Suchergebnisse

AbstractIn the current business setting, companies must adopt new practices to remain competitive due to complex products, changing market demands, and stakeholder pressures. Many successful businesses are turning to sustainability‐oriented innovations as a means of both increasing their growth potential and engaging in corporate social responsibility practices. This approach benefits both the company and society. However, the full potential of implementing sustainability practices through open innovation has yet to be fully explored, and the impact on firm value is unclear. Additionally, there is currently a lack of international standards for representing sustainability as an open innovation approach. This study aims to shed light on the potential benefits of adopting sustainable practices through the open innovation approach. We highlight the value that sustainable innovation can create and analyze a sample of European‐listed companies from the STOXX Europe 600 Index from 2011 to 2020. Our findings show that the ESG score best represents sustainability as an open innovation approach. Moreover, we demonstrate that adopting sustainability as an open innovation approach practice positively impacts firm value. This suggests that companies can enhance their value and promote sustainable innovation success by embracing this approach. Overall, this paper contributes to the literature on sustainability and open innovation, specifically within the legitimacy theory framework. It emphasizes that stakeholder pressure to build a more sustainable and ethical economic system presents a challenge that can also be an opportunity for companies.

ABSTRACTManuscript Type: EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue: What determines venture capitalists influence on the governance of firms? How do venture capitalists shape the governance of their investees? Are venture capitalists governance practices consistent across countries? These important questions are under‐investigated in the extant literature. In this study, we shed light on the effects of venture capital investors on a large set of governance decisions and we discover the existence of striking cross‐country differences.Research Findings/Insights: We test our conjectures on a unique hand‐collected questionnaire‐based dataset of 164 companies in five countries and two regions (Europe and the US). Our empirical results show that there is a strong and positive relationship between VCs' funding and their influence on some factors like decisions on CEO hiring, executive compensation, board decisions and appointments. Employee incentives are also positively related to the proportion of VC funding. On the other hand, results show that the proportion of VC funding is only marginally significant in explaining VC influence on strategy direction and investment planning. Our analysis though, offers a remarkably different view after splitting data into European and American subsamples.Theoretical/Academic Implications: Our results provide a novel view of the functioning of the Venture Capital industry and its degree of pervasiveness in the management of portfolio companies. Adopting a unique dataset, we add new evidence on detailed governance decisions, thus supporting the idea that the incremental contribution of a professional investor to a new venture is largely exceeding the capital infusion only. Finally, we show that governance decisions exhibit significant country effects. This evidence supports the view that a global theory of corporate governance cannot rely on a single interpretation framework such as agency theory, but needs to be integrated with predictions from alternative views such institutional theory.Practitioner/Policy Implications: Corporate governance is the essential mechanism allowing proper management of financial and corporate resources by aligning incentives of employees and investors, thus enabling oversight and control on companies. Yet, corporate governance rules and mechanisms are costly and have different effectiveness across countries. Our results provide guidance to investors in selecting the appropriate set of governance provisions conditional on a set of investment‐specific factors.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the financial consequences of the level of human capital (HC) information disclosed by firms through integrated reports. Specifically, this work examines the effect of HC information on the cost of capital and firm value.Design/methodology/approachA manual content analysis is used to measure the level of HC information contained in integrated reports. A fixed-effects regression model is used to analyse 375 observations (a balanced panel of 125 firms for the period 2017–2019) and test the financial consequences of HC disclosure.FindingsThe empirical outcomes indicate that HC disclosure has a significant and negative effect on the cost of capital and a positive impact on firm value. Our results show that companies can reduce investors' perceived firm risk by improving HC disclosure, leading to a lower cost of capital. Moreover, our findings support the notion that increased levels of HC disclosure are linked to firms' improved access to external financial resources, consequently enhancing firm value.Originality/valueThis study is the first contribution to examine the financial consequences of HC disclosure and is one of the first to examine the level of HC information within integrated reports.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between capital structure and business process management (BPM) within ambidextrous firms. In particular, referring to the listed companies in theMercato Telematico Azionario(MTA) andMercato degli Investment Vehicles(MIV) markets with large- and mid-sized capitalization, divided into ambidextrous and non-ambidextrous companies, the authors examined the capital structure to fill a gap in the current literature.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a mixed-method sequential exploratory design. In particular, a qualitative study was conducted to identify some Italian-listed companies, called ambidextrous firms, which have implemented incremental (exploitative) and radical (explorative) innovations in an ambidexterity perspective of process management. A quantitative study was designed to provide insights into the different degrees of leverage of the listed companies selected by the qualitative analysis.FindingsThe research is based on an empirical analysis undertaken with 69 companies listed on Italian markets (starting from the MTA and MIV Italy 100 – large- and mid-sized capitalization). In particular, the authors highlight 11 companies that, based on the literature, can be defined as ambidextrous organizations. These firms, in each year analyzed (2014, 2015, and 2016), have more leverage than non-ambidextrous ones. Considering that firms today need to constantly revisit their portfolio of debt and equity, ambidextrous organizations could evaluate the largest debt available in order to implement new BPM tools.Originality/valueTo the authors' knowledge, this is the first exploratory study based on capital structure and the simultaneous exploration and exploitation of knowledge (ambidexterity) that also is informed by a BPM perspective. The paper presents evidence from Italian-listed companies that are referred to as ambidextrous and have different degrees of leverage.

