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This chapter investigates and explores the array of political and social factors which influence the Chinese system of environmental protection, shedding light on the Chinese political and juridical process in constructing a stricter and more incisive legal framework.

Starting by observing national macroeconomic data, this chapter explores how the Chinese governance system affects the implementation of the legal framework of environmental protection. In addition, it also traces a brief panorama of the most important laws framing environmental protection in China.

Over the years, the Chinese environmental protection system has been strongly affected by the national multilayered governance system. Nevertheless, the initiative launched by China (more intensively starting from the 11th five-year plan) to build a more virtuous environmental protection system now seems to be returning positive results, in both the renewed legal framework and – even more so – in the attempt (through addressing environmental issues) to reform the entire apparatus of national governance.

The multi-structured national system, which hides conflicting political and economic interests at central and local levels, represents one of the biggest problems for China. This chapter argues that only through a deep reform of the national management scheme can China really guarantee a better future for its environment.

Literature on Chinese environmental protection tends more often to investigate the legal aspect when edifying its environmental legal framework. Very few studies combine economic data and political analysis when studying the Chinese legal framework and its implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine which individual traits of financial advisors influence portfolio transfer speed when a financial advisor recommends investors to migrate to a new financial intermediary.

With reference to the years 2014–2016, one of the three leading Italian tied-agent banks provided the authors with an exclusive and unique data set containing information regarding the financial advisors who had become tied agents, transferring their existing portfolios from their previous banks (traditional or tied-agent banks). The authors observed the ability of the migrant financial advisor in successfully transferring the entire portfolio declared within 12 months of observation. To investigate empirically which personal traits of financial advisors determine their success in the rapid transfer of clients’ portfolios to a new financial intermediary, the authors applied a Cox proportional hazards model.

The authors find that factors such as age, type of bank of origin and size of the managed financial portfolio positively affect the speed transfer.

The obtained results may be interesting for guiding recruiting policies of financial intermediaries.

Regulators should closely examine the phenomenon analyzed in this paper to avoid conflict of interests.

The literature on this topic is scarce, mainly due to the lack of available data. This paper represents an original contribution to open a new field of research.

This article investigates the relationship between family ownership and export performance in the context of SMEs while also considering the moderating role of the financial dimension and, in particular, financial constraints and financial flexibility.

We select a sample of 1,132 Italian SMEs to examine through an econometric analysis the role and impact of family ownership and the financial moderating variables being used on their export performance.

The results indicate that there is a U-shaped relationship between family ownership and export performance: the highest levels of export performance correspond to the lowest and highest family ownership levels, whereas when a mixture of family and nonfamily ownership exists, the performance suffers because of “conflicting voices” dominating strategic visions and approaches, harming the firm's export commitment. Moreover, the findings show that lower financial constraints and/or stronger financial flexibility improve the relationship between family ownership and export performance.

Our findings show that the ownership structure is important for export performance; in particular, firms should avoid a mixture between family and nonfamily ownership because it is detrimental to export performance. Moreover, Italian SMEs need to develop sources of financing other than the banking channel, and policy makers should favour this process to overcome financial constraint problems and improve financial flexibility. Limitations concern the use of other econometric approaches and measurement variables to further investigate the connection between family ownership and export performance.

The present study enhances the comprehension of the complex relationship between family ownership and export performance by documenting the relevance of the level of family ownership and considering the moderating role of financial constraints and flexibility.

Digitalization is becoming the subject of considerable interest in the literature. This is in view of its relevance in addressing social problems and contributing to the development of communities and societies. In the agri-food-industry, digitalization is also expected to contribute significantly to solve several challenges the sector is facing at this moment, such as the increasing food demand and resource use. However, the effects of advanced technologies are less a function of the technologies themselves than of how they are used by people. The study analyses the dominant challenges faced by firms in the agri-food industry in the usage and adoption of digital technology. Also, they show how these challenges impact on the sustainable development of digital technology for firms in the industry and provide avenues for future research.

The authors propose a structured literature review aiming to investigate the following research question: what are the main challenges faced by firms within the agri-food industry in the adoption of smart technologies?

Results illustrate the dominant challenges faced by firms in the agri-food industry in the usage and adoption of digital technology. Also, they show how these challenges impact on the sustainable development of digital technology for firms in the industry and provide avenues for future research.

So far, in the context of digitalization in the agri-food industry, various researchers have analysed different kinds of challenges to the adoption of smart technologies. This work reviews these contributions to create a clear reference framework of the challenges faced by agri-food firms while providing future avenues of research and implications at a policymaking, economic-managerial and socio-environmental level.