Listed companies allocate resources to various renewable energy and green innovation initiatives driven by economic and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives. Corporations experience increased pressure from stakeholders, potentially hindering the concurrent achievement of economic and ESG goals and leading to phenomena such as greenwashing. This study examines whether these investments and practices represent an authentic transformation in corporate strategy or a mere rebranding attempt. Moreover, it investigates whether cultural dimensions can serve as predictors of greenwashing. The investigation progresses through three stages. First, a homogenous dataset of 59 companies listed in EU countries between 2011 and 2022 is identified. Second, the data envelopment analysis methodology is employed in the second stage to determine the energy companies' efficiency. An effective energy enterprise must simultaneously achieve social, environmental, and economic objectives. The study calculates a greenwashing proxy, creating a binary variable assigning a value of 1 to energy companies not impacted by greenwashing and 0 to those that are. Finally, logistic regression is utilized to investigate the correlation between the variable that denotes energy companies subjected to greenwashing and Hofstede's cultural dimensions. The study reveals that firms operating in countries with high levels of masculinity are more likely to participate in deceptive environmental practices known as “greenwashing.” This outcome has implications for academic and practical purposes, notably regarding stakeholder involvement and the re‐evaluation of strategic and decision‐making procedures impacted by the interplay of cultural values and green technology. To the best of our knowledge, this study represents the sole investigation that applies this approach to examining non‐financial reporting, focusing on the interplay between cultural values, ESG, and their interaction effects.

A benefit corporation (BC) is the legal status of an enterprise that embraces a dual‐purpose business model (BM) of maximising shareholder value while satisfying stakeholders' interests. The literature so far has focussed on the motivations beyond the birth or transformation of BC, the factors that can favour the emergence of BCs, and the results companies achieve after the transformation, as well as studies on the new BCs' legislation. Other studies have examined how the duality of purpose (profit vs. social benefits) can be composed, and the risks of a mission drift favouring profit maximisation in BCs. By drawing on stakeholder theory, this study aims to highlight the role of stakeholders in the process of transformation from a traditional for‐profit BM to a BC model. We adopt a qualitative approach through a longitudinal case study to observe the transition of a small‐medium enterprise into a BC. The results show how management and engagement practices coexist in the relationships with stakeholders and how an instrumental approach prevails.

Benefit corporations are businesses characterised by a dual purpose: profit and the common good. While these businesses are expected to pursue a high level of transparency, some studies have noted ambiguous and inconsistent behaviour in the quality of their reports and communication with stakeholders. The literature proposed reporting quality indexes and identified explanatory factors, although specific research on disclosure quality among benefit corporations is lacking. This study aimed to fill this gap by proposing a methodology to assess the quality of sustainability disclosure in benefit corporations. Drawing from a sample of their sustainability reporting in Italy, the study applies qualitative content analysis to create the disclosure quality index and uses a regression model to test potential antecedents. The findings indicate a generally low level of disclosure quality and limited impact of third‐party certification and control mechanisms. These results raise questions on the accountability of benefit corporations and the limitations of their mandatory reporting.

This paper aims to analyse the ways in which risk management has been embedded in management control systems in Italian municipalities. Through a qualitative method, this study presents multiple case studies from six municipalities with two levels of analysis: content analysis on the information published on the institutional website, and interviews through a questionnaire with open and closed questions addressed to the public managers of the Italian municipalities selected. Moreover, the municipality respondents were classified into medium (two municipalities with over 50,000 inhabitants), medium-high (two municipalities with between 100,000 and 500,000 inhabitants), and high (one municipality with over 500,000 inhabitants). The multiple case studies reported show how there is not a strong level of integration between risk management and the management control system in use. This research is useful to sustain the debate about risk management in the public sector. It should help practitioners and scholars to cover their municipalities’ needs.

In recent years, much emphasis has been placed in the literature on understanding the dynamics by which public value is created and destroyed, by analyzing how cultural values contribute to these dynamics. This paper aims to explore the mediation role of corruption perception and citizen trust in explaining the relationship between cultural values and public value destruction or public dis/value. The results of this work should explain why similar public initiatives could generate or destroy public value. Partial least square‐based structural equation modeling (PLS‐SEM) was used to empirically examine the mediation effect of the perception of corruption and citizen trust in explaining the relationship between cultural values and public value destruction. The authors consider the public initiatives to fight the pandemic in EU countries as these measures determine the dyadic tension between the public and private constellation. Findings show that power distance and indulgence determine public dis/value, positively and negatively, respectively. Furthermore, the corruption perception and citizen trust mediate the relationship between cultural values and public dis/value. This work determines a further step for research by identifying the role that cultural dimensions play in the generation of public value. More specifically, governments must consider their own cultural values when they implement initiatives that can impact private interests. In this case, similar initiatives can create public value in some contexts and destroy it in others.