Measuring responsible financial consumption behaviour

Sound consumption decisions determine individuals’ well‐being; responsible financial consumption behaviour (RFCB) affects not only their finances but also their societal status and emotional state. The failure to manage personal finances responsibly may result in serious long‐term consequences for individuals and society overall. In order to evaluate the concept of RFCB, this study combines two established theoretical frameworks—the family management system and the theory of planned behaviour. The paper investigates the relationships among RFCB, responsible financial attitudes, financial literacy and behavioural control. Its theoretical model is tested on a random sample of 494 respondents and analysed using PLS‐SEM. The results confirm the formation of responsible consumption behaviour by six formative elements: self‐control in spending, planning for the future, seeking information, education, rational decision‐making and solvency. The findings also indicate that all three focal variables have a direct effect on RFCB.     

They Are Not All the Same! Investigating the Effect of Executive versus Non‐executive Family Board Members on Firm Performance

Drawing on faultlines and challenging the assumption that family board members form a homogenous subgroup, we hypothesize that the distinction between executive and non‐executive family board members can create faultlines that affect firm performance. We propose that the discrepancy between results and goals can activate and exacerbate faultlines. Using a sample of 421 family small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), we find a U‐shaped relationship between the ratio of family executive board members and firm performance showing the consequences of relationship‐based and task‐related faultlines. Moreover, we find that the U‐shaped relationship occurs when firms perceive that they under‐achieve their objectives, whereas a reverse J‐shaped relationship appears when firms over‐achieve their objectives.     

The Relevance of Nationality and Industry for Stakeholder Salience: An Investigation Through Integrated Reports

The aim of this research is to investigate the web of business-stakeholder relationships emerging from first integrated reports. Drawn from the stakeholder salience theory, the analysis focuses on some factors that may cause specific stakeholders to be crucial for some organizations and their ability to create value over time. More precisely, findings highlight the importance of industry membership, while entities’ nationality seems not to be a differentiating element. This study contributes to the corporate disclosure literature by analyzing an emerging reporting tool, the integrated report, and demonstrating that the link between some business characteristics and stakeholder salience seems fundamental for the representation of the impact of corporate social and environmental responsibilities on the economic performance. From a practical point of view, the impact of industry membership on corporate disclosures encourages the drafting of differentiated reporting standards across sectors, in order to improve comparability, materiality, and reliability of information.     

Family Firms and Labor Productivity: The Role of Enterprise‐Level Bargaining in the Italian Economy

We investigate the role of Italian firms in labor productivity performance. We find that family‐owned firms have lower labor productivity than their non‐family counterparts. In a second step, we estimate the role of firm‐level bargaining (FLB) to determine whether family‐controlled firms that adopt this type of bargaining may partially close the gap in terms of labor productivity with their non‐family competitors. Our results, obtained through IV estimation to control for endogeneity bias, suggest that enterprises under family governance achieve significant labor productivity gains—greater than those achieved by their non‐family counterparts—when they adopt firm‐level bargaining.     

The Impact of EU Norms and Policies on Consumer Protection Enforcement in Serbia

Pursuant to its 2008 Stabilization and Association Agreement governing the process of EU integration, Serbia is obliged to align its consumer protection standards (including those related to enforcement) with those of the EU. This article considers the overall approach to enforcement of consumer law in Serbia, focussing in particular on the extent to which EU enforcement principles have been successfully exported to Serbia and whether the goals of EU consumer policy have been achieved. It argues that the incorporation of EU norms has brought fundamental changes to Serbian enforcement mechanisms at a formal level, such as in relation to mediation processes as well as the introduction of injunctions for the protection of collective consumer interests. In practice, however, the impact of this incorporation is quite limited. A number of factors that restrict the practical effectiveness of the mediation processes and injunctions required by EU law are explored in the article, including weak sanctions, excessive reliance on poorly resourced consumer organizations, absence of a business culture of compliance or a sophisticated and determined consumer protection enforcement culture sufficiently grounded in expertise, as well as an overarching political, legislative, and institutional instability. These factors also undermine the general aim of EU policy to achieve effective consumer protection enforcement in the Serbian context.     

Measuring CSR Image: Three Studies to Develop and to Validate a Reliable Measurement Tool

Although research on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) dimension of corporate image has notably increased in recent years, the definition and measurement of the concept for academic purposes still concern researchers. In this article, literature regarding the measurement of CSR image from a customer viewpoint is revised and areas of improvement are identified. A multistage method is implemented to develop and to validate a reliable scale based on stakeholder theory. Results demonstrate the reliability and validity of this new scale for measuring customer perceptions regarding the CSR performance of their service providers. With regard to this, CSR includes corporate responsibilities towards customers, shareholders, employees and society. The scale is consistent among diverse customer cohorts with different gender, age and level of education. Furthermore, results also confirm the applicability of this new scale to structural equation modelling.     

The development of a stakeholder-based scale for measuring corporate social responsibility in the banking industry

Research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has notably increased in recent years and many scales for measuring CSR image have been developed in academic literature. Due to the contextual character recognized in the implementation of CSR strategies, in this paper a new scale based on stakeholder theory is developed to evaluate customers’ perception regarding the CSR performance of their banking service providers. The proposal of reliable measurement tools for evaluating customers’ perception is especially relevant for companies because of their significant role in influencing the design and implementation of corporate strategies. Results demonstrate the reliability and validity of this new scale in two different samples. In the banking industry, CSR includes corporate responsibilities toward customers, shareholders, employees, society, and all legal and ethical requirements of banking institutions. Nevertheless, different kinds of banking institutions have specific CSR images, which reveal different strategic approaches to CSR.     

Renato Giannetti and Michelangelo Vasta. L'impresa italiana nel Novecento. Bologna, Italy: Societa Editrice il Mulino, 2003. 486 pp. ISBN 88-15-09496-2, {euro}30.00.

Italian business history is not well known abroad. This is quiteobvious. Even though Italy has been industrialized since the1920s, it is a small country, with little international influence.Its historical patterns of evolution privileged the internalmarket, and although its domestic corporations have traditionallynot been very active abroad, foreign firms have also manifestedopenly their reluctance to invest in a promising but too turbulentenvironment. As a result, Italian business history has fromthe beginning been a domestic story, scarcely appealing forforeign scholars. The Italian historiographic climate was partiallyresponsible for this situation. Business history as a disciplinehas only recently been "legitimized" in Italy (still there areno chairs in the field). For a long time, the     

Leveraging sponsorship with corporate social responsibility

Sponsors increasingly engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities surrounding sponsored events (e.g., the soccer World Cup and Olympic Games). This study examines how linking CSR to sponsorship affects consumer attitudes towards sponsoring brands. Schema theory suggests that consumer CSR perception and brand credibility act as serial mediators. They transfer the positive effects of a CSR-linked sponsorship strategy. These effects only occur for brands with a moderately low congruity to the sponsored event (but not for brands with a moderately high congruity to the sponsored event). Two experiments measuring (Study 1) and manipulating (Study 2) sponsor–event congruity confirm the proposed mediation mechanism for brands with a moderately low sponsor–event congruity. CSR-linked sponsorship (vs. sponsorship without CSR linkage) does not influence attitudes towards brands with a moderately high congruity to the sponsored event. The study develops theoretical and practical implications for sponsorship and CSR strategies.