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In recent years, it is increasingly common to find situations in which economic or financial decisions are combined with philanthropic or charity issues (for example, “pay what you can”, cause-related marketing initiatives and micro-insurance). How do people behave in these situations? This study aims to analyze whether charity impacts agents’ economic behavior and which factors (gender and social distance) influence these decisions.

Using a modified one-period ultimatum game that includes a charitable giving variable, the authors investigate agents’ behavior in economic decisions when philanthropic issues are considered, and they compare this behavior to purely economic negotiation without explicit philanthropic relevance. Using a sample of 352 undergraduate business students, the authors explore the interaction effect between gender and social distance on giving behavior.

The results of this study show that women offer more than men when philanthropic motivation is involved. However, the solicitation of a charitable sentiment is not an element that substantially shifts the offers beyond the value considered to be economically fair. Finally, women and men are both susceptible to self-image concerns.

The results enable a more nuanced interpretation of gender differences in economic decisions when philanthropic or charity issues are involved. From a practical perspective, the findings could offer insights relevant to for-profit and non-profit organizations when they plan to provide products, services or investments with positive moral connotations or when they plan fundraising strategies.

Unlike existing laboratory studies, this study focuses on the effects that charity has on economic/financial decisions by exploring the interaction effect between the decision-maker’s gender and social distance on the outcome of the negotiation.

Over the past two decades, scholarly attention has focused mainly on a direct and inverse relationship between corporate environmental responsibility (CER) and corporate financial performance (CFP). This study aims to explore the bidirectional causality hypothesis, as good environmental results can lead to good financial results, which makes it possible to invest more resources in projects that improve environmental performance.

The authors test the bidirectional causality between CER and CFP on a sample of listed Italian manufacturing firms over the 2005-2014 period. The authors use a fixed effect panel data regression and check the robustness of the results with alternative econometric techniques.

Although the findings do not support bidirectional hypothesis, they establish direction/causality from CFP to CER. As a result, environmental responsibility is a consequence of prior financial performance, which supports the slack resources hypothesis.

Given that companies’ environmental commitment is dictated by economic evaluations or by assessing the availability of resources to invest, it seems that the spread of environmentally responsible behaviours might be supported by different external pressures.

The paper provides further insights on sustainability management literature by establishing a bidirectional relationship between firm performance and environmental responsibility.

This study aims to investigate whether significant performance differences between cooperatives and investor-owned firms (IOFs) may exist.

Based on data from a sample of Italian wine firms for the period from 2009 to 2018, an adjusted measure of performance called earnings before interests, taxes, depreciations and amortizations gross the raw materials cost was adopted to consider the different objectives of cooperatives relative to those of IOFs.

Empirical evidence shows that in the context under analysis, cooperatives have performed better than IOFs.

Despite the theoretical literature suggesting that the cooperative form of organizations suffers from many weaknesses, these results highlight that cooperatives operating in the wine sector are at least as economically efficient as other organizations, and more specifically, they perform better than for-profit firms. Consequent implications for theory and practice are discussed.

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between bank institutional setting and risk-taking by exploring whether board education and turnover are drivers of the risk propensity of cooperative banks compared to joint-stock banks.

Based on a comprehensive data set of Italian banks over the 2011-2017 period, this paper examines whether these board characteristics affect the risk propensity of cooperative and joint-stock banks. Bank risk is measured by the Z-index, profit volatility and the ratio of non-performing loans to total gross loans.

The findings show that cooperatives take less risk than joint-stock banks and have lower board turnover and education. Furthermore, this study finds that while board education mediates the relationship between the cooperative model and bank risk-taking, there is no evidence for board turnover. Thus, the lower educational level of cooperative directors contributes to explaining the lower risk-taking of cooperative banks.

The findings have several implications. In terms of the more general policy debate, the results point to the need to strengthen the governance model for both joint-stock and cooperative banks while supporting the view that a more ad hoc perspective on the best models and practices for each type of institutional setting would be preferable. In particular, the study reveals how board education’s effects on bank risk-taking should be carefully monitored.

Through a mediation framework, this study provides empirical evidence on the relationship between bank institutional setting (by distinguishing between cooperative and joint-stock banks) and risk-taking behavior by exploring the underlying mechanisms at the board level, which is novel in the literature.

Empirical evidence on the relation between female involvement at the head of a company and firm performance remains inconclusive. This study aims to disentangle the existing evidence by exploring the moderating role of family firm status.

The study analyzes the moderating role of family firm status on the relation between gender diversity and firm performance among a sample of 88 Italian wine firms from Campania region during the 2007-2014 period. This work uses random effects panel data regression and tests the robustness of the results using alternative econometric techniques. Performance is measured in terms of profitability.

The findings reveal that women in top positions do not affect firm performance. However, it is found that this relation is significantly moderated by family firm status. Specifically, compared to high family-controlled firms, female involvement negatively impacts firm performance in low family-controlled firms.

From a theoretical standpoint, the results enable a more nuanced interpretation of the relationship between female involvement and firm performance. From a managerial perspective, the results highlight conditions that may promote the role of women in business.

This paper provides insights into the relation between gender diversity and firm performance by exploring the moderating role of family firm status – a novel approach in the management and wine business literature.

