Patrizia Gazzola

Corporate Performance and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). A necessary choice

The study aims to show how assuming corporate social responsibility should not be considered a cost to bear as an economic social actor but an investment that will contribute to the competitiveness and growth of the firm.The work is based on two models:- the first, by Mella (Mella, 1997 Ch. 2; 2002), provides the conceptual framework that brings together the functional, vital, instrumental and cognitive processes of the firm conceived of as a permanent organization that developed these processes in an environment that conditions or favours its long-term vitality;- the second, by Molteni (2004) – which has a similar framework as Mella (2004) – involves an exercise of System Thinking that presents a structural map of the system of variables that show how investments in CSR produce long-term positive economic performance.The synergy between social responsibility and economic efficiency is not automatic; rather it is the result of efforts that combine managerial professionalism and business creativity for the purpose of business growth that also takes into account the social groups. In this sense it is important to consider the conditions for the effectiveness of CSR actions in creating a positive feedback that can produce ever greater economic and social-environmental results.

From Values to "Value" From the Creation of the Value of Firms to Sustainable Growth

[Mella, par. 1-4] Strictly speaking, firms are considered as systems for the creation of economic and financial value for their shareholders, and their performance – profit and the value of capital – is measured by a coherent system of monetary values. Nevertheless, if we do not limit our view to simply the shareholders but consider instead a vast group of stakeholders, we must then also broaden our notion of the production of sustainable value in order to include both the social value and the environmental value. Thus a firm must set a system of objectives for itself which is centered on its sustainable growth, and must therefore tend toward a multi-dimensional growth that encompasses the economic, social and environmental dimensions. [Gazzola, par. 5-10] This implies an intense social action based on transparency, the management of its reputation, a dialogue with the stakeholders, research and development, and knowledge management, all of which require adequate communication instruments. On the basis of this, our work takes up the traditional idea of the social balance as an instrument for social interaction and social cost/benefit analysis in order to show that such an instrument can describe, comment on and sum up the firm’s own behaviour aimed at sustainable growth. In this sense the social balance, as far as it certifies the ethical profile of the firm, legitimizes the latter’s social and environmental role, not only in structural terms but above all moral ones, in the eyes of the community of reference, emphasizes the link between firm and territory, and affirms the concept of the firm as an entity that, by pursuing its own prevailing interests, contributes to improving the quality of life of the members of the society in which it operates and that can, in all respects, represent a means for the creation of sustainable value.

The Impact of Comprehensive Income on the Financial Ratios in a Period of Crises

The aim of the paper is to evaluate the differences on the reporting performance choices between the comprehensive income and the net profit in period of financial crises. In the first part this paper reports on the choice made by companies in their statement of comprehensive income with respect to the IAS/IFRS options. In the second part the calculations of Return on Equity (ROE), ROE Comprehensive Income (ROE CI) and Earnings per Share (EPS) are presented. Some of the data are compared with the Italian data. Statistical method is applied for the purpose of this research.

CSR e reputazione nella creazione di valore sostenibile

Nell’impresa si ravvisa un istituto sociale tipicamente economico in cui si conforma una organizzazione teleologicamente coordinata verso determinati obiettivi: la produzione economica intesa come remunerazione di capitali, lavoro e variazioni di valore economico del capitale; tale produzione ha valore strumentale per il soddisfacimento delle motivazioni delle persone partecipanti all’intrapresa economica (Superti Furga, 1977).Ogni impresa puo inoltre essere interpretata come un sistema sociale o socio-tecnico aperto, inserita in un macrosistema caratterizzato da un ambiente dal quale il sistema si differenzia per un confine e al quale e accoppiato strutturalmente tramite flussi di input e/o di output (Mella, 2003). L’approccio sistemico utilizzato permette di spiegare le relazioni impresa-ambiente: si considera infatti l’ordinamento economico dell’impresa come momento del sistema socio-economico costituito da tutti i titolari degli interessi economici interni convergenti nell’impresa e questo a sua volta come momento di un sistema sociale di maggiore ampiezza (Superti Furga, 1977).

