The presence of organized crime strongly affects sustainable waste management in Italy. In particular, illegal trafficking of waste has become one of the fastest growing areas of crime and one of the most lucrative industries among organized criminal activities, which has now infiltrated both the Italian urban and hazardous waste management cycle. In this study, we aim to investigate the determinants of the illegal trafficking of waste using waste, economic, and enforcement data in a panel analysis over the period 2002-2013. The topic is particularly relevant, given the high heterogeneity across Italian regions which also relates, and eventually leads, to different environmental performances. Our main findings reveal that, in most Italian regions, enforcement activities do not exert a significant deterrence on criminal behaviors; a negative relationship between enforcement and illegal trafficking of waste can be identified only for very high levels of enforcement efforts. Moreover, we find that the major determinants influencing the rate of illegal trafficking of waste differ between northern-central and southern regions, confirming the existence of a regional dualism. In particular, while in the northern-central area the crime rate is positively related to the level of education and negatively to the adoption of environmentally sound policies, in southern regions the organized activities for illegal trafficking are negatively related to the degree of education attainment and positively to the endowment of waste management plants.
Contemporary attempts to develop securely and sustainably requires new approaches towards driving factors of development, especially related to human behavior. Sustainable entrepreneurship concept becomes topical. For business practitioners and researchers it is associated with the ability to discover new opportunities for self-realization and creation of economic and social value for both consumers and the organization, country, region and the world. Entrepreneurship is a qualitative social feature that includes human abilities to build and develop innovations and business. Each country’s or region’s level of economic development is linked to entrepreneurial competencies of community. Cautious use of scare resources, social responsibility have to become integrated into sustainable entrepreneurship concept. Under such circumstances it is important to identify the key success factors of sustainable entrepreneurial, because promotion of sustainable entrepreneurship is becoming one of the cornerstones of strategy of Europe aimed to become the most competitive economy in the world. Comparing European and USA development potential, one of the main reasons for the backwardness of the EU has been identified lack of entrepreneurship. Scientists investigating the concept of sustainable entrepreneurship and its components expose to the problem, which is more integrated approach that reflects the reality. Therefore paper aims to present the concept of sustainable entrepreneurship formulated taking into account secure and sustainable development context and identify key success factors for sustainable entrepreneurship in the global economy. This paper presents and combined different approaches of scientists exploring the key success factors for sustainable entrepreneurship in the contemporary global economy.