How do unlisted companies manage the tensions between economic and socio-environmental objectives?
This is the question that the Research Group composed of Flavia Cau, Marco Minciullo, Vittorio Capitani and Matteo Pedrini contributed to answering with the paper "Decision-making for sustainability in non-listed companies", presented at the 2025 Annual Conference of the International Corporate Governance Society (ICGS), an international society of corporate governance researchers, held at theAlliance Manchester Business School (UK).
The study showed that unlisted companies, thanks to the adaptability of their organizational structures and the reduced regulatory pressure to which they are subjected, put in place specific mechanisms to balance the objectives of socio-environmental and economic sustainability, showing a different approach than that of listed companies.
Through processes of internal dialogue and negotiation of objectives involving the actors within the organization, unlisted companies aim to create consensus from all those operating within the organization, in order to reach a common proposal and involvement of the entire organization.
Unlisted companies are therefore able to manage tensions with alternative sustainability governance mechanisms, with an approach that does not aim so much to find a definitive solution to sustainability issues, but rather to navigate the tensions related to them to adapt to the context.