Carbon management accounting and financial performance: Evidence from the European Union emission trading system

Companies are responding to the effects of climate change by reducing CO₂ emissions as a way of managing stakeholder interests and complying with legal and regulatory requirements. In Europe, the emissions trading system is consolidated as a limiting market and control scheme to support business climate change management through a collaborative relationship between government and industry. This work focuses on the economic accounting field, analysing carbon management accounting and its impact on financial performance in scenarios attached to that trading system. The methodological approach used is quantitative, empirically testing the hypotheses through a multiple regression analysis with a sample of 350 European companies. The results attest to the importance of carbon management accounting (CMA) control and its effects on financial performance. Compared with European emission trading, the results failed to display significant differences in the relationship studied between those that make up this type of market and those that do not.     

Nanoimplants that Enhance Human Capabilities: A Cognitive‐Affective Approach to Assess Individuals’ Acceptance of this Controversial Technology

Nanotechnology enables the miniaturization of complex devices designed to enhance individuals’ physical and cognitive capabilities and, in the form of nanoimplants, their integration in the human body. It is unknown, however, whether people are willing or not to accept such devices. To shed light on this issue, this research used an extended version of the well‐known technology acceptance model (TAM), adding affective factors to the cognitive components already present in the model. Testing on a sample of 600 individuals yielded statistically significant effects on attitudes toward nanoimplants and intention to undergo nanoimplantation. Conclusions are drawn and implications are discussed.     

Audit quality and the going-concern decision-making process: Spanish evidence

In this study, we attempt empirically to investigate the relationship between audit quality and the probability that a financially distressed company would receive a going-concern opinion. Auditor decision-making in the presence of going-concern uncertainties may be characterized as a two-stage process. The first stage is the identification of a potential going-concern problem and the second stage is to determine whether the particular company should receive a qualified going-concern opinion. A sample of 1,199 non-financial Spanish company-years has been obtained from the database issued by the Stock Exchange National Commission for the fiscal years ending between December 1991 and December 2000. The results indicate that audit quality (measured by the auditor's level of independence and knowledge) affects the probability that a financially distressed company would receive a going-concern opinion. This probability is influenced not only by the auditor's ability to detect financial uncertainties, but also by the auditor's decision-making as to what type of opinion should be finally issued.     

Education-Related Factors in Cultural Intelligence Development: A Colombian Study

This article reports the results of a study inquiring about the role of education-related factors in the development of cultural intelligence. Five hundred fifty-seven students of a Colombian international business (IB) undergraduate program participated in the study. The psychometric properties of the measures were assessed by conducting exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and by calculating the corresponding reliability coefficients. T-tests and ANOVA analyses were carried out to test the hypotheses of the study. The results of the study suggest that second language proficiency, multicultural team membership, and participation in curricular and extracurricular activities promote the development of the cultural intelligence of undergraduate IB students.     

Methods for computing marginal data densities from the Gibbs output

We introduce two estimators for estimating the Marginal Data Density (MDD) from the Gibbs output. Our methods are based on exploiting the analytical tractability condition, which requires that some parameter blocks can be analytically integrated out from the conditional posterior densities. This condition is satisfied by several widely used time series models. An empirical application to six-variate VAR models shows that the bias of a fully computational estimator is sufficiently large to distort the implied model rankings. One of the estimators is fast enough to make multiple computations of MDDs in densely parameterized models feasible.     

Issues arising for accounting harmonization: The case of stock options in Italy

In Italy, national generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) regulations coexist, despite differences that lead to their antagonist forms of accounting relativism. In this context, the two accounting systems provide for different representations of stock options plans, with significant effects on year-end income measures. This study therefore considers the emblematic case of stock options with the goal of demonstrating, on the basis of the dominant accounting principles and conventional wisdom in Italy, that the aforementioned difference cannot be explained by reasons connected with the accounting conceptual framework of reference in each system. Rather, inquiries should focus on weaknesses in national GAAP.     

Rejuvenating clusters with ‘sleeping anchors’: The case of nanoclusters

This article investigates how competition for network orchestration sustains high tech clusters rejuvenation by avoiding early lock-in and stimulating exploration. Based on evidences drawn from the comparison of the evolution of two nano-electronics clusters, i.e., Grenoble (France) and Catania (Italy) clusters that share the same anchor tenant firm, namely STMicroelectronics, this article infers that cluster rejuvenation comes from scientific and technological diversity, competition for orchestration, overlap amongst networks and the ability of sleeping anchor tenant organizations to renew actors and technologies. As soon as the process of specialization (asset specificity, network specificity and technology speciation) starts, competition for orchestration stimulates sleeping anchor tenant organizations to influence research avenues within the cluster, and shape new networks within and outside the cluster.     

Enabling the Circular Economy transition: a sustainable lean manufacturing recipe for Industry 4.0

Over the past 10 years, the concepts and objectives of circular economy have been increasingly detailed and become strategic issues of international, European, and national policies. However, the transition towards circular production models continues to be affected by several barriers and critical factors that make the transition difficult to achieve. The paper tries to design a relationship between sustainable production and lean production, highlighting the opportunity to invest in reverse-logistics and how Industry 4.0 system represents a breeding ground for circular economy targets application. The aim of the current study is to examine the relationships among sustainable production, lean production, and Industry 4.0 in order to evidence the need to adopt a lean methodology and Industry 4.0 technologies in a sustainable development perspective for companies. Following a holistic vision, the authors summarize the production principles and formulas, which, although in parallel, lead to similar results and therefore represent the pillars of a competitive and sustainable business. In conclusion, exploring the circular economy principles and production chain model, challenges, opportunities, and future outlooks are formulated.