Anna Maria Biscotti, Eugenio D’Amico and Filippo Monge
The purpose of this study is to investigate how an environmental management system (EMS) might affect the environmental product innovation propensity of a firm through its…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate how an environmental management system (EMS) might affect the environmental product innovation propensity of a firm through its influence on two factors shaping the knowledge process: the human capital management practices of training and development and the organisational context.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the study’s hypotheses, an empirical analysis was carried out on 262 companies drawn from 16 developed European markets included in the S&P Europe 350 Dow Jones index over the years 2005-2015.The authors adopted regression analysis by using the ordinary least squares and the binary logit econometric models.
Findings
Consistently with the study’s predictions, results show that for organisational contexts characterised by the presence of family owners, the EMAS-certified EMS reveals as a significant moderating factor that positively influences their approach to the knowledge management tools for the improvement of the workforce cognitive capabilities, with a significant impact on the firm’s openness towards green product innovation. On the contrary, the ISO 14001-certified EMS tends not to stimulate such proactive behaviour, in both family and non-family firms.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that an EMS can stimulate the knowledge exploration in the environmental protection field. To this end, top managers should overcome the bureaucratic vision of an EMS and conceive it as a knowledge management tool able to support the learning evolution of the organisation through an effective commitment to human capital management policies of training and development.
Originality/value
Drawing from social identity and institutional theories, this is the first study – to the best of the authors’ knowledge – that theorises and tests why the adoption of an EMS might stimulate the knowledge advancement of the organisation in a different way, especially in peculiar organisational contexts of family firms where the identity overlap between the family and the firm tends to affect the knowledge management process.
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Anna Maria Biscotti, Elisabetta Mafrolla, Manlio Del Giudice and Eugenio D’Amico
In an increasingly turbulent and competitive environment, open innovation could be critical for a firm’s success, favoring organizational flexibility and accelerating innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
In an increasingly turbulent and competitive environment, open innovation could be critical for a firm’s success, favoring organizational flexibility and accelerating innovation processes. However, sharing innovation projects with external partners often requires changes in traditional organizational behavior and visions of CEOs. The purpose of this paper is to theorize and empirically verify how the CEO turnover and some socially relevant characteristics of the old and the new CEO may impact firms’ propensity toward open innovation under an integrated agency-resource dependence view and social identity perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analysis was carried out on 264 companies drawn from 16 developed European markets included in the S&P Europe 350 Dow Jones index over the years 2006-2015. To test the predictions, the authors adopted regression analysis by employing the panel two-stages least squares model and the ordinary least squares econometric model.
Findings
Consistently with the predictions, the authors found that CEO turnover stimulates open innovation. Particularly, the results suggest that the organizational identity rationale may motivate a divergent propensity between insider and outsider new CEOs, with outsiders more prone to open innovation. The higher tendency of new outsider CEOs to undertake innovation projects jointly with external organizations prevails also within firms that experienced a long tenure of the former CEO, thereby suggesting that a new outsider CEO appears able to renovate corporate strategic directions also in highly orthodox organizational cultures.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that theorizes why CEO turnover might impact the propensity of the firm toward open innovation. The authors use an integrated agency-resource dependence perspective, and the results from the empirical analysis mostly support the predictions. Moreover, the authors adopt the social identity theory to show that the organizational identification of the CEO matters in the decision of engaging in open innovation.
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Stefano Fontana, Eugenio D'Amico, Daniela Coluccia and Silvia Solimene
This study aims to verify the presence, evolution and determinants of voluntary environmental disclosure from companies listed on the Milan Stock Exchange. The authors examined…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to verify the presence, evolution and determinants of voluntary environmental disclosure from companies listed on the Milan Stock Exchange. The authors examined documentation of listed firms from 2006 and 2009. These years immediately precede and follow Italian legislative decree n. 32/2007, which introduced (albeit on a voluntary basis) disclosure of environment-related company information.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors’ approach utilizes multivariate regression analysis. The disclosure index of the years 2006 and 2009 represents the dependent variable. Independent variables include firm size, business industry, public shareholders, legislation and environmental performance.
Findings
The results show positive effects on environmental disclosure related to legislative decree n. 32, the presence of government shareholdings in firms’ ownership structure, business industry and firm size. The interrelation between firm size and environmental performance shows that large companies give more information only if they produce more environmental pollution, to legitimize themselves to stakeholders.
Research limitations/implications
Despite the authors’ contributions concerning environmental information described in the Introduction, they must express two limitations of their analysis. First, the sample analyzed is quite small (only 44 firms). Second, carbon dioxide emissions was chosen as an indicator of atmospheric pollution, yet emissions information has not been provided by Italian firms (even those that are listed on the Milan Stock Exchange), despite being accepted internationally as a measure of environmental performance in business. In addition, in Italy, there is no database ranking firms on corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Practical implications
There are many reasons behind the weak or even negative roles of managers regarding social and environmental disclosure. These reasons include a dearth of resources, the profit imperative, lack of legal requirements, insufficient knowledge or awareness, poor performance and fear of bad publicity. What seems to be a real obstacle is the lack of knowledge about non-financial disclosure – in particular, how to gauge, produce and release information when it comes to a firm’s interaction with environment and society, and this void causes low levels of disclosure and even the absence of such action. Some of the reasons for non-disclosure might be attributed to a lack of awareness and knowledge among corporate managers regarding CSR reporting, in general, and disclosure on eco-justice issues, in particular.
