Young Stakeholders’ Perception of Public Companies Responsibility: An Empirical Study on Business-to-Customer Markets

Abstract

The present research aims to investigate business-to-customer Italian public companies and their relationship with young stakeholders. The focus is to analyse the correlation between young stakeholders’ perception of company environmental and social sustainability and the market capitalisation. The approach of the present research has been used to structure the literature and to conduct an empirical analysis on a sample of public companies chosen among the Italian larger 150 in terms of market capitalisation. Through a qualitative research based on focus groups and individual interviews, a sample of 33 public companies has been selected and tested by using an online survey of 420 Italian youth. The analysis of firms’ young stakeholders’ responsibility perception has taken to confirm those authors and managers sustain that the more the firm market capitalization is, the more the organization is perceived as responsible.