Modeling socially responsible consumption and the need for uniqueness: a PLS-SEM approach

Purpose The purpose of the present study is intended to fill a research gap, by advancing a conceptual model which brings novel insights on the relationships between socially responsible consumption and consumer’s need for uniqueness. Design/methodology/approach Relying on a questionnaire-based survey for data collection, the proposed model was tested using the partial least squares (PLS) algorithm for structural equation modeling (SEM), which allows the assessment of the models containing both formative and reflective constructs. Findings The research found that 73.7 per cent of the variance in the consumer’s belief in the importance of personal power to make a difference through socially responsible choices is explained by the proposed model. Moreover, four of the five factors of socially responsible consumption fully mediate the positive effect of the consumer’s need for uniqueness on the importance attached to personal socially responsible choices in driving positive change. Research limitations/implications The study avails a phenomenological perspective by offering novel insights from a Romanian sample. The limitation associated with a country-centric vision is compensated through the contextual analysis and integration of a new point of reference in the overall framework of socially responsible consumption. Practical implications The evidence is indicative of new consumption insights and should be closely considered by companies. Originality/value The study draws upon a conceptual model integrating the relationships between socially responsible consumption and a psychological characteristic – the consumer’s need for uniqueness – which has been never tested as such before.

The Connection Between the Quality of Life and Sustainable Ecological Development

