Sustainable development goals and the strategic role of business: A systematic literature review

The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an urgent call for action by all countries that provide a global framework for achieving global develop- ment while balancing social, economic, and environmental sustainability. SDGs are addressed to all actors in society, but both academia and professional recognize the particular importance of businesses. However, research is still needed to understand the role of companies as sustainable development agents. Relying on Scopus data- base consultation, the current research adopts an interdisciplinary systematic litera- ture review to investigate, analyze, and present state-of-the-art academic literature on the role of businesses in tackling SDGs. The final sample comprises 101 papers published between 2015 and 2020. It provides evidence that the main topics dis- cussed by scholars are related to aspects of strategy execution. Recognizing different streams that are currently unexplored—despite strictly related to strategic business activities and to the sustainable development as a whole—the study provides many insights for future research on business and SDGs

Exploring Corporate Crisis Communication after COVID-19: The Role of Enterprise Risk Management in (Re)Building Trust

This study aims at investigating whether Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) sophistication shaped different COVID-19 crisis communication strategies. We assess the level of ERM sophistication of the FTSE-MIB Italian listed companies, and we study the pattern of risk communication strategies building on Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT). We find that companies with a low level of ERM sophistication generally adopt a crisis communication strategy based on a “denying/diminish” approach. In contrast, companies with higher ERM sophistication adopt a “diminish/rebuild” strategy. Our results extend previous literature on crisis communication by looking at the unique case of the COVID-19, a non-company-specific crisis that hit all firms. Results show company crisis communication strategies depend on prior risk management characteristics. Thus companies willing to protect their reputation and (re)build public trust because of a crisis should invest not only in risk communication but also in their risk management process

INDIGENOUS SUSTAINABLE FINANCE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM REDD+ IN BRAZIL

Indigenous sustainable finance has emerged as a promising research field to understand how indigenous communities can address sustainable governance and economic development issues based on their relationship with the land and cultural aspects. Furthermore, the SDGs have offered a development guide for economies worldwide whilst it pushes forward the applied efforts in pursuing a sustainable future based on its 17 principles. Indigenous territories, in this case, can be understood as an essential asset that can contribute to maintaining biodiversity and remunerating communities for preserving forests, with REDD+ projects constituting a vital initiative to encourage compensation processes for economic activities. This study describes a case of Indigenous Sustainable Finance in Brazil using REDD++ and provides linkages to the Sustainable Development Goals Agenda. Results reveal that new parameters that can contribute to REDD+ processes developed by indigenous communities in Brazil should be set, facilitating the organizational strategy, credit access and territory governance status. Implications for sustainable finance are centred on developing successful constellations of stakeholder action towards social good through green, transitional and heritage bonds

Fondamenti di programmazione e controllo negli insegnamenti della scuola cafoscarina

The chapter discusses the results of an empirical analysis we conducted on the management accounting courses taught at Ca' Foscari between 1871 and 1991. The aim is to explore the roots and the evolution of management accounting at Ca' Foscari. The evidence we collected shows that the early management accounting concepts can be traced back to the course Bookkeeping which was taught in 1871 by Biliotti and, some years later, by Besta. As time went by, management accounting concepts evolved and expanded until some specific courses devoted to this field of study were created. The chapter discusses the evolution not only of the contents but also of the teaching methods. In its early years, teaching at Ca' Foscari was very much based on practice (case study, simulations) while it became more theoretical as time went by. We also provide a brief description of the teaching of management accounting at the Harvard Business School, one of the pioneering institutions in management accounting, pointing out some similarities and differences in the Italian and in the United States contexts

Le discipline economiche e aziendali nei 150 anni di storia di Ca' Foscari

The Venetian University Ca' Foscari was officially established in 1968 although it roots in the 'Regia Scuola Superiore di Commercio' – the Advanced School of Commerce – which was founded exactly a century before. This School was the first of its kind in Italy and among the early ones as well all over the world. Indeed it represented the national reference for the following foundation of similar Institutions in our Country. During the start-up phase, the School of Commerce experienced alternate stages, given the fluctuation of the number of entrants whereas from the end of the 19th century onwards its activity would be strengthened. Henceforth, the impressive academic activity developed both by the Venetian School of Commerce and by other 'sister-Schools' – which had been established in the meanwhile – would lead to the ennoblement of Business curricula for University programs, thus reaching its climax with the foundation of the Business Faculties

Sustainability indicators for university ranking

The main aim of this contribution is to investigate the possibility to include sustainability among the per formance features that can be taken into consideration by university rankings. To this aim we propose a set of well- defined sustainability indicators related to dif ferent aspects of sustainability

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM