Economia Aziendale Research Articles

Environment, Ethics, and Entity Economics, Economia Aziendale. Historical and Ontological Aspects

The paper stresses the failure of ‘economics’ to predict and prevent repeated economic crises and the most critical topic of the environmental failure and ecological crises, founded also on economic theories and misconceived choices. The implication is a search for alternatives through an ontological-evolutionary-institutional approach and empirical investigations.
 The search for political ‘normative economics’, entity economics, accounting and information science copes with social and ecological-environmental problems, and systems science; it is necessary to keep always in mind these interactions for fully understand and correctly interpret the present ‘social-economic reality’.
 The problem concerning environmental decisions goes beyond ontology and belongs to ethics. It must underline the debates on ‘evolutionary ethics’, not only related with ‘environmental and ecological economics’, the management of environment and reporting, but also with ‘evolutionary ontology’; the new perspective affirms that ‘existence’, for instance, of a moral behavioral attitude, can reveal itself as a ‘norm’ thus relating ethics to ontology.
 General economists, entity economics theorists, as well as accountants and information scientists should be familiar with the potentials and limits of ‘ontology’, also for the ongoing expansion of computerization of scientific research in most of the scientific domains. The renewed interest, particularly in ontology, arouse specifically from systems scientists in constructing a wide variety of artificial intelligent systems. For its analysis, the study has been structured into two periods of time: until the middle of the 20th century and from that moment on. The paper ends by showing the new developments in information systems and their ontological approach

‘Going concern’ assumption and ‘liquidation’ assumption. The contribution of economia aziendale in historical perspective

The focus of the paper is on the income orientation (versus capital orientation) that proved to be particularly relevant in Italy during the last one hundred years in conjunction with the monetary equilibrium, an axiom of economia aziendale which helps, still nowadays in times of transmodating dynamics, to face and solve many problems, included ‘on going’ and ‘abandon’ decisions.
 Furthermore, the aim of research is to draw attention to the large Italian literature, often internationally unknown, hoping it can contribute to the knowledge of accounting history in different Countries and cultures.
 Throughout one hundred years of economia aziendale it has not been possible to split various periods in which more emphasis is on the assumption of ‘going concern’ or on the assumption of ‘liquidation’, because the different Authors refer systematically and continuously to both hypotheses in a joint economic connection.
 The ‘going concern’ hypothesis is referred to every ‘economic unit’, azienda in Italian literature. The contemporary overall crisis involves accounting statutory regulations and standard setters, debating prospective conditions of concern continuity, which is the economic, financial, monetary, patrimonial and general synergic equilibrium, as well as the connected social, political, anthropological, environmental, sustainability aspects.
 The accent is on income flows magnitudes in order to ‘on going’ or ‘wave’ decision. In this way, also ‘money and credit’ dynamics is interpreted in the aspects of income production, the maintaining of ‘monetary equilibrium’, and the control of capital structure. In this regard the income concept, in different configurations, is a fundamental unavoidable construction, especially economic income, which tends to move the determination to decisions and implementing actions, also in most adverse situations, considering in the decision process all the variables which explicitly reflect the azienda, concern, in its unitary, dynamic, continuum system.
 Hence, the constant control over ‘production conditions’ and also ‘monetary equilibrium’, whose maintenance is through both suitable characteristic production operations and by appropriate financial-monetary operations as well.

CSR Education in Economia Aziendale Curricula: An Overview

In the last few years, policymakers have underlined the need for new soft and hard skills about corporate social responsibility (CSR). The main debate about CSR education has been driven by the 2030 Agenda, which explicitly recognized Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as having a pivotal role. In particular, many academics started to develop qualitative and quantitative studies to evaluate the integration of CSR contents in business schools’ curricula. The paper aims to contribute to the existing debate through the analysis of the contribution provided by Italian HEIs to CSR Education. In particular, we adopted qualitative methods to evaluate the specific contribution provided by Economia Aziendale scholars.