In the era of artificial intelligence, natural language processing (NLP) models are revolutionizing numerous sectors. This research aims to explore the perceived value of them among university students. In particular, it aims to investigate how gender may influence students’ intention to use these models in educational contexts, highlighting potentially significant differences that could inform the implementation and adoption of educational technologies.

This study investigates the relationship between perceived value and students' intention to adopt NLP models, considering gender as a moderator. The research involves 562 students from the University of Salerno, in Italy, and uses confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate the reliability and validity of the measurement scales. A regression model with robust errors is used to explore the moderating role of gender on the relationship between perceived value and intentions of use of NLP models.

The results reveal a significant positive association between perceived value and intention to use NLP models, confirming that students with higher perceived value are more likely to adopt these technologies. Furthermore, gender moderates this relationship, indicating that females are less prone to use NLP models than male counterparts.

Research takes on a significant role in the academic field, underlining the importance of adapting teaching practices to the increasingly widespread digitalization. The inclusion of NLP models in university programs emerges as a possible improvement of the learning experience, ensuring cutting-edge education in tune with the needs of the digital society.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between gender diversity in CEO positions and FinTech profitability by exploring the moderating role of the average board age on such a relationship.

A unique data set of Italian FinTech companies during the 2017–2019 period was used in an ordinary least square model specification. The model is designed to assess the relationship between the presence of a female CEO and FinTech profitability and the moderating role of the average age of governing board members.

The results of this study indicate that when the average age of the FinTech firm’s board members is relatively low, the profitability of those firms with female CEOs was not significantly different from the profitability of firms with male CEOs. However, among FinTech firms with relatively older board members, the profitability of those firms with a female CEO was lower. This empirical result seems to suggest that older board directors are less prone to recognize female CEO leadership qualities. This supports the need for FinTech firms to adopt good practices in board composition that favor gender inclusion and diversity on board.

The novelty of this study within the literature is that the empirical analysis added new evidence on the relationship between Female CEO and performance by exploring the moderating role of the average age of board members. Moreover, the empirical results of this study suggest specific conditions that could improve the profitability of female-led firms by removing the apparent biased perceptions about the quality of women in leadership among older board members.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between employee training and bank risk to verify whether and to what extent an increase in employee training, as a soft component of total quality management (TQM), affects bank risk.

The research adopts a panel regression, based on a unique dataset of a sample of Italian banks over the period 2011–2018, to test whether employee training affects bank risk, measured alternatively in terms of Z-score, a proxy of bank stability and non-performing loans (NPLs)/gross loans ratio as a proxy of credit risk.

Research findings reveal that increasing employee training leads to growing bank stability. In contrast, credit risk is not affected by employee training. However, by investigating training heterogeneity, this study found that the increase in the number of managerial training hours, as a proxy for soft skills training, negatively impacts credit risk. Therefore, an increase in soft skills leads to a reduction in bank credit risk.

This study provides empirical evidence in support of the relationship between employee training and bank risk, which seems novel in the literature. From a managerial point of view, this study highlights the need for banks to pay attention to the skills, particularly soft skills, that banks' employees must possess to effectively manage bank risk and, more specifically, the core bank risk.

Empirical evidence on the relationship between employee training, soft/hard skills and bank risk appears limited if not absent. Therefore, the findings provide insights for a more nuanced interpretation of variables that affect bank risk.

This work seeks to investigate the performance of wine businesses operating in the Campania region in the South of Italy and aims to verify the family power effect on company performance.

The study was conducted on a sample of 114 firms that operate in the quality wines industry. Using a panel data regression model with time fixed effects, the authors analyzed the firm performance during the interval 2007‐2010 to detect the effect of family power on the firm performance. Family power was measured through the degree of family involvement in ownership and on the board. Performance was measured in terms of revenue and profitability.

The research highlights a U‐shaped relationship between family power and revenue and an inverted U‐shaped relationship between family power and profitability.

The findings show an empirical framework which could stimulate the academic debate on family effect in order to draw implications for marketing management and policy makers in the wine business and to provide suggestions for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between intellectual capital and firm capital structure by exploring whether firm profitability and risk are drivers of this relationship.

Based on a comprehensive data set of Italian firms over the 2008–2017 period, this paper examines whether intellectual capital affects firm financial leverage. Moreover, it analyzes whether firm profitability and risk mediate the abovementioned relationship. Financial leverage is measured by the debt/equity ratio. Intellectual capital is measured via the value-added intellectual coefficient approach.

The findings show that firms with a high level of intellectual capital have lower financial leverage and are more profitable and riskier than firms with a low level of intellectual capital. Furthermore, this study finds that firm profitability and risk mediate the relationship between intellectual capital and financial leverage. Thus, the higher profitability and risk of intellectual capital-intensive firms help explain their lower financial leverage.

The findings have several implications. From a theoretical standpoint, the paper presents and tests a mediating model of the relationship between intellectual capital and financial leverage and its underlying processes. In terms of the more general managerial implications, the results provide managers with a clear interpretation of the relationship between intellectual capital and financial leverage and point to the need to strengthen the capital structure of intangible-intensive firms.

Through a mediation framework, this study provides empirical evidence on the relationship between intellectual capital and firm financial leverage by exploring the underlying mechanisms behind that relationship, which is a novel approach in the literature.