Over the last years, stakeholders’ pressures over sustainability issues have increased dramatically. Organizations have to demonstrate the inclusion of social and environmental concerns in their operative and strategic decisions processes. For this reason, companies report their sustainability performance in non-financial documents, signaling to markets and stakeholders the outcomes of their CSR policies. As non-financial reporting is a voluntary activity, there is not a common and enforced standard of reporting rules: as a result, the level of disclosure varies from one report to another. Sound and material reporting, with a higher level of disclosure, is a costly activity, requiring large investments in terms of time and resources. Therefore, CSR managers have to determine the grade of disclosure of non-financial reports by evaluating their costs and benefits. The aim of this is paper is to determine whether the market remunerates this investment and if it rewards higher levels of disclosure, providing both managerial and academic implications. This paper analyzes the outcomes on companies’ market value determined by non-financial disclosures strategies in GRI referenced reports, juxtaposing a partial disclosure stance against a full disclosure stance, through a 2 years longitudinal study of the 2012 Fortune Global 500 companies. Results show that while the issuance of a GRI referenced report with partial disclosure (C and B GRI Application Levels) causes a positive effect on market capitalization, a full disclosure stance (A and A+ GRI Application Levels) has a negative effect on market value in the period of analysis. This output suggests that there is an optimum level of disclosure perceived by the market, opening a debate over the quality of disclosure and its ability to satisfy stakeholders’ informative needs.

It is almost impossible to imagine a company that does not innovate in today's market. Some companies say they compete on quality and not innovation, but they also innovate, especially in the form of process innovation aiming at enhancing quality. The aim of this paper is to present how the key set of selected organisational factors, company’s organisation, strategy, and processes, learning and links, influences innovation. In this respect, the key set of organisational factors has been measured on Croatian companies. In field research we used a questionnaire developed by Tidd et al. (2005) which was further developed to include measurable parts of innovation. The questionnaire is validated by factor analysis, but the influence of latent variables on innovation outcome, such as the number of innovations, revenues from innovation and length of time for new product launch, was researched by structural equation modelling. The research results showed that the set of strategy and learning factors has a significant influence on the number of innovations in companies (radical or modified). At first glance it might seem as though big companies have more resources and are thus in a privileged position to innovate, but researches show that the companies that are able to mobilise their employees, their knowledge and expertise in delivering new products or services, obtain better innovation results. The research results clearly indicate the relationship between company’s higher innovativeness and higher innovation results.

One of the biggest questions battling governments is performance of Electric Utilities, as they are one of the biggest resources and largest State Owned Enterprises. This issue became more important as electricity market has been liberalized and fully opened. Before market liberalization state owned Electric Utilities operated in monopoly market where competition was not possible. Therefore, due to market liberalisation existing companies have to be more competitive than before in order to grow and survive new competition from EU countries. Paper analyses performance of State Owned Electric Utilities from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Croatia. Measuring the success of the State Owned Electric Utilities is based on the analysis of financial statements for period from 2008 to 2012, using indicators of profitability. Electricity market in Slovenia and Croatia have been fully opened in analyzed period while electricity market in Bosnia has been closed. The results reveal that State Owned Electric Utilities operating in opened market have better performance and are more competitive than State Owned Electric Utilities which operate in closed market. The broad conclusion that emerges from the results is that market opening and new competition entering markets has pushed companies to improve their governance practices and performance in order to survive on the market.

Ownership structure with the reference to the comparative studies worldwide, types, forms and patterns identified in companies as well as the logic behind the behavior of different owners constitutes an important theme in management studies. Research reveals the crucial importance of the ownership patterns with the reference to the shareholder identity and concentration of shares for the standards of corporate governance including control and monitoring mechanisms, transparency, board work. Corporate governance literature indicates that certain shareholder types may have impact on the adoption of pyramidal structures, dual class shares, board independence, structure of executive compensation and disclosure.

This paper focuses on the specific type of listed companies which remain under the control of the founder. The goal of the paper is to identify the corporate governance mechanisms adopted by founders in listed companies with respect to the way they exert control. It investigates whether founders tend to increase the control over companies via use of ownership mechanisms adopting dual class shares and pyramidal structures and via dominating the board lowering the number of independent directors. Using the hand collected data of a sample of 100 companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange the paper addresses the gap in the literature of the unique form of ownership characterized by the control of the founders (first generation) who need to confront the entrepreneurial spirit and significant dominance in management and governance in the company with the features of listed companies in which ownership and control is shared among investors.

The corporate governance foremost is determined by the expected competitive advantage-oriented changes as well as by the modern and effective management techniques that stimulate the sustainable growth. The complex evaluation of the efficiency of corporation performance may be also indicated as prerogative when reasoning the strategic business decisions and corporate strategy in general. The research aims to generalize the major principles for evaluation of a whole of financial indicators and to construct the adequate assessment models. The framework for complex assessment according to essential financial indicators, identified for a particular corporation and oriented essentially to the multiple criteria evaluation methodology, is presented below. For certain companies from the selected industry (their target group), as basic evaluation criteria, such indicators as profitability, asset and investments return, leverage and liquidity levels, as well as cash flows equilibrium, dividend yield - may be accepted. It is expedient to detail and purposeful group these indicators. For these purposes, Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) method of quantitative evaluation by multiple criteria is suggested. According to the adequate evaluation models, an overall index is determined with respect to the significance of the primary indicators, estimated by expert way. In this assessment process, both the primary criteria (i.e. financial indicators) and the indexes of their groups are also covered. The complex assessment of financial indicators reflecting corporate governance effectiveness is presented for Lithuanian corporation case to illustrate the application of the analytical research results. Such quantitative assessment process is particularly relevant under conditions of dynamic changes of the surrounding macro factors affecting corporate strategy. It is characterized by adaptability (according to the whole of evaluation criteria for an assessment in specific conditions); and it is applicable to the complex investigation of the quality and effectiveness of corporate governance. The algorithmic procedures of proposed assessment process may be incorporated into business management and strategic decisions support system.

