Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the female board participation and the readability of annual report. Design/methodology/approach: Using hand-collected data from a “network-oriented market”, as exists in Italy, which includes 435 annual reports, this study uses a regression analysis to test whether female board participation affects the annual report readability. Findings: Female board participation is found to have a positive impact on disclosure readability in firms with small boardroom connections but the opposite effect in firms with large boardroom connections. Research limitations/implications: This paper responds to recent calls in the corporate governance literature by investigating whether the female board participation affects the transparency of the disclosure practices. Practical implications: This study has policy implications, as it helps to improve evaluations of how, and under which circumstances, female board participation may lead to higher disclosure quality and thus benefit investors. Originality/value: This paper shows that female board participation has different effects on the disclosure readability at different levels of board positions in inter-firm networks.

Promoting energy‐efficient technologies can support green entrepreneurship via innovation creation. Energy efficiency policies and practices can promote cleaner productions and consumptions and environmental‐friendly lifestyles in light of green growth goals. The foreseen strategy is twofold: it entails fostering energy‐efficient technologies and supporting sustainable entrepreneurship. The work aims to measure energy efficiency by consistently constructing a new interval‐based composite indicator using the World Bank's RISE database. The methodological approach employed is based on a Monte‐Carlo simulation and offers the advantage of internalizing the variation of its outputs. Examining the sorting ranking, we find a positive relationship between energy efficiency and entrepreneurship by identifying some countries exhibiting high density in these two variables—e.g. Australia and the United Kingdom. We scrutinize innovative perspectives and propose policy recommendations projecting speculative scenarios based on different governance strategies to support sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems. The prospects are worthy for depicting key industrial environmental strategies.

Comparative analysis of diagnostic performance, feasibility and cost of different test-methods for thyroid nodules with indeterminate cytology Comparative analysis of diagnostic performance, feasibility and cost of different test-methods for thyroid nodules with indeterminate cytology