Originality/value
The first contribution of this work is to realize, for the first time, a specific analysis on Italian firms’ environmental disclosures. Moreover, the study extends this analysis to all entities’ informative documents. This paper also allows an examination of effects of new legislation that encourages environmental information in a corporation’s financial annual report. Finally, this is the first paper to conduct quantitative analysis on firms in the Italian financial market concerning environmental disclosure, as well as regression analysis to identify determinants of firms’ disclosure.
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Manlio Del Giudice, Elias G. Carayannis, Daniel Palacios-Marqués, Pedro Soto-Acosta and Dirk Meissner
Juliana Chini, Eduardo Eugênio Spers, Hermes Moretti Ribeiro da Silva and Mirella Cais Jejcic de Oliveira
This study aims to identify the marginal impact of introducing a signal attribute of pasture-raised beef on consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for other independent attributes.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to identify the marginal impact of introducing a signal attribute of pasture-raised beef on consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for other independent attributes.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is divided into two steps. The first, qualitative, consisted of investigating the values consumers have regarding beef production. To this end, 52 interviews with Brazilian and US consumers were conducted using laddering. In the second, quantitative, six experiments, (face to face and online) with 267 consumers of beef were performed.
Findings
As a result, the main value found for the Brazilians was security, while for the Americans was self-direction. For consumers, the WTP for animal welfare was the most important in the choice experiments where this information was present.
Originality/value
These findings offer an alternate beef differentiation, enabling it to be sold with higher added value by integrating these.
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Felice Matozza, Anna Maria Biscotti and Elisabetta Mafrolla
This paper aims to examine whether firms in polluting industries improve their environmental performance to effectively repair their financial reputation in the aftermath of an…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine whether firms in polluting industries improve their environmental performance to effectively repair their financial reputation in the aftermath of an accounting restatement – a financial reputation-damaging event.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors test their hypotheses using multiple regression analysis of a sample of firms listed in International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)-adopting countries. They use a comparative empirical design in which a sample of firms that underwent a restatement (henceforth, restating firms) are compared with control groups of pair- and multiple-matched firms that did not undergo restatements (non-restating firms).
Findings
The study finds that restating firms have higher environmental performance in the aftermath of restatement events. Additionally, the authors demonstrate that this environmentally based reputation repair positively influences the financial reputation of the firms, as measured by analyst coverage and recommendations and which previously decreased because of the restatement event.
Practical implications
Because environmental levers are a substantial contextual factor in polluting industries, shifting the stakeholder debate to firms’ environmental commitment can improve financial stakeholders’ opinions and favour the repair of the multifaceted reputation of the financially damaged firm.
Social implications
With a worldwide growing attention to environment there is a critical need for understanding how polluting firms integrate sustainability and financial reputation. We demostrate that polluting firms recover from a financial failure pursuing their environmental performance.
Originality/value
Contributing to the behavioural theory of reputation repair and in line with the legitimacy perspective in environmental disclosure research, this paper shows that polluting firms recover from a loss to their financial reputation by diverting stakeholders’ attention towards the environmental field, thus restoring their financial reputation, as financial analysts value environmental performance improvement – a substantial contextual factor of polluting firms’ reputation repair process.
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Gustavo Ferro and Ignacio Benito Amaro
Given the growing supply of wines and the large number of new consumers with purchasing power but lacking knowledge of the subtleties of high-quality wines, expert opinions are…
Abstract
Purpose
Given the growing supply of wines and the large number of new consumers with purchasing power but lacking knowledge of the subtleties of high-quality wines, expert opinions are used for consumers as proxies for quality. This study aims to determine the determinants of prices in top-quality wine market. The authors also seek to estimate the role for country of origin, grape, producing region and winery in prices. And, finally, the authors try to show how countries, regions and wineries can help increase their position in international rankings.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors try to answer: What factors explain the price of top-quality wines (defined as best rated in a standardized ranking)? To some extent, in the hands of producers influence prices, which imply long-term decisions or large investments in land and marketing. Other variables that consumer value does affect prices. The authors try also to detect undervalued or overvalued wines, grapes, regions, wineries or producer countries. The authors estimate an econometric model of hedonic prices using a 14-year sample of the Wine Spectator’s 100 top-rated wines for the American market between 2003 and 2016, totaling 1,400 observations. The sample is a great cross-section because each wine is unique.
Findings
The authors’ contribution is twofold: the determination of the price explanatory values and the identification and attribution of price differences by country, grape, region and winery. Also, the authors detected grapes, countries, regions and wineries which are overvalued or undervalued with respect to the average prediction of the model.
Research limitations/implications
The findings are useful to understand the role of price explanatory variables, as well as for making policy and managerial decisions. From the model, collective or managerial actions can be derived to increase particular wines’ positions in international rankings. The proxy for “quality” in the study is not the only possible definition.
Practical implications
In some cases, managerial choices could be conditioned by the policies or history. There is some room for collective action and public policies to improve regions’ and countries’ reputation.
Social implications
There are clear synergies for policies that can raise the prestige of countries and regions and their spillovers on the brand name reputation of individual wineries.
Originality/value
The results, policy and managerial implications are of interest for business, countries interested in improving their position in international rankings and for consumers to make more informed decisions.