The practice of using and distributing economic resources in contemporary national economies reflects insufficient effectiveness of their running including human resources management. The continuous trend of their (these resources) unreasonable using indicates that: on the one hand the abilities of workers are realized lower than possible level on the other hand the available potential of human capital is limited to perform certain labor functions. The aim of the article is to elaborate the concept of human resources corporate developing on the basis of staff assessment methods synthesizing the aspects of theory marginal productivity and modern methods of effective human resources management. The author’s idea, which the concept is based on, proposes continuous stage-by-stage corporate training on an employer’s or manager’s initiative and personal learning from the position of employee him/herself. The application of classic and innovative approaches in staff management oriented on labor productivity growth, optional combining professional abilities of a worker in a team as well as effective methods of staff assessment by recruiting and using labor force further the achievement of staff match and settlement of arising contradictions. The presented article will be of use to scholars, post-graduate students, doctoral candidates, human resource managers and persons who are interested in problems of labor performance growth.

In the past decade formal corporate governance codes, laws and practices have started to focus on responsible board behavior and transparency in the boardroom. Negative board dynamics have been observed as contributing to business performance issues, damaging corporate behaviors and negative signals to stakeholders. This paper provides an integrated view on board dynamics combining the key theories and concepts from the practical corporate governance literature, the behavioral economics and the neurosciences fields into a comprehensive board dynamics framework. The aim is to help board members/advisors/governance committees to develop better board evaluation practices, by studying new evaluation techniques and theoretical insights into board dynamics. The “fill-out-the-form” board evaluation practices are slowly changing and new trends aim to create long-term value from board governance.

Small-and-medium size enterprises (SMES) are considered to be a key to economic development, and market completion. Small businesses are also a crucial source of innovative potential and job creation. In the aftermath of the recent economic crisis many countries experience high unemployment rates. A strong small business sector can provide employment opportunities and contribute to economic growth and speedy recovery. Though the creation of small firms and self-employment is ostensibly encouraged in formal government policies, in practice small businesses are affected by multitude of barriers, both formal and informal. This study explores the relationship between the level of formal barriers such as taxation, accounting requirements as well as other relevant regulations, and the likelihood of small business creation and survival in Lithuania. It uses statistical data, legal documents, and experts’ evaluations to determine the regulatory burden experienced by small businesses. The results of the research indicate that regulatory requirements are significant factors in small business formation and performance. Findings of the paper contribute to a better understanding of how entrepreneurship happens and how policy makers could shape their policies to effectively encourage small business formation and sustain their operations medium and long-term.

This paper aims at investigating the reasons why the environmental variable and issues - such as sustainability, social responsibility and all those behaviours that can be attributed to the general definition of Green Economy - , are generally covering a more and more marked and growing influence on the contemporary economy and, in particular, entrepreneurial behaviour. Our intention is to underline how the integration between business ethics and value creation has become inescapable for the business realities, not only to withstand the competition, but also to ensure the survival itself. After a general overview, it has been decided to focus the analysis on the impact that these issues have on a sector such as agri-food in general and wine in particular, which, paradoxically, are the ones that for long time have shown little sensitive towards the above-mentioned issues. The objective of this work was to highlight the importance for contemporary business realities, to pursue the integration of the social and corporate strategies, including environmental performance, economic results and competitive enterprise. The set of human activities, technological progress and the uncontrolled exploitation of resources has led to heavy imbalances in the terrestrial ecosystem, risking compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. One possible solution is, therefore, represented by the sustainable development and the desire to pursue economic growth compatible with social equity. In this context, sustainability, lived in the past as more ethical than economic, is gaining importance and a much more concrete profile, designed to produce economic returns as well as on image.

a recession context, characterized from a slowing down of the productive activity and from an increment of the unemployment rate, regional development policies of local authorities should consider initiatives apt to stimulate enterprise creation. This paper focuses on the role of academic spin-offs in generating entrepreneurial opportunities for regional development. After an introduction about the importance of networks among universities for technology transfer and development of academic spin-offs and definition of relevant literature on entrepreneurship and processes of identification, evaluation and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities to create new business, the paper moves to the analysis of the enabling conditions for promoting the birth of new academic spin-offs. In particular, we investigate how business innovation could take place from patents and research at the university level, in order to contribute to the economic development of a region. Academic spin offs represents an important mechanism for technology transfer from universities and research institutions to the real economy. The paper highlights the results obtained in Apulia Region, which started in 2007 a network called “Rete ILO Apulia” (where ILO stands for Industrial Liaison Office), with the aim of putting together the efforts of Apulia universities and research institutes (ENEA and CNR), providing them a set of resources and capabilities for technological transfer and entrepreneurial innovation. This project has financed the birth of several spin-offs academic from 2007 to 2012, which have been examined at the end of the paper. The main hypothesis of the paper is that the sustainable growth of academic spin offs in this region contributed to the development of the Apulia area and entrepreneurial innovation.