Managerial Insights

2025-12-23 Fabrizio Zerbini

The drivers of change in urban mobility

Urban mobility is not a concept that necessarily conjures positive associations. Transportation systems are often at the center of criticism in discussions around the green transition – and with good reason. According to the European Environment Agency (2022), the transport sector is the only segment in the broader energy system that where CO₂ emissions have increased since the end of the twentieth century. Moreover, urban traffic has progressively become an objective constraint on individual freedom. To travel just ten kilometers in the city, it takes a London resident an average of 36 minutes, ...

Read

2025-12-22 Ronnie Rith

CSR as a strategic lever in professional football clubs

The agenda of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been gaining momentum in the industries of professional team sports, including the football industry. Professional football clubs have been engaging more intentionally and extensively in a plethora of CSR activities. In practice, CSR engagement activities, in the forms of community-oriented programmes, socio-cultural activities, and environmental initiatives, have been well endeavoured by European football clubs in the top-tier leagues of England’s Premier League, France’s Ligue 1, Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A, Spain’s ...

Read

2025-12-19 Alberto Grando

The Glass Half Full of Italian Innovation

One of the key recommendations highlighted in the Report on the Future of European Competitiveness (Draghi, 2024) stresses the need to “bridge the innovation gap,” particularly with respect to the United States. The report notes that “in Europe, innovative digital firms are unable to scale or attract financing, resulting in a significant gap in later-stage investment between the EU and the United States.” Among the various obstacles hindering innovation, the document also points out that Europe lacks a sufficient number of academic institutions capable of achieving top levels of excellence, ...

Read

2025-12-15 Donato Masciandaro

Cash and digital money: beware the Stockholm syndrome

The digital euro is a public investment that needs to be made as soon as possible. Europe must maintain both physical and digital euros. The rationale is straightforward: the less public money is used, the greater the risk of becoming hostage to private and foreign monies – often without realizing it, and even inadvertently encouraging them. This is a kind of Stockholm syndrome, and it is precisely what is happening in Sweden. The only institution sounding the alarm is the central bank, while politicians have so far ignored the issue. Is this a case of regulatory capture? The starting point ...

Read

2025-12-09 Yingying Zhang-Zhang

The power of shared ideas: IFSAM’s journey in a book

A living archive of global academic collaboration, a tribute to intellectual kinship, and a call to action for the future of management scholarship. The IFSAM 35th Anniversary Memory Book is far more than a commemorative publication. Edited by Yingying Zhang-Zhang and Nic Beech, the volume gathers approximately 40 reflections from nearly 50 scholars across five continents, each offering a distinctive lens on the evolution, impact, and aspirations of the International Federation of Scholarly Associations of Management (IFSAM). A Federation Rooted in Diversity and Dialogue Founded in 1990 with the ...

Read

2025-12-05 Massimo Aielli

Understanding costs to make better decisions

To measure costs effectively, it is essential to understand their possible alternative classifications and determine which items to consider and how to include them in measurement processes. Although each company may organize its costs differently, it is still possible to identify several typical categories observable across all firms, and these can therefore be regarded as the most common classifications. First, cost elements can be distinguished as either variable or fixed. Variable costs change in proportion to production and sales volumes, while fixed costs do not vary in their total amount ...

Read

2025-11-24 Partha Dasgupta

Managing nature’s portfolio: why natural capital really matters

Whether as farmers or fishers, foresters or miners, households or companies, governments or communities, we manage the assets to which we have access, in line with our motivations as best as we can. But the best each of us can achieve with our individual portfolios may nevertheless result in a massive collective failure to manage the global portfolio of all our assets. We are like a crowd of people, each of us trying to keep balance on a hanging bridge, only to bring it crashing down. How would you know whether you are managing your portfolio of assets well? What rule would you follow? For simplicity, ...

Read

2025-11-17 Andrea Beltratti, Alessia Bezzecchi

Financial education: what national project?

Italy does not rank among the top countries for financial literacy according to OECD statistics. But is there enough awareness in our country that financial education is important for individuals and for the economy as a whole? We have been talking about financial education since at least the mid-1990s, so this is not a new emergency that we haven’t had time to address. How is it possible that after thirty years, Italy is still behind on a topic that concerns our vast financial wealth? What are the essential elements for launching a truly impactful national project? What kind of financial education? – ...

Read

2025-11-10 Francesco Perrini, Stefano Pogutz

Sustainability under attack: the green challenge between data and disinformation

For years, science has shown that climate change is real and driven by human activity. Recent news confirms that we have already crossed seven out of nine planetary boundaries that keep our planet in balance. Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, warns that we are jeopardizing the stability of Earth’s entire life-support system – vital for our prosperity and well-being. Against this backdrop, global warming remains a pressing emergency. Several recent studies have shown new plant species appearing even at higher latitudes, where rising temperatures ...

Read

2025-10-30 E&M Plus

Navigating Uncertainty: the Impact of Geopolitics on Business

How can businesses not only survive but thrive in an increasingly fragmented and unpredictable global landscape? How can systemic risks be turned into competitive advantages and opportunities for strategic innovation? And how can leaders anticipate – rather than merely react to – the major transitions of our time? On Monday, December 1, 2025, these questions took center stage in the second TalkSpace webinar by Economics & Management, titled “Navigating uncertainty: how geopolitics is reshaping business strategy.” The discussion featured: • Bill Browder, entrepreneur and political activist, ...

Read