PurposeThis systematic literature review analyzes and identifies research areas where researchers have already studied the role of intellectual capital (IC) in the healthcare sector. This review also analyzes how they carried out their work to understand future research directions.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis is conducted through a systematic literature review. Therefore, following systematic literature review protocol, it was possible to select 225 papers. An analysis of the content was done to identify the main topics debated and understand what components of IC are the most studied by scholars.FindingsThe authors highlight how the components of IC (human capital, structural capital and relational capital) in the healthcare sector have not been discussed with the same frequency and intensity by researchers. The research shows that there are already widely discussed areas, such as structural capital, while other components of IC have remained on the shadow, such as relational capital. Human capital is the most undiscussed component.Research limitations/implicationsThe manual analysis of the articles can be considered a limitation of this work.Originality/valueThis systematic literature review makes several useful contributions. First, it enables others to replicate scientific research, thanks to its clear and transparent process. Second, it identifies the main areas of research and the main research methods. It enables researchers to identify which issues their work should address and suggests possible areas for future research.

The Altman Z-score model for predicting bankruptcy of businesses was constructed and fine-tuned in the USA in 1968 and updated in 1999. It is therefore possible that its results cannot be extended to non-Anglo-Saxon countries in today's context. This paper ascertains if the Z-score can correctly predict the failure of industrial listed companies in Italy. First, we have analyzed the theoretical and practical characteristics of the original Z-score model and we highlight some of its potential shortcomings. Second, we have examined a sample of 102 industrial companies, quoted on the Italian Stock Exchange in the period 1995-2013 -51 companies had had their shares permanently suspended or delisted because of a default, whereas the remaining 51 companies, which have been selected based on same core business and year of data collection, did not go bankruptcy or had their shares permanently suspended. We investigated whether the Z-score model could have predicted the default of the firms in the sample for up to three years earlier, with a degree of accuracy and reliability comparable to the one obtained by Altman (and by many other authors) in the tests performed nowadays in the U.S. and Anglo-Saxon contexts. We found that the Z-score works effectively and performs well in predicting failures of Italian firms, although with a slightly lower degree of reliability when applied to Anglo-Saxon companies. Therefore, we conclude that the Z-score can be applied to the Italian context, provided that some critical points illustrated in this study are taken into account.

This article aims at giving a contribution to the issue of the determinants of economies of scale in large businesses. After the economies of scale definition, the study identifies and analyzes the economies of cost that, according to most of the well-established literature, contribute jointly to originate the phenomenon at stake. Then, the study analyzes the information collected through specially created questionnaires from a sample of businesses listed on regulated European markets. The aim of the questionnaires is to verify if such companies obtain economies of scale in their productive processes and, if so, to identify which of the cost economies previously analyzed are actually achieved. Finally, the article analyzes data and information obtained through the questionnaires and draws some conclusions. Specifically, the study tries to overcome a one-way and sole interpretation of the economies of scale phenomenon in favour of distinction in economies of scale of II level ("in the strict sense") and economies of scale of I level ("generic").

No abstract

No abstract