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This paper investigates the role of the founder CEO and board independence in shaping the way in which Indian and Italian family firms (FFs) pursue international growth via two modes, that is exports and FDI. This article claims that country's context matters in determining the relationship between the presence of the founder CEO and FFs' extent of exports and extent of FDI. Further, this article examines the moderating role of board independence on the above-mentioned founder CEO–FF's international growth relationship.

Using a fixed-effect panel data method, this article tests the hypotheses on a sample of 1,275 Indian FF-year observations and 705 Italian FF-year observations over the period 2008–2015.

This article reveals that the presence of a founder CEO is positively associated with the extent of exports but negatively associated with the extent of FDI in Italian firms. However, in case of Indian firms, the presence of the founder CEO is negatively associated with the extent of exports as well as with the extent of FDI. This founder CEO's influence on the firm's international growth is mitigated by the presence of an independent board in Italian firms; however, this moderation is not significant in the case of Indian firms.

It is important to capture heterogeneity within family firms and across institutional contexts while studying family firms' international growth. Further, it is important for international business scholars to theorize for different modes of international growth because challenges faced in expansion via exports are different from the challenges faced in expansion via FDI (foreign subsidiaries). Therefore, family firms leadership might prefer a certain mode of international growth.

The findings of the study imply that national culture and institutional context could play an important role in determining (a) Founder CEO's inclination towards FF's extent of exports and FDI as well as (b) the effectiveness of an independent board in mitigating founder CEO's influence on FF's international growth.

This work is one of the very few studies that examines the impact of FF's heterogeneity and country heterogeneity on two modes of international growth, namely exports and FDI, in the Indian and Italian contexts. Further, this work provides empirical evidence on the independent board's role in mitigating founder CEO's influence in decision making in the case of Italian firms. Extant literature expects an independent board to encourage FFs' international growth both via exports and FDI; this study shows that independent boards could reduce the founder CEO's inclination towards exports and mitigate founder CEO's influence on the decision making; however, this mitigation effect is highly context dependent.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the international opportunity development process of born global firms embedded in two different institutional contexts: China, an emerging economy and Italy, a developed country. Drawing on the entrepreneurial opportunity literature and institutional theory, this study explores and draws insights into how home country institutions of born globals can influence the international opportunity development process of the firms.

This paper adopts a qualitative case study approach with in-depth, semi-structured interviews of six born global companies from China and Italy. In doing so, this study uses a flexible pattern matching design, which is consistent with the qualitative research design of the paper.

The findings of the study indicate that home institutions play an influential, yet differential role in the international opportunity development processes of Chinese and Italian born global firms. While the Italian firms shape their opportunities mainly through product innovation, their Chinese counterparts develop opportunities primarily through networks embedded in their home institutional context.

The key contributions of the paper relate to an integrated analysis of the international opportunity development process of born globals in China and Italy based on institutional theory, which has received limited attention in the international entrepreneurship literature. In addition, the study advances the similarities and differences in the international opportunity development process in two different countries, thus providing valuable insights for policymakers and practitioners to enter international markets successfully.

In this chapter I discuss judicial contributions to Italian penality. I look at the penal incentives produced by interactions between judicial and political classes, and ask whether judges and prosecutors have been forces for punitiveness or moderation. I discuss the relevance of the Italian case for broader analyses of Western penality.

My chapter offers a political-sociological account of judicial contributions to punishment. I analyse the penal incentives created by different national institutional set-ups, specifically addressing judicial contributions to penality using a framework developed by Joachim Savelsberg and Nicola Lacey. The framework examines judicial structure in the institutional context looking at the penal implications of bureaucratisation of the judiciary and the capacity for co-ordination between judges and politicians. I include judicial legitimacy as an additional dimension in this framework.

I conclude that the Italian judiciary have been forces for punitiveness and moderation. Their contributions can be systematised by looking at the waxing and waning of judicial legitimacy, and the consequent expansion and contraction of judicial powers. I claim that judicial legitimacy is also relevant to other (‘non-Italian’) analyses of judicial contributions to contemporary Western penality.

By adding legitimacy to investigations of judicial contributions to penality I provide an organising principle with which to analyse the penal role of Italian judicial actors. I thus allow Italy to be kept in conversation with existing comparative models, without assuming that it either conforms to the models entirely, or that the models should otherwise be eschewed. I use the Italian case to demonstrate the relevance of legitimacy when analysing judicial contributions to Western penality, arguing that changing legitimacy affects the terms and effect of interaction between judicial and political classes.

