Italian accounting history studies in international journals: Insights and possible future directions

Abstract

Italian accounting history studies have greatly contributed to the international academic debate, thanks both to their scientific quality and to the rich presence in Italy of archives and historical artifacts. This article analyses the growth of the scientific contributions of Italian scholars in international journals, providing insights into future research directions. The study adopts a bibliometric analysis based on the similarity visualisation technique. 145 articles published between 1993 and 2022 are analysed using the VOSviewer software. The findings of the study show a growing number of publications in international journals by Italian scholars, particularly from 2017 (72 articles). The findings also reveal the existence of four main thematic clusters:governmentality, accounting and accountability practices, power and accounting, and cost accounting and institutional theory. Hence, the article aims to map, systematise and deepen these contributions in such a way as to identify the most important research fields, providing insights into the most recent developments of Italian accounting history studies.