L’Impresa Familiare. Fattori di successo ed evidenze empiriche sulle performance

Molti sono i volumi che trattano l’argomento delle imprese familiari. Tuttavia, pochi sono i saggi che analizzano il tema focalizzandosi sullo stato dell’arte offerto dalla letteratura finanziaria. In virtù della loro rilevanza nel tessuto economico italiano, scopo di questo libro è fornire una panoramica il più possibile completa sulla ricerca relativa alle family firm. I più recenti fatti di cronaca sottolineano l’attualità del tema, che assume un rilievo particolare alla luce delle peculiarità proprie delle imprese familiari. Infatti, da un lato esse sono caratterizzate da consistenti vantaggi competitivi, essenzialmente associati alla loro elevata flessibilità gestionale e all’importante rete sociale al centro della quale l’impresa opera. Dall’altro, numerosi sono i problemi ordinariamente affrontati dalle family firm in termini di corporate governance, gestione dell’innovazione e transizione generazionale. La combinazione di questi fattori ne influenza in modo significativo la performance, con evidenti ripercussioni sul tessuto economico dell’area in cui le società operano. Il volume ripercorre i singoli punti di forza e di vulnerabilità, analizzandoli in una prospettiva economica e offrendo spunti di riflessione su come le imprese familiari possano enfatizzare gli elementi di vantaggio competitivo ovvero limitare i punti di debolezza che le contraddistinguono. Sono inoltre riportate storie di successo e di fallimento di family firm, di fatto evidenziando come le teorie sviluppate dalla letteratura siano riscontrabili anche da un punto di vista pratico. Infine, viene presentato uno studio empirico volto ad investigare nel contesto italiano se la proprietà familiare ha un effetto positivo o negativo sulla performance d’impresa. Infatti, nonostante l’ampia letteratura sul tema con riferimento al mercato inglese o statunitense, le evidenze riferite al nostro paese sono poco rilevanti e tra loro contraddittorie. Grazie all’alternanza tra teoria economico-finanziaria, casi pratici ed analisi empiriche, il volume offre una panoramica completa sull’imprenditoria familiare

Family firm local involvement and the Local Home Bias phenomenon

Research has documented that most of retail and institutional investors exhibit a strong preference for stocks issued by nearby listed firms (i.e. Local Home Bias). This phenomenon shapes corporate market value and the cost of funding. In this paper, we investigate whether the Local Home Bias is enhanced in family firms as a consequence of their symbiotic connection with the local community. Using a dataset of 2,951 Italian firm-year observations (1,481 are family firms) over the period 1999e2011, we find that Local Home Bias is not a widespread phenomenon and mainly occurs in founding family firms where the founder serves as CEO. The Local Home Bias is absent in non-family firms or in family firms where the owner has acquired control through a market transaction. Overall, results suggest that locally committed family firms trigger investor preference for local stocks and, in doing so, exploit the dedicated local clientele which shrinks the cost of funding. Ultimately, we argue the social contributions of family firms to the local community could even have opportunistic traits and a non-trivial economic effect

IPO a ondate: Cluster temporali o cluster locali?

This paper investigates the relation between the success of initial public offerings in a given region and the subsequent volume of IPOs in the same region. We find that a high local performance of IPOs is able to trigger a local IPO wave due to private firms’ attempt to exploit the favorable local market conditions. Results are robust to the definition of local IPO success, which is addressed using several measures such as the average regional underpricing or the excess demand for newly issued securities. Empirical findings show that the well-documented temporal IPO waves are indeed local IPO waves

Short-Term Exposure to Bisphenol A Does Not Impact Gonadal Cell Steroidogenesis In Vitro

: Bisphenol A (BPA) is a ubiquitous, synthetic chemical proven to induce reproductive disorders in both men and women. The available studies investigated the effects of BPA on male and female steroidogenesis following long-term exposure to the compound at relatively high environmental concentrations. However, the impact of short-term exposure to BPA on reproduction is poorly studied. We evaluated if 8 and 24 h exposure to 1 nM and 1 µM BPA perturbs luteinizing hormone/choriogonadotropin (LH/hCG)-mediated signalling in two steroidogenic cell models, i.e., the mouse tumour Leydig cell line mLTC1, and human primary granulosa lutein cells (hGLC). Cell signalling studies were performed using a homogeneous time-resolved fluorescence (HTRF) assay and Western blotting, while gene expression analysis was carried out using real-time PCR. Immunostainings and an immunoassay were used for intracellular protein expression and steroidogenesis analyses, respectively. The presence of BPA leads to no significant changes in gonadotropin-induced cAMP accumulation, alongside phosphorylation of downstream molecules, such as ERK1/2, CREB and p38 MAPK, in both the cell models. BPA did not impact STARD1, CYP11A1 and CYP19A1 gene expression in hGLC, nor Stard1 and Cyp17a1 expression in mLTC1 treated with LH/hCG. Additionally, the StAR protein expression was unchanged upon exposure to BPA. Progesterone and oestradiol levels in the culture medium, measured by hGLC, as well as the testosterone and progesterone levels in the culture medium, measured by mLTC1, did not change in the presence of BPA combined with LH/hCG. These data suggest that short-term exposure to environmental concentrations of BPA does not compromise the LH/hCG-induced steroidogenic potential of either human granulosa or mouse Leydig cells

Does the earnings quality matter? Evidence from a quasi-experimental setting

Investor preference for local stocks provides a quasi-experimental setting to investigate whether the market rewards firms that comply with generally accepted accounting principles. We show firms with low earnings quality trade at a premium compared to firms in compliance with accounting principles; the difference in values is greater when the role of local investor over-trading is stronger in stock price-formation, in other words for the more isolated firms. The value of the information not conveyed to the market through accounting disclosure accounts for 30% of the market-to-book. Results are robust to earnings quality definition, and show while non-local investors are sensitive to the quality of accounting information, local and better-informed investors are not. Overall, accounting quality matters. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Inc

Local IPOs, local delistings, and the firm location premium

Borrowing a measure from ecology, we introduce a spatial dispersion index to quantify the firm traits related to firm geographic location and investigate firm exposure to local home bias and local investor risk tolerance as determinants of corporate market value. Consistent with the investor preference for local stocks, we find listed firms benefit from a location premium that increases with firm isolation and local investor wealth. IPOs and delistings are found to affect the market value of neighboring listed firms: isolated firms decrease in value when they cluster due to local IPOs while clustered firms increase in value as they become more isolated due to local delistings. Local firm clustering and risk tolerance also affect IPO underpricing. Empirical findings depict a framework where IPOs and delistings are locally jointly determined

Initial Public Offerings and the Firm Location

The firm geographic location matters in IPOs because investors have a strong preference for newly issued local stocks and provide abnormal demand in local offerings. Using equity holdings data for more than 53,000 households, we show the probability to participate to the stock market and the proportion of the equity wealth is abnormally increasing with the volume of the IPOs inside the investor region. Upon nearly the universe of the 167,515 going public and private domestic manufacturing firms, we provide consistent evidence that the isolated private firms have higher probability to go public, larger IPO underpricing cross-sectional average and volatility, and less pronounced long-run under-performance. Similar but opposite evidence holds for the local concentration of the investor wealth. These effects are economically relevant and robust to local delistings, IPO market timing, agglomeration economies, firm location endogeneity, self-selection bias, and information asymmetries, among others. Findings suggest IPO waves have a strong geographic component, highlight that underwriters significantly under-estimate the local demand component thus leaving unexpected money on the table, and support state-contingent but constant investor propensity for risk