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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on blockchain (BC) adoption for preventing counterfeiting by investigating BC systems where different options for BC feeding and reading complement the use of BC technology. By grounding on the situational crime prevention, this study analyses how BC systems can be designed to effectively prevent counterfeiting.

This is a multiple-case study of five Italian wine companies using BC to prevent counterfeiting.

This study finds that the desired level of upstream/downstream counterfeiting protection that a brand owner intends to guarantee to customers through BC is the key driver to consider in the design of BC systems. The study identifies which variables are relevant to the design of feeding and reading processes and explains how such variables can be modulated in accordance with the desired level of counterfeiting protection.

The cases investigated are Italian companies within the wine sector, and the BC projects analysed are in the pilot phase.

The study provides practical suggestions to address the design of BC systems by identifying a set of key variables and explaining how to properly modulate them to face upstream/downstream counterfeiting.

This research applies a new perspective based on the situational crime prevention approach in studying how companies can design BC systems to effectively prevent counterfeiting. It explains how feeding and reading process options can be configured in BC systems to assure different degrees of counterfeiting protection.

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of structural and demographic board diversity as well as board tenure on family firms' environmental performance, by analyzing the differences between family and non-family businesses and within family firms.

Tobit regressions are applied to investigate the effect of independent directors, CEO non-duality, board gender diversity and board tenure on environmental performance. The study also controls for other board and firm characteristics, as well as for time, industry and country-fixed effects. In doing so, the authors rely on a sample of non-financial listed firms from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal over the period 2014–2021.

The authors find that women on the board positively influence environmental performance and this effect is significant only in family firms, although board tenure negatively moderates the relationship. Board independence significantly affects environmental performance only in non-family firms. A strong presence of family directors has a negative effect on family firms' environmental performance, especially when directors' turnover is low.

This paper examines the unexplored relationship between structural board diversity and environmental performance in family companies. This study provides empirical evidence on the association between gender diversity and family firms' environmental performance focusing for the first time on a European setting. Moreover, this study provides evidence of a different effect of board tenure in family and non-family businesses.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of the nature of ownership and board characteristics on the investment choices in joint ventures (JVs) from the dimensional point of view, controlling for the effect of JV type and other components of intellectual capital.

The authors study a sample of Italian, Spanish, German and French nonfinancial listed firms over the 2010–2018 period, controlling for the fixed effects of the company's sector of operation and the year. The authors also analyze the effect of family control and influence on JV investment size, taking into consideration certain board characteristics, the type of JV, human capital efficiency, structural capital efficiency and capital employed efficiency while also controlling for a firm's profitability and size. To test the hypotheses, GLS panel data was used.

The results indicate that the size of the investment in JVs is smaller for family firms than for nonfamily businesses. The presence of CEO duality has an opposing effect on the size of the investment in joint ventures as it has a lowering effect in family businesses while it exerts an amplifier influence in nonfamily businesses. Moreover, the type of joint venture has a significant effect for family firms: the choice of a link joint venture reduces the size of the investment. The authors find that human capital efficiency increases JV investment size for all firms.

This study is the first to analyze the effect of the main dimension of socioemotional wealth – family control and influence – on a firm's JV investment size. It controls for the effect of JV type – link or scale – and the interplay of the other IC components.

For the purpose of reducing the incidence of hazardous materials transport accident, eliminating the potential threats and ensuring their safety, aiming at the shortcomings in the process of current hazardous materials transportation management, this paper aims to construct the framework of hazardous materials transportation safety management system under the vehicle-infrastructure connected environment.

The system takes the intelligent connected vehicle as the main supporter, integrating GIS, GPS, eye location, GSM, networks and database technology.

By analyzing the transportation characteristics of hazardous materials, this system consists of five subsystems, which are vehicle and driver management subsystem, dangerous sources and hazardous materials management subsystem, route analysis and optimization subsystem, early warning and emergency rescue management subsystem, and basic information query subsystem.

Hazardous materials transportation safety management system includes omnibearing real-time monitoring, timely updating of system database, real-time generation and optimization of emergency rescue route. The system can reduce the transportation cost and improve the ability of accident prevention and emergency rescue of hazardous materials.

In light of the difficulties the governments typically face in conserving and managing their rich public cultural heritage, which often lingers in a condition of neglect, this study aims to identify a set of additional tools capable of providing adequate financial resources as well as skills.

The general research methodology adopted is of a qualitative, rather than a quantitative, nature. In fact, the resulting considerations are mainly the consequence of a first broad theoretical examination, aimed at analyzing the different management models a public entity may adopt, and an applicable verification, aimed at describing some case histories selected by means of interviews.

The study develops a preliminary reflection on possible sector-specific models for public-built cultural heritage management that have not been well defined yet, especially so in reference to one of the institutional options, namely, the adoption of public–private–people agreements. Indeed, in addition to establishing the ties needed to link public institutions with the business sector, some strong involvement of society as a whole is advised to foster the implementation of projects and expedite the solution of shared problems. At a local level, for instance, private stakeholder participation must be encouraged, with special attention to the latter's cultural closeness to the territory involved.

This research identifies some tools suitable for adoption in the cultural heritage field, which would serve as perfect examples of community involvement and commitment, and some useful case studies resulting from the Italian context.

The paper investigates the closure mechanisms and strategies of exclusion concerning the establishment and subsequent functioning of the Collegio dei Rasonati, the professional body of accountants that was established in Venice in 1581 and operated until the end of the 18th century.

The research design offers a critical longitudinal explanation of the emergence of the Collegio dei Rasonati as a professional body in the context of Venetian society by relying on the social closure theory elaborated by Collins (1975); Parkin (1979) and Murphy (1988).

The Collegio dei Rasonati was established to overcome the prerogatives of a social class in accessing the accounting profession. However, the pre-existing professional elites enacted a set of social closure strategies able to transform this professional body into a stronghold of their privileges.

As virtually all of the evidence concerning the admission examinations has been lost over time, the investigation is restricted to the study of the few examples that have survived. The main implication of the study concerns the understanding of some dynamics leading to neutralize attempts to replace class privileges with a meritocratic system.

The research investigates the structure of the rules of social closure revealing the possibility of an antagonistic relationship between different co-existing forms of exclusion within the same structure. Moreover, it highlights that a form of exclusion can be made of different hierarchical levels.