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The paper aims to analyze the impact of cyber attacks on stock returns of companies operating in the hospitality sector. The fast development of information and communication technologies has been posited as both an opportunity and a challenge to the United Nations Global Sustainable Development Goals. Digital technologies are significant tools for sustainable development, but if they are not addressed appropriately, they can potentially hinder the progress toward sustainability. Among negative impacts, it is necessary to consider cyber risk, a major concern today, in particular for industries which work with sensitive data, such as tourism businesses. Hospitality businesses have to adequately manage cyber insecurity and digital privacy issues, to prevent losses and contribute to socioeconomic sustainable growth.

Using event-study methodology, the paper provides empirical evidence on the effect of announcements of 170 information security breaches on the market value of firms operating in the hospitality sector in the past five years.

The study focuses on identifying potential threats of cyber attacks for the economic value of listed companies. The authors find that negative market returns occur following announcements of cyber attacks suffered by hospitality companies. Adequate investments in technology for cyber security and staff training are relevant in the hospitality sector to reduce cyber risk.

The paper contributes to identifying potential threats of cyber attacks for the economic value of listed companies operating in the hospitality sector. The analysis is carried out by collecting an original sample of global cyber attacks from newspaper announcements sourced from the LexisNexis database.

论酒店业的网络攻击：股票市场的反应

信息通讯技术的快速发展, 对UN全球可持续发展战略目标带来机遇和挑战。电子技术对可持续发展起到重要作用, 但是如果它们未被合理使用, 则对可持续性构成潜在威胁。在众多负面影响中, 网络攻击不可忽视, 成为现今重大担忧, 尤其是对于处理敏感数据的行业, 比如旅游产业。酒店业必须具备管理网络安全和处理电子隐私的能力, 以防止损失, 对社会经济可持续增长做出贡献。

本论文分析酒店业内因网络攻击而遭受股票的影响。借用事件分析法, 本论文研究了近五年来, 170项信息安全泄露消息对酒店市场价值的影响。

本论文主要确立了上市公司因网络攻击而受到的经济价值影响。我们发现, 酒店公司在宣布网络攻击后, 其市场收益受到负面影响。充足的网络安全技术投入和人员培训与酒店减少网络攻击有一定的联系。

本论文分析了酒店业中上市公司因网络攻击而带来的潜在经济价值的损失。研究分析样本来自Lexis Nexis数据库中的全球网络攻击的新闻报道。

This paper aims to analyze the portfolio characteristics and the performance measures of sustainability-themed mutual funds, compared to ethical mutual funds that implement different sustainable and responsible investment strategies.

The study refers to a European sample of 106 ethical funds and 51 sustainability-themed funds. The monthly performance of each fund is downloaded from Bloomberg for the period from January 1996 to December 2015. By applying a Fama and French (1993) three-factor model, the authors overcome the limits of a capital asset pricing model (CAPM) based-single index model, to compare the performance of the two categories of funds.

Sustainability-themed funds do not differ significantly from ethical funds in terms of portfolio attributes, except for market capitalization, age and net asset value. Regarding performance measures, the results shows that sustainability-themed funds have a lower underperformance than ethical funds (as measured by Jensen’s alpha), whereas the samples do not differ in terms of market risk (as measured by Beta coefficient). The idiosyncratic risk of sustainability-themed funds is positively influenced by the specific portfolio strategies. The sustainability-themed funds show a higher concentration in the industrial sector and a lower exposure to financial sector than ethical funds; in terms of geographical strategy, they are more global and international oriented; they mainly focus on small caps and value stocks.

The different sustainable and responsible investment strategies can be applied simultaneously and in a growing number of possible combinations. Mutual fund managers can consider thematic approach as an efficient opportunity for reconciling financial performance and economic sustainability. It is demonstrated that sustainability-themed funds adopt a portfolio strategy significantly different from ethical funds and from the environmental, social and governance benchmarks. Mutual fund managers implement a thematic specialization without any negative impact on the funds returns compared to ethical funds; actually, with a proper diversified portfolio, they are able to reduce idiosyncratic risk.

The analysis is extremely innovative, especially for the thematic sample. During the past 15 years, literature about sustainable and responsible investment has been focused especially on the differences in terms of risk and performance between socially responsible and conventional funds. This paper, starting from the methodology applied in these studies, wants to compare two different types of socially responsible strategies, with a specific focus on sustainability-themed mutual funds, given their exponential growth in the past few years.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on public guarantees granted to micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by the Italian national credit guarantee programme (Fondo Centrale di Garanzia – Central Guarantee Fund – (CGF)). The CGF provides a direct guarantee to banks granting loans or a counter-guarantee to mutual guarantee institutions (MGIs) acting as first-level guarantors. Because the behaviour of MGIs could affect the default risk of counter-guaranteed loans, it is vital to investigate their operating and structural characteristics in order to identify an optimal design for public credit guarantee schemes (PCGSs).

Using regression models, the paper analyses the determinants of default for 33,229 SME loans guaranteed by an MGI and counter-guaranteed by the Italian CGF. The dependent variable is the ex-post default risk of SMEs’ counter-guaranteed loans in the 2010-2011 period. The explanatory variables are certain characteristics of the MGI.

The authors demonstrate that increases in an MGI’s leverage and the size of the counter-guaranteed portfolios increase the default risk. When the counter-guaranteed portfolio increases, MGIs are more risk taking but take less risk than when local and specialized MGIs are at play. Finally, direct public aid is relevant.

An appropriate design of the PCGS becomes crucial to controlling moral hazard in financial institutions and ensuring the financial sustainability of public intervention in favour of SMEs.

The paper evaluates an original and confidential firm-level data set that is not available in public documents or supervisory board statistics but is collected directly from the MGIs that participated in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey that aimed to analyse the state of organisational and operative evolution of the functions and activities overseeing customer satisfaction in Italian banks.

The research was conducted by questionnaire, to which 92 banks responded, representative of 77 per cent of the total assets of the Italian banking system.

The analysis of the results makes it possible to highlight the current approaches aimed at managing customer satisfaction, as well as the extent of integration between this and other management processes within the banks surveyed. The authors found that in these banks customer satisfaction is no longer a staff activity but increasingly a line activity, it involves the responsibility of top management and is a key indicator in staff incentive schemes.

The research aims to contribute to the literature on customer satisfaction on the one hand, by verifying if and how banks measure and manage some of the customer satisfaction cause‐effect relationships investigated by studies on the subject and, on the other hand, by focusing attention on organisation and internal processes aimed to support the assessment and improvement of customer satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the drivers influencing the risk of default on mutual guaranteed loans. The authors aim to verify whether default is influenced by the specific business policies of mutual guarantee institutions (MGIs) and to recommend guidelines for directing their operating management.

The authors analyse the guaranteed portfolios of 19 Italian MGIs and investigate the determinants of the defaulted positions at the end of June 2011. The sample consists of 167,777 guaranteed loans, of which 11,349 are in default. Using regression models, we identify the variables related to the business model of MGIs that are significantly associated with default on their positions.

The defaulted positions of MGIs are significantly correlated with the type of issued guarantees. This condition should be considered in defining product and price policies.

The authors identify some critical issues in the risk-taking processes of MGIs. The tested hypothesis highlights the opportunities for the optimisation of guaranteed loan portfolios, which is necessary for reducing the profitability/liquidity pressures of these financial institutions and enhancing their efficiency as instruments for mitigating the effects of credit rationing and promoting the revitalisation of small-and medium-sized enterprises.

The results are based on an original and reserved dataset, which is not available in public financial statements or public statistics, but is collected directly from the MGIs that are part of the study.