Faust, the burst forth the career and publication ethics

In my opinion, it is rewarding for all of us to observe how our community of Italian management scholars has significantly evolved in recent years. Breaking free from the academic logic that ruled in the past, we have set up SIMA, our own representative and democratically elected scientific society of Italian management scholars; we have identified the values in which we recognize ourselves: openness, rigour, relevance, dissemination, ethics; we have nurtured a new organizational culture devoted to participation and service for the benefit of the scientific community; we have contributed, in a decisive manner, to configuring the newly expanded governance design of scientific societies in Italy dealing with accounting, management and organization studies. In this redesigning process, the AIDEA (Italian Academy of Economia Aziendale) was given a new role as the official representative with the responsibility of relating with institutions, professional bodies, and policymakers. Within the institutional context, among other achievements, we have attained the formal recognition of the non-bibliometric nature of our discipline and the establishment of a dedicated organizational framework (GEV 13B) for the evaluation of research in the field of business studies.... to be continued

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Economic income, historical costing income and conservatism

The paper intends to contribute at the debate on the ‘Evolutionary Advantage of Cost Accounting and Conservatism’ (Accounting, Economics and Law: A Convivium, 2019. 9. issue), founded on Braun’s study (2016) about The Ecological Rationality of Historical Costs and Conservatism. Moving from the IASB Conceptual Framework (2013) it stresses the renewed interest in income concept. The economic financial crisis of 2008-9 stimulated discussions between the traditional ‘received view’ of ‘cost-revenue approach’ (historical cost accounting) and ‘balance-sheet approach’ (‘current values’ and ‘present values’, that is ‘economic values’). Revaluations of assets, liabilities and owners’ equities are consistent with the cost-revenue model as well as the discounting future income flows in order to reach sustainable economic income magnitudes and sustainable economic capital values.
 The whole function of the information system is related to decision-making and control: the ‘accountability concept’ is crucial in this regard and is part of the process for predicting future ‘economic financial situations’. Certainly historical cost is relevant part of accountability valuation; the future economic results can be better predicted by a long past segment of outcomes from all the entity activity, ‘operating incomes’ and ‘capital gains and losses’. These principles drive in the direction of historical costing (and conservatism) integrated, through ‘revaluations’, with other different methodologies, typically ‘current values’ and ‘present values’, in a unitary systematic comprehensive framework, according to economia aziendale (entity economics) school of thought.

List of Reviewers - 2019

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Epistemological aspects of the economic control

Epistemology is essential for probing the fundamental issues of the management sciences, included the ‘economic control process’. The paper aims to highlight the connections between economia aziendale, the typical Italian research program, as well as the traditional research programs of Continental European Countries, with a theoretical reconstruction founded also on modern epistemological issues. One fundamental question, for instance, is about the ‘true’ information or knowledge conveyed by a financial statement, taking into account that economia aziendale, the general system, was conceived as consisting of interrelated sub-systems of management, organization and data gathering for planning and control. The ‘economic control’, both antecedent, concomitant and subsequent, refers to the azienda, the economic entity, that is to every kind of economic unit, not only to the business enterprise.The ‘economic control’ is concerned with social responsibility, ethical conduct, as well as with ‘evidence’, ‘proof’, opinions and judgments. The credibility of a hypothesis depends on the associated evidence, so it is not independent from the strength of the entire argument, ‘evidence plus hypothesis’. The ‘degree of confidence’ implies probability, specifically the bayesian approach for modifying early prior valuations in the light of further information, obtaining revised posterior probabilities. The essential requirement of a proof is that it is ‘psychologically satisfying’; the problem of the controller’s independence stresses the controlling ethical standards. The code of ethics and rules of conduct should serve to identify responsibilities and aims involved – greater accountability through better information about ends and means – and to underline the need for a theoretical foundation about ethics of accounting and economic controlling. Of particular interest is the dichotomy ‘subjective-objective’ related also to economic reality, every kind of reality, included physical as well as cultural ones. This brings directly in the field of accounting and ‘entity economics’ metaphors. The economic controlling process is tightly connected to interpersonal analogy and to the ‘social agreement approach’ to ‘objectivity’ and scientific methodology. There is often no possible control through ‘correspondence’ with definite aspects of reality, economic-financial events themselves. System theorists employ many concepts that correspond to ‘independent reality’ only through ‘indicator hypotheses’ such as ‘business income’ magnitude, the best proxy of the economic efficiency of the ‘business entity’.