This study has two purposes:

To present an alternative method for the study of events related to bond spreads applicable when only a small number of events is available;
To analyse the impact of downgradings and upgradings on the French financial market.

A small number of events can render the use of traditional methods based on the analysis of abnormal returns difficult. We suggest examining the stationarity of relative spreads and dating a possible interruption in the series by carrying out tests in increasingly wider time windows. This method has been applied to assess the role of rating agencies in the French financial market. The results obtained are, in general, not only similar to those previously obtained in other markets, but also more accurate. The aggregate analysis shows an absence of reaction for upgradings while downgradings determine reaction on financial markets. However, if we expand the analysis to single issuers we find that downgradings had no relevant effect on financial markets in most cases. Only two issuers (France Telecom and Vivendi), with initially good, but rapidly deteriorating, credit reputation, experienced a significant rise of their spreads. In these cases, financial markets reacted prior to the downgrading by the agency. Tests based only on the analysis of the whole events would have led us, in the case of downgradings, to partially flawed conclusions.

PurposeThis study examines the relationship between green intellectual capital (GIC) and competitive advantage (CA) and proposes the moderating role of corporate philanthropy types (cash, in-kind and both) during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, this study investigates the types of corporate philanthropy, strengthening the link between GIC and CA for Chinese listed firms during a pandemic.Design/methodology/approachCross-sectional data were collected from 248 chief executive officers (CEOs) of Chinese firms listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange through a structured questionnaire. Regression analysis was employed to test the proposed hypotheses.FindingsThe findings reveal that all types of GIC positively influence a firm's CA. Furthermore, all three types of philanthropy – cash, in-kind and both – moderate the relationship between GIC and CA. However, the intensity of moderation was higher in the case of in-kind philanthropy than in the other two types.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first empirical study to examine the relationship between GIC (considering its three components: human, structural and relational capital) and CA in China. The study finds different types of philanthropy as moderating variables to better explain the relationship between GIC and CA. Further, it contributes to a new line of research that aims to study philanthropic aspects connected to the GIC debate.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the impact of intellectual capital disclosure on the cost of equity capital in the context of integrated reporting, which represents the ultimate frontier in the field of corporate disclosure.Design/methodology/approachThe authors employ content analysis to measure intellectual capital disclosure levels along with a panel analysis on a sample of 164 integrated reports.FindingsEmpirical outcomes indicate that intellectual capital disclosure levels have a significantly negative association with the cost of equity capital.Originality/valueThis study's major contribution lies in its originality in terms of empirical examination of the relationship between intellectual capital disclosure in integrated reports and the cost of equity capital.

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