind of organization (Anthony, 1956), both publicly-owned and private, both in manufacturing industries and services.