Roberta Troisi

This study examines organizational rootedness as the degree of territorial integration that differentiates environmental priorities in regional firms. Although its constitutive function in shaping environmental engagement is recognized, its ordering function in determining which initiatives become more salient is less clear. We examine whether higher‐ and lower‐rooted regional firm patterns prioritize environmental initiatives differently, how their priorities vary under social and economic pressures, and how these pressures are associated with eco‐innovation orientation in higher‐rooted patterns. The conceptual framework integrates organizational embeddedness with territorial dynamic capabilities: the first conceptualizes the different degrees of firms' territorial integration, whereas the second explains how this integration supports readaptation processes and eco‐innovative development under pressures. Using a novel database from 145 EU regions, we identify distinct priorities in environmental initiatives, reordered under contextual pressures. Furthermore, in higher‐rooted patterns, eco‐innovation orientation tends to be stronger under economic than social pressures. The findings suggest that managers should treat environmental sustainability as a territorially ordered portfolio of initiatives.

Purpose: This study investigates corruption from the perspective of SMEs across 192 European regions, casting light on their collective strategies and territorial characteristics. SMES are framed as active players, engaging in corruption as a means of dealing with vulnerabilities and strengthening their bargaining position in relation to public officials. Design/methodology/approach: By adopting an organizational ecology and embeddedness perspective, we examine regional, local and organizational factors leading to SME corruption in a framework of collective decision-making. In operational terms, we construct an innovative database consisting of regional, local and organizational data for the EU27 and candidate Member States. Panel regressions are used to assess multi-level determinants of bribery, complemented by robustness checks. Findings: The results show that corruption committed by SMEs is distinct from corruption perpetrated by public officials, with significant territorial variations. At the regional level, SMEs adapt to environmental uncertainty, with territories with more advanced infrastructure less likely to be affected by widespread corruption. At the local level, technological path dependence and embedded networks reinforce collective bribery. Thus, concentration, shared patents and embeddedness facilitate coordinated strategies, whereas new entrants tend to undermine corrupt practices at a collective level. Within organizations, only horizontal normalization works to sustain shared practices. Originality/value: By shifting the focus from individual to collective behaviour, the study challenges the conventional view that SMEs are passive victims, framing them as strategic players resorting to corrupt practices to deal with specific risks. By combining organizational ecology and embeddedness, we highlight the context-dependent nature of corruption and its managerial and ethical implications.

En las últimas décadas, la evolución del sector turístico se ha visto motivada a adoptar políticas responsables con el objetivo de cumplir con los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) establecidos en la Agenda 2030. El objetivo del presente estudio es doble. Por un lado, se centra en el diseño de indicadores que permitan medir y comparar la divulgación de información responsable que las cadenas hoteleras españolas por facturación que pertenecen al ranking Hosteltur ofrecen a través de sus sitios web y, por otro, analizar la información sobre Responsabilidad Social Corporativa (RSC) que ofrecen las webs a partir de los indicadores propuestos.

This study provides an analysis of illegal waste disposal examining how and why it occurs, with a focus on illegal industrial dumping. Organizational resource dependency theory and the bad barrel theory are used as conceptual frameworks to highlight the reasons leading firms to engage in illegal waste disposal, influenced by the firm's operational environment and characteristics, and how firms make use of it. The effects of environmental resource dependency variables and micro variables in terms of the hazard level associated with illegal waste disposal were tested separately and jointly by means of logistic regressions. Environmental resource dependency is found to be a powerful driver of the behaviour of firms, both independently and combined with certain organizational factors, with an impact on the hazardousness of illegal waste disposal. The policy implications of the findings are discussed, and a number of suggestions for preventing illegal dumping are put forward.

