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The concept of a sustainable business model has increasingly been used to depict business cases that, by incorporating a triple bottom line approach, seek to realize economic success through environmental and social initiatives. Nevertheless, there is a call for more empirical research on design and innovation with respect to sustainable business models, as well as on the relationship they have with firm performance. This paper focuses on the social side of sustainability and aims to explore the extent to which integrating social sustainability objectives into the business model has a positive influence on a firm's financial performance, promotes sustainable innovation and enhances the firm's ability to withstand discontinuities such as the recent financial crisis. Following a review of the existing literature, four propositions are formulated and subsequently tested through a multiple case study of four international low-cost carriers. The results have implications for theory and practice as they reveal that integrating social sustainability in the business model i) does not automatically influence financial performance, although it may have a role in the long-term financial outcomes of the firm; ii) influences the characteristics and effectiveness of sustainable innovation; iii) must be accompanied by intelligent managerial activity to be effective; and iv) does not necessarily lead to faster financial recovery in the aftermath of a discontinuity, but it does make a firm more resilient over a long-term basis.

Background Preventive care has gained increasing attention in health reforms around the world due to its ability to reduce the burden of disease and to save health costs. Nevertheless, there is a gap in terms of the development of reliable systems to measure and evaluate performance of preventive care in order to support decision-making and increase service outcomes. The aim of this study is to define a methodology for designing a performance management system (PMS) in order to effectively support the planning, control and evaluation of preventive care and to identify the factors that influence such a process. Methods The methodology is based on the participatory action research approach, which implies collaboration between researchers and practitioners. The study was articulated in four phases and carried out in an Italian regional healthcare system that was undergoing a major reorganization process. Results The findings provide insights into the peculiarities that affect preventive care and highlight two categories of critical factors: general issues regarding the process and specific issues regarding preventive care. The first category includes the importance of interactions between academics, physicians and policy-makers, the impact of workloads and red tape on employee involvement and the increased conservation mechanisms during periods of institutional change. The second category concerns the strong heterogeneity of preventive activities within health organizations, the huge amount of regulations and the incompleteness of information systems. Conclusion The development of a PMS for preventive care can best be served by collaborative methods that involve academics, professionals and policy-makers, whose roles and responsibilities must be clearly defined, and by an improvement in transparency and communication within organizations in order to enhance the involvement of different professionals at appropriate times and in appropriate ways. Key recommendations that may improve the maintenance and use of information systems are proposed to policy-makers. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12913-018-3837-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Although the leadership role of higher education in creating a sustainable development has been widely recognized, there is a paucity of studies following a strategic perspective to explain how universities integrate sustainability in the different areas of their activity to gain a competitive advantage and contribute to the sustainable development of a broad range of stakeholders. More empirical research on the design and implementation of strategies and operations developed by universities to re-orient themselves towards sustainability has also been required, as well as systemic frameworks for evaluating sustainability performance in higher education. This paper addresses these gaps by proposing a conceptual framework for diagnosis of the integration of sustainability in universities from a strategic perspective. In particular, the concept of a sustainable business model is first contextualized to higher education and then used for interpreting the core logic through which universities create value for themselves, society and the environment. In order to assess the applicability and usefulness of this framework, a cluster analysis of all the 61 Italian state universities is used to identify business models with different degrees of strategic orientation towards sustainability and to start discussing the relationships between sustainable business models and university size, geographic location and performance.

Regulation of companies with market power in the provision of the essential services has been intended to provide incentives aimed at improving efficiency and service quality. Few studies have investigated the accountability of regulated industries and answered the question of the most appropriate accounting model for protecting consumers, promoting competition and ensuring investors' profitability. With the transition from an ex-ante to an ex-post model – based on free negotiation between stakeholders on price setting and monitoring activity by an independent authority – in many settings, the effectiveness of the accounting model seems to be strictly related to the quantity and quality of the information that regulated companies provide on a mandatory basis in anticipation of consultations with service users, and the quantity and quality of information that they voluntarily offer to stakeholders via their financial reporting. This paper aims to explore accountability relationships that emerge in regulated airport industries moving from ex-ante to ex-post models in order to propose a conceptual framework capable of remedying the shortcomings of the extant ones and, in particular, the conceptual framework established by Vass (1992) . The new framework is also used to identify which accounting model is required to improve the effectiveness of regulation.

