Luigi Vena

Since its inception, research on Integrated Reporting (IR) has progressed along multiple paths. Yet two critical questions remain underexplored: (1) whether the quality—rather than mere adoption—of IR is value relevant, and (2) how the legal environment might moderate this relationship. This study addresses these gaps using a panel dataset of 78 IR adopters, identified as leading practices by the International Integrated Reporting Council, over the 2017–2020 period. The findings contribute to the IR literature in two ways. First, building on the relatively underexplored theoretical perspective of proprietary cost theory, this study integrates it with agency theory to analyze the impact of IR disclosure quality. The study shows that IR quality has a positive association with firm value, illustrating that quality matters above and beyond adoption alone. Second, the study complements agency theory with neo-institutional theory to further investigate the relationship between IR disclosure quality and capital market outcomes. Results demonstrate that this relationship is moderated by the legal context: it is stronger in countries (a) where IR is voluntary and (b) with civil law legal systems. These insights suggest that regulators should not only encourage IR adoption but also nudge higher-quality disclosures. Aware of these benefits, managers may further fine-tune IR quality to maximize its impact on the firm’s market value.

This study leverages on a quasi-natural experiment to shed light on the relative merit of the cooperative versus the corporate form. In Italy, a new law forced some cooperative banks to turn into joint stocks banks. This change of ownership structure proves to be Pareto improving for all financial claimholders since it either increases or leaves the value of equity and debt of any seniority unchanged, while reducing the market-based metrics of risks. This evidence challenges the view that the demutualization increases the asset substitution risk, transferring wealth from bondholders to shareholders and heightening the firm risk profile. Therefore, a transition from a cooperative to a corporate form should not cause stability concerns in the banking industry.

This paper explores the drivers and inhibitors of the transition of entrepreneurial family firms from small to large firms. We adopt two contrasting theoretical perspectives, i.e. agency and stewardship, to explore the effects of family power on size transition. Design/methodology/approach – We adopted an original research design that leverages a unique longitudinal database built starting from the list of the 500 best Italian manufacturing family firms published by the AUB Monitor in 2018. Specifically, we tested our hypotheses using a comprehensive set of financial and governance data from 89 Italian manufacturing family firms covering a 10-year period. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a survival analysis using a Cox regression. Findings – We find an inverted U-shaped relationship between family involvement in ownership and size transition: size transition is more likely to happen at intermediate levels of family involvement in ownership. Additionally, our analysis shows that family involvement in the board of directors negatively impacts size transition, while the presence of a family CEO has a positive influence. Originality/value – To the best of our knowledge, this study represents the first exploration of the phenomenon of size transition within entrepreneurial family firms. We believe it was worthwhile for two reasons. First, small size is frequently regarded as a weakness when competing in international markets, investing in R&D, or rewarding shareholders. Second, since small family firms are the major contributors to the world economy, understanding the factors that facilitate their transition to large firms can have a significant impact on overall economic development and prosperity.

This paper investigates whether and to what extent strategy disclosure influences the cost of capital, comparing family and non-family firms and considering the proportion of women directors. We theorize that voluntary strategy disclosure may be either beneficial or detrimental depending on the perceptions by financial stakeholders about the role of governance attributes. These stakeholders might, indeed, assess strategy disclosure differently based on their stereotyped view of the family firm status and women’s involvement on the board of directors. By referring to a sample of 93 listed Italian small and medium-sized enterprises, we show that, unlike with their non-family counterparts, strategy disclosure increases the cost of capital for family firms. However, an increasing proportion of women directors softens this negative effect. Moreover, when a critical mass of women directors is appointed to the board, the strategy disclosure becomes beneficial for family firms too. We consequently offer a threefold contribution to the literature on gender diversity, family business and corporate voluntary disclosure.

Building on agency and resource-based view theories, this study investigates the level of environmental disclosure (ED) practices of family versus non-family firms and ex- plores the moderating role of board gender diversity. We test our hypotheses on a 3-year (2018–2020) panel data sample comprising 324 observations of Italian small- and medium-sized enterprises traded on the Euronext Growth Milan. Findings show that, compared to non-family firms, companies with a family firm status are character- ized by lower levels of ED. Gender diversity on the board, however, moderates this relationship, reducing this gap, to the extent that the family firm status is associated with higher ED when the number of women directors is high enough to constitute a critical mass. We consequently contribute to the studies on family business, corporate governance, and corporate social responsibility.

The estudy command proposed by Pacicco, Vena, and Venegoni (2018, Stata Journal 18: 461–476) performs event studies only for event-date clustering, that is, when the event date is common to all securities. This constitutes a relevant limitation because the vast majority of this methodology’s applications concerns studies in which the events happen on different dates for each statistical unit considered. In this article, we propose and describe a substantial update to estudy, which 1) performs event studies in the absence of event-date clustering (that is, when each security has its own event date); 2) further customizes the output by producing LATEX-formatted tables; 3) graphs the cumulative abnormal returns over a customized period set by the user; 4) makes more output data available through either the return list or Excel files; 5) allows a double possibility as input: either prices or returns; and 6) uses wildcards.

Central bank's macroprudential supervisory activities have to fulfill three distinct tasks: (i) assessing the banking system's vulnerability to exogenous adverse turbulence, (ii) evaluating the risk of systemic crisis originating from idiosyncratic shocks, and (iii) measuring financial market's sensitivity to policy stimuli. Given that macroprudential stress tests are the centerpiece of this policy approach, it is important to establish whether they are up to the task. We study how the 2011–2018 European Banking Authority stress tests affected market risk perception and show that they provided agents with valuable information on the policy stances and the vulnerabilities of the banking system, carrying out the above tasks successfully, especially the second and third tasks.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure has become a critical component of corporate reporting. However, the effectiveness of this type of disclosure remains poorly explored among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), despite the fact that these businesses represent the majority of firms around the world. By leveraging on a dataset of Italian listed SMEs, we fill this gap to shed new light on the effects of nonfinancial disclosure on the cost of capital. The study reveals that, in stark contrast with the evidence on large companies, environmental disclosure for SMEs is bound to provoke an increase in the cost of capital. Yet this pattern is capsized when the company is a family SME, as it benefits from environmental disclosure, as large companies do.

Since its introduction, integrated reporting (IR) has triggered a rich debate covering several aspects, from the structure and the features of a document to the effects of its publication. Very recently, scholars have examined the negative relationship between IR and the cost of capital for firms, completely missing the opportunity to understand whether this fact is contingent on the cultural context that adopting companies operate in. We fill this gap by resorting to a panel sample of 211 adopters from 31 countries over the period spanning 2009–2017, counting 1,455 observations. Our evidence confirms that adopters, on average, benefit from a 1.4% decrease in the cost of capital. Yet, more importantly, IR effectiveness is exalted in countries with low power distance, strong collectivism values, and high level of masculinity, while uncertainty avoidance, long‐term orientation, and indulgence do not seem to play any moderating role.

The impact of authorities’ information disclosure on social welfare and market stability has become a widely debated topic since the contribution of Morris and Shin (2002). Despite several theoretical works, this strand of literature remains void of empirical contributions. By assessing how disclosure of stress test results influences market risk perception, we provide factual evidence on how authorities’ enhanced communication affects financial markets’ stability. Our results provide empirical evidence to support Faria-e-Castro et al.’s (2017) theoretical findings, demonstrating that severe stress tests, if enacted in countries with credible fiscal capacity such as the U.S., can lead agents to revise their risk estimations downwards for all banks, notwithstanding their performance in the exercise.