Collaborations with nonprofit organizations: Signals or agents of operational change? Empirical evidence from Italian listed enterprises

Paola Garrone and Andrea Rizzuni

Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 2025, vol. 32, issue 1, 448-464

Abstract: Collaborations with nonprofits are an avenue for firms to tackle social and environmental issues, and their disclosure is one way through which firms can inform stakeholders of the sustainability of their operations. This paper investigates their signaling function, disentangling it from their transformative role in spurring sustainable operational changes. Econometric analyses on collaborations reported by 118 Italian listed firms in their non‐financial disclosures in 2017–2019 confirm their signaling function. Most reported collaborations do not imply firms' operational engagements. Firms' propensity to collaborate is higher when their activities are less observable, institutional monitoring is weak, and alternative signaling mechanisms are absent. However, signaling determinants are weaker when collaborations involve firm‐level operational engagements. The study offers exploratory evidence that firms disclose collaborations with nonprofits as signals of sustainability. It offers insights on their dual role, showing that collaborations which spur sustainable operational changes are less likely to be employed as signals.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.2972

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:corsem:v:32:y:2025:i:1:p:448-464

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().