This paper focuses on remuneration policies in banking, an issue that is not particularly studied in relation to its importance to financial institutions’ long-term viability and the sustainable growth of the economy as a whole. It aims to assess, through a gap analysis, the level of compliance with best practice in the remuneration policies of Italian banks prior to the implementation of new standards established as a result of CRD IV, as well as the FSB and EBA principles. It also seeks to analyse the evolution of remuneration systems in relation to new international standards in order to identify theoretical and practical implications. The study reveals that the long path through which today’s standards have developed has basically fostered a learning process within the banking sector, which has led to a material respect for most of the best practices. In the same time, it also shows the presence of grey areas, which still undermine the full consistency of bank policies with sound remuneration practices.

This paper contributes to an understanding of the development of governance networks in well-defined space-time contexts. The first aim is to highlight features of public-private networks in tourism, under the perspectives of integration and managerialization, and to deduce general principles from the case study of «sistema turistico locale Sardegna Nord-Ovest». In particular, a set of variables to measure the level of integration among participants and the managerialization of a network, seen as pre-conditions of network performance, are identified on the basis of the literature. The second aim is to analyse the evolution of such partnerships, in light of the recent economic crisis, through comparison between performances measured at two moments in time over a three-year period: from the constitution to the renewal (2008-2011), and after two and half years from the renewal of the partnership (2012-2014). The empirical investigation, carried out using a personal interview approach, reveals that the choices of institutional design and process management are more important than the lack of resources for network success and that some contextual factors, such as the 'relationship capital', affect stability of networks. In wider terms, this paper promotes reflection on the impact of the recent socioeconomic crisis as well as on the strategies that, in such a context, can attenuate negative effects and enhance network stability and effectiveness. Key words: Public governance, governance networks, integration, managerialization, evolution, crisis.

The objective of the work described in this paper was to design and test a new performance evaluation system to be used to plan, monitor and evaluate the Italian public healthcare authorities’ results and support policy-making. After examining the weak points in existing models and researching the published academic literature, the new system was developed by researchers from different backgrounds and with the involvement of practitioners. The paper illustrates the importance of a continuous interactive process in designing effective performance evaluation and monitoring systems.

This paper investigates the quality of the independent directors of large Italian banks, with the aim of understanding who they are and the degree of diversity among them. The extent to which the profile of the independent director meets the requirements of independence as well as the level of biographical disclosure is also examined. The results indicate that the identikit coincides with a 60-year-old man coming from the bank’s territories and with remarkable expertise and a middle international vocation, while diversity is lacking in relation to gender, education and professional background. The study also raises serious concerns about the time availability and true independence that characterizes independent directors, as well as an insufficient level of biographical disclosure.

Didactic performance plays a central role in the survival and success of public universities especially because of the present and future effects on the public financing system of Italian universities. It also contributes to the goal of quality assurance in higher education, which is pursued by a new frame that is set by the state. The aim of this paper is to design a performance management system to improve student success. It also aims to highlight the conditions and features that an IT system should have in order to effectively serve its purpose. The level of analysis is the degree course of a department of an Italian public university, which is responsible for the organization, planning and results of didactics. Three specific moments during the student’s career are considered: precollege and entrance phase, degree course duration and final phase and postcollege outcomes.

This paper presents the experience of research, analysis and implementation of a new information system, and especially its accounting side, with the purpose of supporting management and improving performance of a centuries-old academic institution. The underway process of change, started in 2010 and based on the action research approach, is analyzed all along its different steps, from the identification of the best accounting information system in relation to the complexity and specificity of universities to the investigation of its impact on governance and operational routines. In particular, the experimentation of U-GOV, the IT system chosen to support the accounting change, highlights that the main criticalities deal with not only technical, but also cultural and organizational aspects.

This paper aims to shed light on the quality of the independent members of governance bodies charged with the oversight of organisations' audit and control functions. A biographical investigation is carried out into the 118 independent members of the bodies with control functions of the Italian banks that underwent comprehensive assessment by the European Central Bank (ECB). An identikit comes to light of a man almost 60 years of age, coming from the banking regions, who graduated in the field of economics and is highly experienced. A sufficient degree of diversity among members is found in relation to age and provenance, while serious concerns are raised about their time availability and true independence. This paper advances the understanding of the importance of personal qualities in corporate governance studies and provides support for theories stating that the quality of people matters more than requirements and guidelines for reducing agency costs.