This article analyzes the interplay between regulation and social and environmental reporting in northern Italian social enterprises. Specifically, it investigates how “non-accredited” social enterprises discharge voluntary accountability before and after the introduction of regulation making social and environmental reporting compulsory for “accredited-social enterprises.” By developing a content analysis on 170 stand-alone social and environmental reports, this article provides a longitudinal analysis of voluntary disclosures in a regulated context from 2006 (before regulation) to 2009 (after regulation). Based on the total number of disclosures and the average number of sentences per report, Italian “non-regulated” social enterprises showed increased voluntary disclosure on social and environmental matters from 2006 to 2009; however, when analyzing the average sentences per report, it emerges that the information contained in the stand-alone social and environmental reports decreased, especially disclosures related to “social-related issues.” This article looks beyond crude noncompliance analysis with legislation and analyzes if the regulation influences organizations’ voluntary disclosure. It analyzes all of the social and environmental disclosures provided by northern Italian “non-accredited” social enterprises before and after the introduction of regulation. The novelty of this article rests in the fact that it does not analyze the social and environmental disclosure of “legal social enterprises”; rather, it considers the whole voluntary disclosure context for “non-accredited” social enterprises in a regulated environment.

The present study aims to extend the knowledge of intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) disclosure practices in the Italian Healthcare Organisations (HCOs) context. The ultimate goal of the study is to provide fresh insight into the possible explanatory factors that may drive the extent of ICD provided by Italian HCOs via the web.

The present study applies a manual content analysis on the websites of a sample of 158 HCOs to determine the level of voluntary ICD. A multivariate regression model is estimated to test the association between different variables – size, gender diversity in top governance positions, financial performance and indebtedness – and the level of ICD provided by sampled HCOs through their official websites.

Content analysis results reveal that – in the absence of mandatory requirements – Italian HCOs tend to use websites to disclose information about IC. Particular attention is devoted to Structural and Relational Capital. The statistical analysis pinpoints that size and indebtedness negatively influence the level of ICD. In contrast, the presence of a female General Manager (GM) positively drives ICD. Also, it is observed that Research and University HCOs and those located in the Italian Northern Regions are particularly prone to discharge accountability on IC through websites.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines voluntary ICD practices through websites in the Italian HCOs' context. Also, since prior studies on IC in the healthcare context are mainly descriptive or normative, this is the first study examining the potential determinants of ICD provided by HCOs in terms of size, gender diversity in top governance positions, financial performance and indebtedness.

Although there is no mandatory requirement for Italian universities to report beyond a financial report, several universities have produced a social report, despite the context of increasing pressure to cut financial resources. This study aims to investigate if Italian state universities produce voluntary social reports and, if so, what they disclose. Also to explore their motivations to do so and the main difficulties encountered.

Content analysis is applied to the total pool of Italian universities’ social reports obtained. Also, a subsequent online survey was undertaken with preparers of those social reports.

The findings indicate that a social report is not a common practice in Italian universities. Subsequent online interviews and thematic analysis found that a key individual within the university played a pivotal role in developing a social report. In the pool of reports examined, there were few social and environmental aspects disclosed. Also the respondents to the survey highlighted that the main difficulty in the development of social reports was the lack of systematic collection of non-financial information within the university.

The study is limited to the Italian university social reports produced and those answering the online survey.

Most of the prior Italian literature on social reports is normative in nature and focuses on what should be reported, rather than on what was actually reported. This study is an attempt at analysing the pool of Italian universities’ social reports and is useful for understanding how and why organisations voluntarily produce social reports.

The literature considers three main models of nonprofit sector structure and development: liberal, welfare partnership, and social democratic. This study analyzes the cases of Italian and Canadian nonprofit organizations (NPOs) that operate in two third-sector contexts, widely known as “hybrids.” In particular, we aim to verify whether some features of governance, leadership, and volunteer participation have impacts on the financial performances of selected Italian and Canadian NPOs.

Differences between the two studied nonprofit contexts influenced the sampling, the data collection, and the methods of analysis. Data on Italian and Canadian NPOs are analyzed both together and separately, using multiple regression models. Revenues, fund-raising and other grants from the general public, and program expenses are used as measurements of financial performance.