This study examines the relationship between climate change and undernourishment and its negative impact on child health. The focus of this study is Palghar District (which was formed on August 1, 2014, in State of Maharashtra, India). This paper examines the efficacy of the role of healthy government initiatives and their awareness among people in overcoming the adverse effects of climate-change. The study is based on interviews with the District Collector, various government officials and anthropologists working in the area, as well as secondary data collected from the Palghar District Collectorate. As the data made available by the government were limited, the study is unable to supply extensive information about such aspects as the beneficiaries of various welfare schemes, project costs and cost analysis. Palghar district has reported 64 per 1000 child deaths and 44 per 1000 infant deaths between April and October, 2016. The researcher tried to find links between various potential variables and child mortality in this administrative region. The researcher hopes that by giving voice to a localised issue and discussing possible solutions for curbing the problem of child mortality due to undernourishment, it may be possible to find a long-term and comprehensive model for a solution for the same problem around the world.In modern conditions of globalization, the quality of static data of foreign economic relations of the country plays an important role in decision-making about the foreign economic sphere of the country. This is without their quality leading to wrong static analysis of the indicators of foreign economic relations and methods of evaluation. As a result, it is impossible for correct decision not to be made by the government. Also, there are questions about what are the important priorities in the development of foreign economic relations of the country. According to the analysis of static indicators of foreign economic relations of Syria before and during the crisis, we noted that there was a deterioration of all indicators of foreign economic relations due to armed conflict. This includes the increase in the external debt 2.75 times in 2014 compared with the period before the crisis, the decline in exports and imports, and the improvement of egovernment. In addition, work without high-quality cannot control foreign trade transactions.Liability of the custodian or custodian body for the damage caused by the persons totally divested from the ability to act due to mental disability is a kind of liability for the damage caused by the actions of the other person. In this case, his/her custodian or custodian body that is liable for his/her supervision shall be liable even for the damage caused by the person with mental disabilities. Obligation for supervision and care of the custodian or custodian body for the person with mental disabilities shall be the reason based on which they should respond in cases when the person with mental disabilities causes a damage to the third person. In order this kind of liability to come into consideration, in advance, there should be met some conditions as follows: 1. The damage is caused, 2. The damage is caused by the person that is incapable to judge and by the person who is under custody, 3. The damage has been caused since the custodian has not exercised adequately the supervision function as required according to the Law, decision of a body or any contract. These conditions should be fulfilled together in order that this kind of liability to come into consideration. Theoretical treatments regarding these kinds of liabilities, not in all cases, have brought the due clearance. In theoretical treatments of various authors that have treated this kind of liability there are presented dilemma which require a different analysis and approach in order that there to be identified some cases that have been left untreated until nowadays. Those authors, in their theoretical treatments, have ascertained that the custodian or custodian body shall be released from the liability for the damage caused by the person with mental disabilities or with mental slowdown development or any other circumstance according to which they could not judge his/her actions, if they can prove their innocence whether they have exercised adequately the supervision towards the person with mental disabilities or with mental slowdown development but the same authors have not given further explanations that who will be liable in such cases if the person with mental disabilities does not have economic conditions to make the compensation of the damage. This issue is regulated with legal framework of some countries treated in this paper. We have done this comparative analysis between the legal framework of these countries with the purpose of identifying the similarities and differences between them in regulating this liability. Even that there are some differences in legal determinations, we should say that Kosovo, Croatia, Serbia, Albania, France, Italy, Germany and Spain have approximately similar regulation regarding this liability since all these countries cover this kind of liability with their legal framework.This study is an effort to characterize the legal and social aspects of the polish regulations relating to the employment of people with disabilities in sheltered conditions. In Poland, the role of activation of the disabled in the protected labor market performs three types of operations: sheltered workshops, factories professional activity, and social co-operation. Authors discuss the formal requirements to obtain the status, specific rights, and the obligations of employers who are employing the establishment of protected or reinsured activity. The research included in the study was supplemented by an analysis of available statistical data based on the number of operators protected labor market and the number of disabled people employed in these workplaces.Starting from 1st May, 2004 countries of European Fifteen have gradually opened their labour markets for the new EU members, including the Poles. The first to take this step was Great Britain, Ireland and Sweden, the last - Germany and Austria. For the new EU citizens, emerging opportunities were connected with benefits and wide possibilities, but also with limitations and adaptation difficulties. They had to deal with the language barrier as much as the different culture, accepted behaviours, traditions, work culture and model of spending leisure time. Mentality of migrants – whether they were able or not to immerse into the “new” – had impact on finding themselves in another environment. Most of those, who left Poland did not plan to settle, they were leaving “for some time”, temporarily. Mentally, they were still connected with previous place of residence, more interested in environment left behind than new one. Such behaviour was not conducive to adaptation; on the contrary, it made adaptation harder. Migrants through listening to Polish radio, watching Polish television stations, using the Polish Internet portals and reading national press, separated themselves from the new environment. All of these was due to the assumption that engaging in new place has no point since their stay is only temporary. Their attitude to the kind of work and workplace was similar. Majority of migrants from the EU-8 countries was taking up secondary employment, regardless of educational background. Wages comparable with Polish were supposed to compensate depreciation on the labour market. A wide spectrum of adaptation problems of Polish migrants is an issue raised in reports prepared by specialized research institutions, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Polish Community organisations.The system of support for women within the framework of the social policy of the Second Polish Republic included: the adequate regulations of work legislation, the rules of social insurance, the activities towards the maternity protection of the insured and, finally, social services directly or indirectly provided to women by the central as well as local governments. These activities were extensive and, in many cases, very modern. What is more, they were directed towards solving the most important social problems of women. However, rather than common, the scope of those activities was very limited and selective. Moreover, the implementation of those activities was not always in accordance with the plans and expectations of their authors. From the point of view of the existing social needs, the most advanced solutions were those which resulted from a privileged position of women in the work legislation and the system of health insurance. The problem of the insignificant influence always had its roots in the socio-professional structure of the country. Only women in employment or covered by the insurance could receive the benefits. For the rest the offer was no longer that beneficial.In a society genetically endowed with great cognitive potential, the paradigmatic failure of the post-communist education system divide young people into three categories: young elitists who join foreign universities and companies, well-prepared young people eager to study in their country and young NEETs. The increasing percentage of the latter ones is confirmed by the national results obtained in the PISA tests and high school dropout rates. No community in this world can be strong when the investment in education lacks. Non-aligned job policies to educational ones will give birth to worrying imbalances, highlighting the phenomenon of migration. Demographic decline and the lack of strategies to stimulate birth rate will increase the impossibility to ensure generational change within the active population and all these will lead to a block of the pension system. Romania, in the next 20 years will follow the model of the European countries, which face labor importation and the migration of non-European capital. Are there any solutions to counterbalance these trends? This is the question which, the whole rethink of theoretical-methodological analysis of some policies meant to give value to the huge Romanian qualitative human force, deprecated within the large globalization, is based on.The essay deals with the difficult relationship between fiscal responsibility and representation: it seems that the traditional rule “no taxation without representation” is less and less true, as the responsibility of the representatives, be they those of the national parliament or of the representative bodies of local institutions, is no longer a real guarantee. The case of the Italian system is significant: local taxes have been interpreted in a very singular way by the constitutional case law, as the representatives’ responsibility connected with local government levies is limited to the determining only of certain aspects of the fiscal phenomenon. One first goal is therefore to analyse the atypical fiscal and financial responsibility of local administrators. But a specific phenomenon of the Italian Regions with a special level of autonomy deserves attention. These special Regions have negotiated with the central government a specific regime: since the constitutional implementation process of 2009, they dispose of undeniably high percentages of their territories’ tax revenue. The profiles of derived finance have been eliminated and it has been decided to return to the self-financing model, understood as the prevailing allocation in a fixed share of tax revenues produced within the territory. The case of the special regional revenues of Trentino-Alto Adige is a peculiar one and it is specifically studied in this essay. This work discusses the question of representation regarding tax revenues in a different way, based on a particular type of relation between the wealthproducing context and the institutions.Today, internet plays an indisputable role as a means of communication, information flow, and as a point of meeting the needs of a growing number of people. The authors noted more and more important role that mass communication plays in social media. This article presents various definitions of the phenomenon and the proposed typology, and threats which entails using either incompetent social media today. This article is intended to facilitate the communication process for researchers, sociologists, media experts, and people interested in the study of the phenomenon of online communication.A change depending on the time of the flood wave moving in a stream using flood routing approach is examined. Flood routing of flood discharge along the river with their account and calculating the changes in the water level of flood protection structure size is determined to safety. The aim of this study, Sutculer flood event will be modeled by Genetic Expression Programing (GEP) method. The GEP method makes use of few hydrologic parameters such as inflow, outflow, and time. Simulation results indicate that the proposed a predictive model is an appropriate for the flood routing. Case study is presented to demonstrate that the GEP model is an alternative in implementation of the Muskingum model.

