The concept of Regional Competitiveness (RC), in the last years, had a considerable influence on the development of strategies and policies focused on sub-national areas from an economic and social perspective. In particular, RC attracted the substantial attention of policymakers due to the possibility of evaluating and comparing different territories without any established political or conceptual framework. Conversely, scholars have long debated the meaningfulness of territorial competitiveness itself and, in case, which dimensions have to be included. This study reviewed the most recent scientific literature concerning RC with a bibliometric approach based on topic modelling. The use of a textual-based statistical approach offered an interesting insight into the RC research domain. We highlighted the topics discussed by scholars, showing the patterns emerging across years and from different publication types, and marked the differences between the vocabulary used by authors coming from EU and non-EU countries. Finally, a comparison between the RC issues coming from the literature analysis with the RC issues defined by policymakers tried to link the two standpoints followed by the institutions and the academia in a more comprehensive conceptual framework.

The rapid diffusion of the Covid-19 worldwide has accelerated the need for companies to address the sustainability issue at different levels, as nowadays the attention of stakeholders with respect to this theme has grown considerably. As a result, companies had to set up CSR communication strategies to build and strengthen their legitimacy and reputation. Among the communication channels to convey messages of firms’ CSR initiatives, social media are becoming increasingly important and, particularly, Twitter is the social media platform where more CSR-related content is generated. By adopting the theoretical lens of constitutive communication of organization, the aim of this paper is to investigate with a textual approach how the CSR communication in the energy sector has evolved in the post Covid-19 scenario. Specifically, our attention will be focus on: (1) the exploratory analysis based on the hashtags; (2) the identification of CSR communication topics and (3) the proposal of topics network in order to discover subgroups of topics. Findings of this research show that the CSR communication on Twitter has undergone changes compared to the pre Covid-19 era. Particularly, we identified 11 CSR related-topics which, as the proposed topic network demonstrates, are interconnected. On the one hand, our results corroborate previous research regarding some CSR-related issues; on the other hand, we identified some topics such as safety, people and work which have exploded in Twitter conversations in the post Covid-19 scenario. Finally, this study provides managerial implications for professionals dealing with CSR communication, digital communication and social media marketing activities.

Purpose of the paper: This paper delves into the realm of mission reports within the context of banking foundation to scrutinise the communicative aspects of these documents and unearth their fundamental characteristics to shed light on prevalent trends and discern potential directives to write them effectively. Methodology: The study focuses on the major Italian banking foundations, namely those boasting assets exceeding the billion euros, by employing a methodology that integrates textual analysis such as Lexical Correspondence Analysis (LCA) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to comprehensively scrutinize their mission reports, investigate the communicative strategies employed and explore the thematic priorities and accessibility of information dissemination. Findings: The study reveals a dichotomy in communication approaches among major Italian banking foundations in their mission reports, with some treating them as regulatory obligations while others employ dedicated, engaging reports emphasising community involvement and societal impact. Research limits: Limitations include potential variances in communication practices among smaller foundations, not included in the analysis, and a constrained stakeholder perspective. Practical implications: Our findings can guide efforts in strategic communication practices of the banking foundation, offering insights into enhancing the transparency, accessibility, and inclusivity of mission reporting. Originality of the paper: This paper presents an original analysis of Italian banking foundations' strategic communication through mission reports, uncovering distinct approaches and outlining best practices to enhance transparency in social accountability reporting.