Alfio Cariola

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the financing choices of small and medium-sized firms, i.e., those most vulnerable to information and incentive problems, through the lens of the business life cycle.

TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of a process innovation strategy that firms implement through Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies on lean practices and green supply chains is investigated, and the results reveal that Leanness facilitates the supplier collaboration on environmental programs and positively contributes to environmental and operational performance.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed both capital-structure and debt-maturity choices for SMEs in terms of institutional differences at the local level, making use of regions as the unit of analysis and found that corporate financial decisions are not only the result of firm-specific or industry-specific characteristics, but also based on the institutional climate in which a firm operates.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the way in which cash holdings affect firm operating performance in a wide sample of European small and medium-sized enterprises and found that cash holdings have a positive effect on operating performance, supporting the relevance of precautionary savings motive for SMEs.

TL;DR: The potential conflicts of interest between managers, stockholders and debtholders influence capital structure, corporate governance activities and investment policies, which, in turn, could give rise to inefficient managerial decisions and suboptimal investments that generally fall under the categories of problems of underinvestment and overinvestment as mentioned in this paper.