Italian Corporate Foundations and the Challenge of Multiple Stakeholder Interests

This article investigates corporate foundations, a specific expression of corporate philanthropy that is narrowly considered in the literature. We aim to verify whether the interests of the founder firm are significant antecedents of the model, activities, and issues addressed by the related foundation. Data were collected through a survey of seventy Italian corporate foundations, representing 59.8 percent of the total number of such foundations based in Italy. The analysis identified three clusters of corporate foundations—granter, expert, and edifier. Research demonstrates that through these clusters, the interests pursued by founder firms have a significant influence on integration between firms and corporate foundations and on the foundations’ activities.