Descrizione

This project contributes to the action of the strategy for Sustainability in South Tyrol: High-quality public services. The project is mainly focused on two Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Gender equality (n.5) and Peace, justice, and strong institutions (n.16). Local State-Owned Enterprises (L-SOEs) are enterprises owned by regional and local authorities. They play prominent roles in most economies as they provide services in sectors that are strategic to society, such as energy, infrastructure, and financial services. In addition, L-SOEs are key actors for the promotion and implementation of SDGs as they contribute directly to the local economic growth and poverty reduction. Moreover, their business practices intrinsically reflect a long-term mission of generating stakeholders’ value for local stakeholders and community. This research project aims to advance knowledge on the nexus between corporate governance mechanisms in L-SOEs and the achievement of SDGs. Despite the importance of this issue, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the relationships between state ownership structure, corporate governance mechanisms, and corporate social and sustainable policies. In our research design, we argue that national and local regulatory frameworks, as well as unique traits of local communities (such as culture) might impact the effectiveness of governance mechanisms in L-SOEs. The expected output of the project includes: i) the identification of a set of L-SOEs configurations with integrated corporate governance mechanisms such that SDGs and performance-based metrics might be jointly met; 2) policy intervention recommendations to national and local authorities to promote the achievement of the 2030 Agenda. In our view, the Euregio region offers an excellent laboratory to test our research questions given the specific local regulatory frameworks and cultural heterogeneity. To address these research objectives, we combine three approaches: i) a comparative law study to identify the regulatory frameworks of L-SOEs located in the Euregio region; ii) a quantitative analysis, based on archival and hand-collected financial and non-financial data (e.g., governance) of both L-SOEs and, for the sake of comparison, private enterprises, and iii) a qualitative approach, drawing upon semi-structured interviews to investigate the board members’ decision process. The project is interdisciplinary as it combines research competences in corporate finance, accounting, and corporate governance with competences in public law and law of regions and autonomies. The research team is composed of: unibz - Faculty of Economics and Management: Prof. Claudia Curi (PI), Prof. Monica Rosini (Co-PI), Prof. Stefania Barocelli, Dr. Luca Menicacci. Partners without funding: Dr. Giacomo Ziglio (Bank of Italy, Trento), Prof. Dr. Thomas Müller (Universität Innsbruck), Dr. Georg Lun (Chamber of Commerce of Bolzano-Bozen), and Prof. Alessandro Zattoni (Luiss University).

Partner

Lead Partner Libera Università di Bolzano