Reconsidering Volunteering: Individual Change as a Result of Doing Good for Others

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Volunteerism is an important asset for the society, but also for the beneficiaries and the volunteers themselves....     

Female Immigrant Entrepreneurs: More Than a Family Strategy

This article explores the issue of immigrant women entrepreneurship. It focuses on the emergence of new points of view on self‐employed migrant women and in particular their search for independence. With the support of qualitative research carried on in Italy, it will set out a typology of motivations and strategies to become self‐employed in which, besides a “family strategy” and an “independency strategy”, a “mixed network strategy” also emerges. This last focuses on the role of mixed networks (with other foreigners and/or natives) not only in business management but also in the promotion of transnational social activities. Policies that support associations, creating opportunities for gathering and exchanging with local residents and improving the presence of immigrant women in local institutions, could have the side‐effect of increasing participation by immigrant women in self‐employment, not for lack of alternatives but as a path towards self‐fulfilment and empowerment.     

Impact of performance indicators on organisations: a proposal for an evaluation model

This work aims at giving some guidelines to assess the impact of performance indicators on organisations. Performance measurement systems are usually introduced into organisations in order to monitor goal achievement, to allocate resources and to implement a strategy. However, the implementation of performance indicators may generate an alteration in the rational behaviour of the monitored structure. The risk of this impact is always present, and must be considered very carefully in order to preserve the organisation from a counter-productive effect. In the present analytical work, a reference model is proposed as a first step. This model considers all the organisational dimensions on which an indicator may exert its influence. The method makes use of the four Kaplan and Norton’s balanced scorecard perspectives in order to identify the dimensions on which an indicator may exert its impact. Previous works reported in scientific literature do not provide operational models for impact analysis, whereas, the proposed model is linked to an operative procedure in order to support management to make this analysis. The aim is to make the impact analysis less complex by structuring it in a sequence of predefined steps. The proposal is supported by some practical examples.     

Consolidation in the Exchange Industry: What are Exchanges Actually Worth? Some Evidence from a Crises Environment

It is generally acknowledged that the exchange industry shares the typical features of network industries, forcing exchanges to merge across countries. This process was first urged by the need to keep up with technological developments and increased competition from peers and new competitors. Starting 2005 and up to 2007 we observed significant cross border mergers within the securities industry leading to the creation of a few large groups with a diversified business model. It was questioned whether such mergers leaded to a stable equilibrium. Now, in the aftermath of the crisis a new wave of consolidation is taking place. The financial turmoil dramatically affected the market functioning delivering severe strains to the financial sector and modified the way of conducting business. We address the implications of the crisis on exchange??s values, investigating if expectations lying behind values have somewhat changed or compressed or reflect new opportunities.     

The Easterlin paradox and the decline of social capital: An integrated explanation

During the most recent decades people in the US have reported both a stagnant or even declining subjective well-being, as Easterlin (Easterlin, R.A., 1974. Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In: David, P.A., Melvin, W.R. (Eds.), Nations and Households in Economic Growth. Academic Press, New York, pp. 89–125) originally observed, and deterioration in their social and family ties, as Putnam (Putnam, R.D. (2000). Bowling Alone. Simon&Schuster, New York) has claimed. The paper proposes an integrated explanation of these two stylised facts by extending the analysis of the relative income explanation of the Easterlin paradox to social relationships as enjoyable ends of choice. Drawing on the evidence-based results of psychology, the paper constructs a model whose premises are (i) that individuals produce social relationships by means of relational ability, (ii) that this ability is primarily shaped during infancy, and (iii) that commercial pressure on children to consume in competition with others may displace the enjoyment of social relationships. The model is thus also able to explain the case of rich countries, like Sweden, that devote relatively more human and material resources than the US to children and adolescents, and that experience both increasing subjective well-being and improving social capital.     

Did the Decline in Social Connections Depress Americans’ Happiness?

During the last 30 years US citizens experienced, on average, a decline in reported happiness, social connections, and confidence in institutions. We show that a remarkable portion of the decrease in happiness is predicted by the decline in social connections and confidence in institutions. We carry out our investigation in three steps. First, we run a happiness regression that includes various indicators of social connections and confidence in institutions, alongside with own income, reference income, and the usual socio-demographic controls. We find that indicators of social connections and confidence in institutions are positively and significantly correlated with happiness. Second, we investigate the evolution of social connections and confidence in institutions over time, finding that they generally show a declining trend. Third, we calculate the variation in happiness over time as predicted by each of its statistically significant correlates, finding that the decrease in happiness is mainly predicted by the decline in social connections and by the growth in reference income. More precisely, the sum of the negative changes in happiness predicted by the reduction in social connections and the increase in reference income more than offsets the positive change predicted by the growth of household income. Also, the reduction in happiness predicted by the decline in confidence in institutions is non-negligible, although substantially smaller than the one predicted by either social connections or reference income.     

From boundary-work to boundary object: how biology left and re-entered the social sciences

In an archaeological spirit this paper comes back to a founding event in the construction of the twentieth-century episteme, the moment at which the life- and the social sciences parted ways and intense boundary-work was carried out on the biology/society border, with significant benefits for both sides. Galton and Weismann for biology, and Alfred Kroeber for anthropology delimit this founding moment and I argue, expanding on an existing body of historical scholarship, for an implicit convergence of their views. After this excavation, I look at recent developments in the life sciences, which I have named the ‘social turn’ in biology (Meloni, 2014), and in particular at epigenetics with its promise to destabilize the social/biological border. I claim here that today a different account of ‘the biological’ to that established during the Galton–Kroeber period is emerging. Rather than being used to support a form of boundary-work, biology has become a boundary object that crosses previously erected barriers, allowing different research communities to draw from it.     

Economic Performance and Value Creation in the Lending Activities of Italian Banking Groups

The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationships between income performance and the creation of value in the loan disbursement activities of leading listed Italian banking groups with reference to the period 2001–2004. In order to assess the topic a number of simple profitability ratios regarding lending activity are introduced. Subsequently, a basic model for the definition of the economic value of the loan portfolio is suggested.