Abstract:The paper addresses issues related to the citrus waste valorisation process and its inherent uncertainties from the perspective of a new and innovative firm. Thus, we investigate the relevance/role of a business plan analysis in developing a new business (new biobased value chains) in the case of citrus waste valorisation. We look primarily at the inherent uncertainty associated with the start-up phase of a new business aimed at producing and wholesaling semi-finished products derived from the recovery of citrus waste in southern Italy. In order to do so, we use a qualitative case study approach focusing on a small citrus waste valorisation firm located in Calabria, using Agro Management Development (AMD) as a unit of analysis. The choice of this research setting is not random, given the fact that many companies from the Mediterranean are trying to engage in activities to valorise citrus waste deriving from production value chains. The main findings of our analysis can be summarized as follows: (i) focusing primarily on one area of uncertainty (i.e., market uncertainty) might undermine chances of success, as it could indicate an incomplete business strategy to stakeholders, hence hindering their willingness to commit to a new entrepreneurial initiative; (ii) although a business plan could be an effective way to narrow down uncertainty for a new innovative firm, it should be properly customised in order to address all relevant dimensions of uncertainty. Indeed, an insufficiently developed plan might be counterproductive, revealing (for instance, to possible investors) an inadequate strategy for facing and solving emerging problems, therefore putting the whole business project at risk.

In this paper we analyze whether financial analysts recommendations on trading strategies related to a given stock can influence its price dynamics. The recommendation for a given stock is an assessment based on the comparison between the estimated target price and its observed (current) market price. Such a comparison enables financial analysts to infer whether the market overestimate or underestimate the stock. The target price is the analyst expected stock price at 6 months/1 year time horizon and represents the reference point for externalization of a bullish or bearish outlook of the given stock. Together with the recommendation, the target price provides the core of financial analysts disclosure, since it is the result of the evaluation of the fair value of a given company. The assessment is mainly based on the methodology that best suits the operational context of the company, and reflects both the analysts ability to forecast and the quality of the information used to determine it. Each group of analysts uses different models and analysis techniques, so that very often from all the different published recommendations, sometimes in conflict with each other, it is not possible to deduce a consistent picture. In this paper, by means of Markov Switching Regression models, we test whether price changes in Italian green energy stocks are: (1) informative both unconditionally and conditionally on the type of recommendations, and (2) unbiased forecasts conveying information about future abnormal returns.

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