Our analysis demonstrates that some board characteristics, as well as volunteer participation and representation on the board, have impacts on the nonprofit financial performance. The characteristics of the CEO studied in this work are not significantly associated with the level of financial performance.

This study has several important implications for research on board characteristics, CEO characteristics and volunteer management and governance, as well as implications for practitioners. The limitations of this study are related mostly to the different methods used for sampling NPOs and collecting data in the two different country contexts due to the different level of availability of data.

The past literature has not adequately examined the relationships among the board and CEO characteristics, the role of volunteers in governance and financial performance.

This chapter examines the contemporary migration of Italian families to Morocco. Situating Italian emigration studies in context, it describes how this ‘new migration’ is a result of both historical and economic factors. Beginning with how ‘being in motion’ shapes the everyday lives of Italian women and families, it points out that migration is a way to apply agency. Being on the move through migration is presented not only as a process that (re)shapes the family, but also as a means of attaining an imagined model of family, one based on cultural aspirations of a good life for one’s self and one’s children.

The article aims to investigate whether the integration between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and intellectual capital (IC) reports could be a plausible issue. To address this aim, the paper posits three main research questions: whether there is a theory able to explain the relationship between IC and CSR (RQ1); whether empirical surveys provide evidence of the links between CSR activities (CSRA) and IC (RQ2); and whether organizations have started to disclose social and intangible issues in a single document within the Italian context (RQ3).

To answer the RQs, we decided to arrange three different literature reviews. In detail, to address RQ1, we searched for theoretical studies focussing on an resource-based view (RBV) perspective of IC or CSR or both. To address RQ2, we searched for empirical studies addressed to test the links between CSRA and the creation and development of organizational IC. To address RQ3, we searched for empirical studies focussing on companies’ experiences of integration of CSR and IC reports or on surveys on this theme in the Italian context.

All the three literature reviews provide evidence that the trend to move towards an integration of social and IC issues in a single report is a plausible issue, from a theoretical, management and disclosure point of view.

The main limit of the research lies in its theoretical nature; however, the study can provide an impulse for further research on the existing trend in the real-life context, and can also provide the theoretical basis on which to build a model that, starting from the relationships among the different kinds of voluntary reports, provides the criteria and methods to integrate the firm’s corporate voluntary reports in a single report. For researchers, this result also has an implication to control for intangibles, for example, assessing the relationship between CSR and corporate performance may explain some of the mixed findings that have occurred in the past.

The article inserts CSR and IC within the RBV theory. Such recognition provides managers the theoretical framework to treat them conjointly, being aware that these two dimensions are intertwined. The article also provides evidence that CSRA impact on IC creation and development. The main implication for company managers is that, when developing a strategy aimed at strengthening IC, they should consider not only all components of intellectual capital but, above all, also include CSR actions and attributes in strategy formulation. Finally, the article provides evidence of a trend towards an integration of CSR and IC reports within the Italian territory. An integrated CSR–IC approach could have relevant implications on the development of the Italian territory characterized by a large number of SMEs and networks of firms that are an integral part of the local community, whose success is often related to their capability to acquire consensus from local stakeholders such as employees, public authorities, financial organizations, banks, suppliers and citizens.

The article provides three main contributions: first, the paper suggests that the integration of the two different perspectives IC and CSR finds its theoretical justification in the RBV theory, which is scarcely applied to explain the link between these two perspectives; second, the article provides evidence of the real effects that investments in CSR have on the maintenance and developing of organizational IC; third, it provides evidence that there is a trend moving towards an integration of social and IC issues in a single report in the Italian context.

This study aims to develop and validate a scale for the assessment of the quality of the meta-management process that helps urban destinations to identify potential improvement in their strategy and possible paths to enhance destination competitiveness.

In particular, through an empirical analysis of all the Italian cities with tourism certification (138 urban destinations), a model is proposed, linking specific portal functions to the achievement of six meta-management processes (product development, segment selection, customer relation management, promotion, destination image and brand management and management of distribution channels). Through a comparison with a competitive set of excellent international destinations, the study identifies priorities for competitiveness enhancement.

The results of the study contribute to the ongoing debate on destination competitiveness and destination web site evaluation.

From the managerial point of view, the model helps destination managers to control destination strategy and create consensus among all the stakeholders on the actions to achieve them.