More than just profit in money terms
The nature and role of benefit companies seen as new production organizations
From profit to other, broader and more complex objectives. This is the trajectory of many businesses and, upon closer inspection, of a large part of the industrial and economic system in many productive areas. It is along this trajectory that benefit corporations are positioned, examples of a production culture that takes an original stance in relation to the classic economic models, yet does not overlook “good accounting” as an essential element to always include among business objectives.
Le società benefit: un fenomeno nuovo dalle origini antiche un’analisi empirica nel contesto italiano”, a contribution by Arcangelo Marrone recently published in the series of studies and research of the LUM University, can be a good read to better understand the characteristics of these forms of enterprise. In particular, the author works within the study of organisational models that, in the broader process of convergence between for-profit entities and the non-profit sector, have emerged in recent decades, both in Italy and internationally; models that have given rise to the so-called “hybrid enterprises”. And it is among these that we find benefit companies: having been introduced into the Italian legal system in 2016 in the wake of the American Benefit Corporations, they now play an important role in Italy too. Companies that truly give substance to a particular business culture model capable – Marrone points out – of combining the production of economic profit with one or more common benefit purposes, thus combining traditional economic objectives with the generation, in the medium-long term, of shared value with the stakeholders, towards whom these companies must operate in a responsible, sustainable and transparent manner.
Arcangelo Marrone’s study therefore describes these new productive organisations, placing them within the current economic and social context and providing them with a perspective for development.
Arcangelo Marrone
LUM University, 2024
The nature and role of benefit companies seen as new production organizations
From profit to other, broader and more complex objectives. This is the trajectory of many businesses and, upon closer inspection, of a large part of the industrial and economic system in many productive areas. It is along this trajectory that benefit corporations are positioned, examples of a production culture that takes an original stance in relation to the classic economic models, yet does not overlook “good accounting” as an essential element to always include among business objectives.
Le società benefit: un fenomeno nuovo dalle origini antiche un’analisi empirica nel contesto italiano”, a contribution by Arcangelo Marrone recently published in the series of studies and research of the LUM University, can be a good read to better understand the characteristics of these forms of enterprise. In particular, the author works within the study of organisational models that, in the broader process of convergence between for-profit entities and the non-profit sector, have emerged in recent decades, both in Italy and internationally; models that have given rise to the so-called “hybrid enterprises”. And it is among these that we find benefit companies: having been introduced into the Italian legal system in 2016 in the wake of the American Benefit Corporations, they now play an important role in Italy too. Companies that truly give substance to a particular business culture model capable – Marrone points out – of combining the production of economic profit with one or more common benefit purposes, thus combining traditional economic objectives with the generation, in the medium-long term, of shared value with the stakeholders, towards whom these companies must operate in a responsible, sustainable and transparent manner.
Arcangelo Marrone’s study therefore describes these new productive organisations, placing them within the current economic and social context and providing them with a perspective for development.
Arcangelo Marrone
LUM University, 2024