Purpose: This paper aims to investigate and discover the demographic characteristics of corporate leaders (CEOs) in Fintech sector firms representing the implementation of the sustainable business model. Particularly, the purpose is to identify a benchmark profile of CEOs and to understand which are the main features (e.g. age, tenure, education specification, education level, gender, nationality, years of entrepreneurship, years in financial functions, years in IT functions), giving more opportunity to develop and maintain sustainable business models using innovative platforms.Design/methodology/approach: The research questions are answered through a quali-quantitative methodology using descriptive and statistical approaches. The researchers collected a sample of 100 Fintech firms from the main Fintech firms in 2018 identified by the annual KPMG Report (2019). Thus, the research observed and tested the average level of the major CEO demographic features. Additionally, the paper explored whether these variables have a major probability to affect Fintech leading.Findings: Assuming a relevant part of Fintech firms, the main results of this paper show the relevance of several CEO demographic characteristics. Additionally, the age, the tenure and the presence of an MBA are significant elements in affectingLeadingcompanies.Originality/value: The paper is novel because it contributes to the literature examining the internal governance and sustainable business model, still not explored. Moreover, this study contributes to identifying the CEO demographic characteristics that foster financial institutions' transition towards sustainable business models.

Gender equity is a topic of significant interest for universities, who are called upon to plan strategies and measures to increase gender equality in line with international policies. With a qualitative methodology based on manual content analysis, the paper aims to understand whether and how this report could positively assess a university’s actions for reaching SDG 5. This study’s results show that the CRUI guidelines can be used by universities to disclose gender policies that may be of interest to stakeholders, and can also be synthesized in THE ranking, increasing university visibility. The present study could be helpful for universities, regulatory bodies, policy makers, and agency rankings to help them identify the most relevant gender items on which to focus their attention.

The study examines the effectiveness of IFRS 8, effective since 2009, in relation to both the magnitude of segment disclosures and the firms' characteristics that might affect the disaggregated disclosure policies decisions, on Italian listed companies during the period 2008-2012. The results show that on average, the new standard did not lead to relevant changes in the segment disclosures as previously stated under IAS 14R, thus demonstrating inconsistency with the expectations of the IASB. In addition, we demonstrated, by employing a fixed-effect regression, that the magnitude of segment disclosure is negatively associated with growth rate, size, profitability and ownership diffusion. The present study contributes to the extant literature in terms of the PIR review, discussing the effectiveness of IFRS 8 some years after adoption, and not merely considering the first year, where the results may be affected by the learning curve effect in countries less familiar with Anglo-Saxon accounting.

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the risk measures and the volatility of total comprehensive income (TCI), other comprehensive income (OCI), and single OCI components in the European context. Previous studies only cover reporting jurisdictions such as the United States and Canada but never the EU. Based on these premises, this research uses a sample of 166 listed banks, selected from 15 European countries. The results show that there is a significant positive association between the stock return volatility and the volatility of TCI, of OCI, and some of the single OCI components. This study contributes to the international debate on the risk relevance of TCI and its components, observing, in addition to previous research, the association not only between the risk measures and the volatility of TCI and OCI but also between the risk measures and the volatility of single OCI components.

Our study provides to define two frameworks of indicators to assess both the Intellectual Capital (IC) employed in the Educational Process in the University sector and the Performance Educational Process reached. The scope is to obtain two tools for measuring, on the one hand, the level and the determinant variables of the IC that represents the input of the Educational Process. On the other hand, the level and the determinant variables of the outcome of the Educational Process. The comparison of the tools scores allows you to understand if at a high level of Educational Performance corresponds to a high level of IC trying to evaluate the ability of the IC to create value. The research questions are answered using a quantitative methodology using the FES models. We define two models to measure the IC Educational Index and Educational Performance. We construct the FES models in compliance with the previous literature on the IC and the theoretical model report of the Intellectual Capital of the Austrian Universities. To define the frameworks of indicators to assess the IC Educational Index and the Educational Performance we use, compliant to the previous literature, the SMA Indicators required by the AVA-MIUR for Italian University Sector. We collected 30 Italian public Universities. Thus, we determined and compared both the IC Educational Index and its determinants and Educational Performance Score and its determinants. Our main result is the construction of two toolboxes to assess the level of IC and the connected Performance of the Educational Process in the University sector. The findings suggest which are the indicators to improve the IC Index or the Educational Performance Score for an in-depth understanding of the value creation process.The paper is novel because it contributes to the literature examining the model to measure both the IC employed in the Educational Process and the Educational Performance. Moreover, comparing the resultant scores, we investigated the relation between input and output in the Educational value creation.