Online Academic Networks as Knowledge Brokers: The Mediating Role of Organizational Support

Placing online academic networks in the framework of social, cultural and institutional “deterritorialization,” the current paper aims at investigating the functionality of these new forms of transnational and trans-organizational aggregations as knowledge brokers. The emphasis is laid on the influence of human collective intelligence and consistent knowledge flows on research innovation, considering the role of organizational support within higher education systems. In this respect, the research relied on a questionnaire-based survey with 140 academics from European emerging countries, the data collected being processed via a partial least squares structural equation modelling technique. Evidence was brought that, as knowledge brokers, online academic networks are systems aimed to support the access to human collective intelligence and consistent knowledge flows which exert a positive influence on research innovation, both directly and indirectly, by means of formal and informal organizational support. As facilitators of collaborative environments for individuals with specialized knowledge, competence, expertise and experience, online academic networks have set themselves up as an agora for academics worldwide and as an outlet for their acumen and literacy.

Sustainable Consumption in the Luxury Industry: Towards a New Paradigm in China’s High-End Demand

In the present competitive global environment, many drivers should motivate the growing attention paid to sustainable consumption in the luxury industry. From the demand side, in Western mature markets wealthy consumers show a growing awareness of environmental and social issues and, therefore, seek new forms of luxury which show respect for both natural resources and human beings, yet standing by traditional factors such as quality, rarity, creativity, originality and craftsmanship of goods. On the firm’s side, sustainable consumption offers luxury firms a particularly suitable platform to enrich the value-set of products as brands identity and brand image. Starting from a review of the literature on the concept of sustainable consumption, the paper provides an analysis of the main drivers that are leading to the emergence of “sustainable luxury”. The aim of the paper is to investigate the opportunity for the development of this new competitive paradigm within the Chinese luxury market, by analyzing the distinct feature of Chinese high-end demand. The paper also taking into account the growing role played by the Chinese central government in creating the conditions for sustainable consumption or “circular economy”.

Behind the Sharing Economy: Innovation and Dynamic Capability

The aim of this chapter is to show how dynamic capability constitutes a primary engine of the sharing economy and how important this concept is in terms of enabling firms to manage their resources proactively in order to compete by forming new asset combinations. Dynamic capabilities enable businesses to adapt to changes in the environment and secure competitive advantages. They create innovation connected to the development of completely new capabilities through the exploration and path-creation of new processes, products, and services. This chapter focuses on incremental innovation and disruptive innovation. Innovation as a concept is relative to the experience and knowledge of a country, community, or group. As a recent economic innovation, the sharing economy has improved people’s access to several services and products. The sharing economy includes social innovations in addition to process, product, and service innovations. Dynamic capability emphasizes the analysis of knowledge management problems and the combination of economic and behavioral aspects of sharing economy organizations. While dynamic capabilities have been extensively discussed in the literature, the way that organizations in the sharing economy use dynamic capabilities to help fulfill the requirements of stakeholders has not been extensively investigated.

The Capitalistic Firm as a System that Produces Economic and Social Values

The aim of the paper is to analyse the capitalistic firm, not only as systems for the creation of economic and financial value for their shareholders, but also that is evaluated for the social values. The financial performance and the value of capital, is measured by a coherent system of monetary values. Nevertheless, if we do not limit our view to simply the shareholders but consider instead the stakeholders, we must then also broaden our notion of the production of sustainable value to include both the social and the environmental values. This implies an intense social action based on transparency, reputation and the dialogue with the stakeholders that need to be communicates. The sustainability report is the instrument to inform the stakeholders how the firm, by pursuing its own prevailing interests, contributes to improving the quality of life of the members of the society in which it operates and that can, in all respects, represent a means for the creation of sustainable value.