Managerial Insights
China’s Difficult Balancing Act on the War in Ukraine
“Wuwei wubuwei,” says the principle that summarizes Taoist philosophy: “Do nothing and nothing will remain unaccomplished.” This is how Beijing maintains a difficult balancing act between the positions of Moscow and those of Washington and Brussels; even after the highly-anticipated meeting between the Chinese president and the highest authorities of the European Union (in virtual form, that is), even in the approach state media takes in reporting (or not reporting) on the first terrible images from Bucha. By abstaining in votes at the United Nations, and not contradicting the claims from ...
Sustainable Real Estate
Demand does not become equal to supply by magic. Technology influences both, but does not create products and services by itself. Companies must estimate the demand coming from society and create the conditions for the creation of supply. Without management and its ability to manage businesses in the best manner possible, we cannot meet the challenge of sustainability, in which real estate has a prominent role. Real Estate Sustainable Value Creation In the REInnovation Academy C-Suite Forum,[1] sustainability in real estate was defined, recalling the 1987 United Nations Report “Our Common ...
Compare to Whom? A Reflection on Benchmarking
Benchmarking represents one of the most common management tools used by businesses.[1] As unfortunately happens for many tools and models of strategy, where as time passes from their introduction the awareness of their complexity declines, with the risk of using gradually simplified versions that are different from the original, the same has happened with benchmarking analysis. Introduced at the end of the 1970s by Xerox Corporation with the aim of recovering the competitiveness lost in regard to its Japanese competitors, benchmarking is based on a comparison between the company’s internal processes ...
Laocoön and the Two Serpents: Economic Growth, Corruption, and Money Laundering
Before the military aggression by Putin’s Russia against Ukraine changed the current short-term scenario, all of the media were celebrating the Italian economic recovery. Italy was defined as the “hare” of the euro area, using the most recent data from the European Commission, relating to 2021. Italian GDP growth was 6.5%, versus the average of 5.3%, and the figures for countries such as Germany and Spain, that reached economic growth rates of 5% and 2.8%, respectively; among the large countries in the euro area only France did better, with growth of 7%. But if we expand the view just a ...
The New Nationalism of Chinese Consumers
The golden age of the continuously expanding market beyond the Great Wall is over. The period that was a true driver for the most important Western brands – at least in the last ten years – is ending. Chinese consumers, who are young, attracted by novelty, and have growing spending power[1] – are following the path indicated by politics and increasingly look to Chinese brands to satisfy their desires.[2] Patriotism, dual circulation, and the recent international scandals, such as that of Xinjiang cotton produced in detention camps that has forced Western and Chinese brands to take a position ...
Economic Sanctions Against Russia: The Continuation of Policy By Other Means
“War is a mere continuation of policy by other means. We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means.” Thus wrote the Prussian general Carl Von Clausewitz two centuries ago in his book On War, a treatise of military strategy widely read in the last century, also in Marxist and Leninist circles; to the point of becoming a part of the study programs of Soviet military academies in the years in which Vladimir Putin began his training at the KGB school in Leningrad ...
Past, Present, and Future of Bank Concentrations
The phenomenon of bank concentration, as I have said on multiple occasions also with reference to other types of financial operations, lends itself to varied judgments in relation to both its formal intrinsic value and its practical application. Indeed the objectives and results of bank concentration, a phenomenon which has had significant effects in almost all countries in the world in the post-WWII period, have changed over the course of time, and the evaluations that have been expressed on it in different periods have been conditioned by the respective historical contexts. In our country, there ...
The Chinese Renaissance and the Winter Olympic Games
When the Olympic Committee assigned the 2022 Winter Olympics seven years ago, in Beijing there was talk of "airpocalypse": the Chinese capital and its region were at the center of global attention due to a level of pollution so high that the population was forced to stay at home and factories had to close. The tradition of winter sports was based on just a few years of experience and the dry nature of the area that was supposed to host the outdoor events was such that, despite the harsh temperatures, it very rarely snowed. President Xi Jinping put himself on the line: "We will keep our promises," ...
Sustainable Social Finance & ESG investing
The role of the Sustainable Development Goals in pursing sustainability on the part of all stakeholders has made urgent the codification and relative measurement of ESG criteria in a holistic vision of investments and finance. The considerable diversity of the ratings of the main international agencies risks confusing companies and investors, hindering the pursuit of actions aimed at reaching sustainability. The work of the European Commission on the definition of the taxonomy is more advanced for the “E-Environmental” dimension, with the goal of completing and finalizing it with the “S-Social” ...
European Green Monetary Policy: A Double-Edged Sword
From the standpoint of European monetary policy, 2021 was an important year, with the announcement by the European Central Bank (ECB) of a revision in its strategy. The founding pillar is very clear: in accordance with the European treaties, the primary goal of monetary policy will continue to be the stability of the internal value of the euro. Given that primary goal, the ECB will have the secondary goal of supporting the other aims of the Union’s economic policy. In the list of secondary aims, the quality of the environment has appeared for the first time. Then, in a parallel document, the ...