• Energy Research

This paper aims to explore the relationships between knowledge management (KM), performance measurement systems (PMSs), and small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) economic sustainability in knowledge-intensive sectors. The literature demonstrates that SMEs are often characterized by unstructured KM approaches and limited PMS implementation, being at the same time affected by scarce profitability and financial issues. Adopting the knowledge-based view of the firm and the contingency theory of PMSs, we tested the impact of two alternative KM approaches (exploitation and exploration) on SMEs’ economic sustainability, measuring the moderating effect of PMS use (diagnostic and interactive). Through an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression of data collected for 219 Italian medium firms operating in knowledge-intensive sectors, this study provides evidence on how a specific KM approach supports the SME economic sustainability and how a consistent implementation and use of PMS amplify the relationship between KM and economic sustainability. Data analysis confirms the relevance of some key concepts of the knowledge-based view of the firm, especially the positive impact of the KM exploration approach on economic sustainability. Additionally, the paper extends empirical evidence for the PMS moderating effect on the KM–performance relationship. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a study provides evidence for the relationships among KM, PMSs, and economic sustainability in the SME setting. Moreover, our findings lead to some managerial implications, especially they encourage SME entrepreneurs and managers to design a coherent KM approach and to implement an adequate PMS in order to support economic sustainability.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data are in high demand in financial markets. However, the ESG data provided by companies do not allow for use in the investment decision-making process. The main limiting point for this is a lack of comparability across companies. This paper analyzes the problem of comparability with the aim to evaluate the intra-industry comparability of sustainability reports, framing the analysis on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards and discussing the results with the support of legitimacy and stakeholder theories. Drawing upon stakeholder and legitimacy theories, as well as financial and sustainability accounting concepts, we propose a theoretical framework of comparability and a methodology to evaluate the level of comparability on a sector-specific basis. The methodological approach adopted in this study is broadly qualitative, with the use of a multiple-stages model. Based on the example of one industry, we discovered that, despite comparability being mostly relevant to the listed companies from the oil and gas sector, the sustainability reports of these companies are still not comparable. Our findings reveal that, despite the availability of a large amount of ESG data and the existence of sustainability frameworks, the problem of comparability is still relevant even for companies that are theoretically most inclined to be comparable.

The concept of value, where shareholders are the main recipients of the created value, is changing towards more comprehensive models, which respond to the increased stakeholder awareness and urgent sustainability agenda. Hart and Milstein (2003) elaborated the widely used sustainable value concept in which they characterize temporal and spatial dimensions of value, and suggest strategic drivers for sustainability. Although the framework is highly cited, there is no review on the changes over more than ten years. In this paper, we adopted a structured literature review methodology to discover how the concept of sustainable value has been used by researchers and how it has been developed. Our findings show that sustainable value has mainly been used as the general phrase to describe positive business results instead of using it as a concept. Scholars, who make an in-depth analysis of sustainable value do not emphasize the time horizon of sustainable value as its peculiar characteristic while broad stakeholder surrounding is called to be an important feature of sustainable value. Additionally, strategic drivers for sustainability have moved from being purely environmental as in Hart and Milstein’s (2003) concept: globalization, economic fluctuations, and knowledge innovation have become as important as green technologies and carbon-reduction policies.

This paper aims to provide a contribution on how the small and medium enterpris-es (SMEs) may reduce the gap between theory and practice on management con-trol knowledge. The paper adopts a knowledge transfer (KT) approach grounded on Liyanage et al.'s (2009) framework. A project of management accounting (MA) implementation in a SME located in Umbria is presented and discussed fol-lowing a strong interventionist research approach. The case demonstrates the knowledge management relevance on MA implementation, able to integrate and reinforce the influence of contingency variables and institutional pressures. It con-tributes to show how the MA implementation has been positively influenced by the SME absorptive capacity (AC) and willingness to learn (WTL), connected to some educational and technical conditions characterizing the entrepreneur and the organization. This paper provides a practical contribution for practitioners and SMEs involved in the implementation of MA tools, demonstrating that successful implementation requires gradual learning cycles and some organizational pre-conditions to bring successful results. It also contributes to scientific debate en-hancing the active role of the actors in designing and implementing managerial control systems, as well as providing an original view that involves the supply and demand for innovation in managerial systems as sources and receivers of man-agement control knowledge.