In recent years, analysts’ interest in understanding sustainability as a new and exclusive economic paradigm has been matched by the research for tools that might both promote and hinder it. In particular, innovation has been widely regarded for its beneficial effects on sustainability, whereas corruption has been regarded for its negative implications. This study adds to our understanding of these linkages by revealing that, depending on the nature of the sustainability targets, these important drivers can have varying effects. Therefore, using a sample of Italian firms, through SEM analysis, we estimate two latent variables representing innovation and corruption for their relationship with sustainability in two models, covering two sets of indicators (sustainable industrialization and sustainable employment and labour). Whereas both models’ results indicate that innovation and sustainability have a substantial positive link, the relationship between corruption and sustainability yields contradictory results. Furthermore, the findings show a negative relationship between innovation and corruption. As a result, the distinction between types of sustainability leads to a different interpretation of how their driving factors operate. This approach suggests the establishment of more tailored sustainability strategies, in line with the diverse consequences that may arise when corruption, innovation, and sustainability are at play.

Purpose: This study investigates the presence of a productivity–quality trade-off in judicial decisions from an organisational standpoint, focusing on the courts as bureaucracies. Applied to the Italian context and focusing on criminal courts, the main question addressed is whether or not increasing productivity diminishes decision quality.Design/methodology/approach: Directional distance function (DDF) models were utilised to assess productivity. Two-sample t-tests are then used to compare the quality of efficient and inefficient units in first instance and appeal, with the aim to determine whether a productivity–quality trade-off exists.Findings: The study’s approach yields results that differ from previous studies. (1) The Italian judicial system is found less efficient. (2) The efficiency of the courts of first instance is relatively uniform. In contrast, there is a difference in efficiency between northern and southern courts of appeal, with northern courts on average being more efficient. (3) The analysis reveals a statistically significant productivity–quality trade-off when the courts of appeal are considered.Research limitations/implications: New evidence of a judicial system is presented, suggesting reforms regarding “reasonable time” as the optimal balance between quality and productivity.Originality/value: The organisational framework leads to evaluating the efficiency of the courts by considering the various types of proceedings based on the gravity/complexity of the cases. In light of the pyramidal structure of the justice system, the quality is then defined in terms of hierarchical control expressed as review rate.

This paper presents a new, comprehensive, system-wide approach in the driving factors of the vulnerability of the structures through two focuses: one refers to

Background: Many healthcare systems have been unable to deal with Covid-19 without influencing non-Covid-19 patients with pre-existing conditions, risking a paralysis in the medium term. This study explores the effects of organizational flexibility on hospital efficiency in terms of the capacity to deliver healthcare services for both Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients. Method: Focusing on Italian health system, a two-step strategy is adopted. First, Data Envelope Analysis is used to assess the capacity of hospitals to address the needs of Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients relying on internal resource flexibility. Second, two panel regressions are performed to assess external organizational flexibility, with the involvement in demand management of external operators in the health-care service, examining the impact on efficiency in hospital capacity management. Results: The overall response of the hospitals in the study was not fully effective in balancing the needs of the two categories of patients (the efficiency score is 0.87 and 0.58, respectively, for Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients), though responses improved over time. Furthermore, among the measures providing complementary services in the community, home hospitalization and territorial medicine were found to be positively associated with hospital efficiency (0.1290, p < 0.05 and 0.2985, p < 0.01, respectively, for non-Covid-19 and Covid-19 patients; 0.0026, p < 0.05 and 0.0069, p < 0.01, respectively, for non-Covid-19 and Covid-19). In contrast, hospital networks are negatively related to efficiency in Covid-19 patients (-0.1037, p < 0.05), while the relationship is not significant in non-Covid-19 patients. Conclusions: Managing the needs of Covid-19 patients while also caring for other patients requires a response from the entire healthcare system. Our findings could have two important implications for effectively managing health-care demand during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. First, as a result of a naturally progressive learning process, the resource balance between Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients improves over time. Second, it appears that demand management to control the flow of patients necessitates targeted interventions that combine agile structures with decentralization. Finally, untested integration models risk slowing down the response, giving rise to significant costs without producing effective results.