This study investigates the effect of corporate social and environmental evaluation on investors' risk perception to explore the potential market risk for public companies that adopt a sustainable and responsible corporate strategy. We referred to the triple corporate assessment according to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria to check whether ESG factors—meant to direct firms toward social and environmental needs—improve corporate market performance or trigger, among investors, a perception of “window dressing.” In doing so, we tested the impact of corporate social performance—proxied by an ESG assessment—on corporate financial risk using double risk measurement. We conducted a five‐year longitudinal study (fiscal years 2014–2018) of 222 companies listed on the Standard & Poor's index. The empirical findings show higher investor uncertainty regarding corporate sustainability performance, probably due to the misalignment of objectives between investors and investees. Indeed, an overall ESG assessment corresponds to higher systematic risk for firms, and a corporate environmental rating has an upward effect on the same risk dimension.

Purpose: Recently, socially and responsible investments (SRI) have constantly grown becoming a highly discussed issue. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to better understand if environmental social governance (ESG) criteria integration in investment strategies can support the transition of finance toward a more sustainable growth.Design/methodology/approach: An explorative analysis based on a multiple case study has been conducted and addressed by a content analysis on the Key Investors Information Documents (KIIDs) that the sample companies published for 2020.Findings: The achieved results demonstrated that the case companies differently integrated ESG into their SRI; thus, if some of them are quite near to a full integration, the others demonstrated less than a full commitment with ESG. This seems to be mainly due to the different approach that asset management companies (AMCs) and/or managers have adopted for integrating ESG criteria.Research limitations/implications: Even though the achieved results offered some interesting insights for asset managers, the explorative and qualitative nature of this study and the small sample investigated somewhat limits it.Practical implications: AMCs, consultants and managers in developing and implementing their SRI strategy could be much more focused on the importance of ESG integration for the transition toward a more responsible and sustainable finance (micro-level) as well as a more sustainable development (macro-level).Originality/value: The paper provides new insights into the essence of SRI strategies and their potential to contribute to sustainable development. Thus, it tries to shed new lights on the role that ESG can have to stimulate and support investment decisions and, in so doing, contributing to make finance grow more sustainable.

The increasing fluidity of social and business configurations made possible by the opportunities provided by the World Wide Web and the new technologies is questioning the validity of consolidated business models and managerial approaches. New rules are emerging and multiple changes are required to both individuals and organizations engaged in dynamic and unpredictable paths.In such a scenario, the paper aims at describing the potential role of big data and artificial intelligence in the path toward a collective approach to knowledge management. Thanks to the interpretative lens provided by systems thinking, a framework able to explain human-machine interaction is depicted and its contribution to the definition of a collective approach to knowledge management in unpredictable environment is traced.Reflections herein are briefly discussed with reference to the Chinese governmental approach for managing COVID-19 spread to emphasise the support that a technology-based collective approach to knowledge management can provide to decision-making processes in unpredictable environments.