Reporting Comprehensive Income: The Incoherencies of the IASB System and the Possible Contribution of Economia Aziendale

This paper acknowledges the strong debate on the incoherencies affecting the IASB system, which to date is still inconclusive in the examination of such conceptual weaknesses. We move from this awareness and focus on the debate on income presentation to detect the incoherencies of the IASB accounting system through consideration of specific example IFRSs, on the grounds that the Conceptual framework (CF) and IFRSs, considered together as a set, should all be coherent with each other. We propose a possible pathway to improve such conditions thanks to the concepts and principles of coherent accounting theory, the Italian Economia Aziendale. The paper presents the above-cited incoherencies and proposes areas of improvement and intervention, by showing the possible contribution of the Economia Aziendale theory in aligning standards and superseding incoherence, relying on the two key principles of unitary view and durability. The study extends previous debates, overcoming the lacunae deriving from the well-acknowledged strong emphasis on accounting practice which has long been at the basis of the standard setters in general and the IASB in particular. This is not only relevant for academics, but has importance for preparers, investors, and regulators.

List of Reviewers - 2018

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The prudence principle and Economia Aziendale : A contribution towards resolving the IASB’s vacillations

Cet article cherche à expliquer les raisons d’une double application de la prudence dans le management et dans la comptabilité à partir d’une histoire de ses significations dans l’ economia aziendale depuis le milieu du XIX e siècle. L’article montre que, dans le cadre théorique italien, le principe de prudence s’est développé de manière à proposer des critères permettant de répondre aux évolutions des besoins économiques des firmes dans un contexte de transformations, tout en répondant aux besoins des différentes parties prenantes. L’analyse suggère qu’une mise en avant de la prudence en comptabilité est une condition nécessaire mais pas suffisante pour parvenir à atteindre les objectifs d’un reporting financier global. Une attention particulière doit être portée à la double application de la prudence dans la comptabilité et dans le management pour s’assurer que l’activité est menée dans les intérêts de la firme et de l’ensemble de ses parties prenantes.

Corporate social responsibility in Economia Aziendale scholars’ theories

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an analytical overview of the academic output of eminent Italian scholars in the period from the end of the Second World War to the 1970s on the subject of corporate social responsibility (CSR).Design/methodology/approachThrough the use of content analysis, possible logical and conceptual similarities between the theories of the scholars and present-day definition of CSR have been identified.FindingsConcepts as ethical values and stakeholders included in definition of CSR come from the thinking of the Italian Economia Aziendale scholars, so that it is possible to get pioneering aspects in the light of the international debate on CSR today.Originality/valueThe originality of this paper derives from the fact that the theme of CSR has rarely been examined from a historical point of view and that the development of the theme in Italy has rarely been examined through analysis of the ideas of the leading Italian Economia Aziendale Scholars.

Linking Financial Statement Valuations to the Nature of Azienda: The Theorization by Egidio Giannessi

This paper focuses on the contribution given by Egidio Giannessi (1908-1982), the founder of the Pisa University’s business school, to Italian studies in Economia Aziendale. In order to better understand his scientific profile and highlight the novelty of his thought, we have set the scholar in the scientific school of which he was one of the most prominent members, the Tuscan School of Economia Aziendale. Our study has mainly looked at two fundamental contributions of his scientific production: the general theory of azienda and the theory of financial valuation, two strictly interrelated scientific constructs where, more specifically, the latter is a consequence of the former. In the authors’ opinion, it is exactly the originality of the conception of azienda formulated by Giannessi that helps understand his theory of financial valuation.

List of Reviewers - 2017

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A theoretical contribution to 21st Century problems in financial reporting

The Italian tradition known as ‘Economia Aziendale' is longstanding and well known in Italy. It broadly spans the 20th Century, with its apotheosis appearing in the 1920s with Gino Zappa. It is not very well-known elsewhere. Its logical conclusions for financial reporting are not applied in practice in Italy, and indeed never have been. They are not applied in the (very different) field of IFRS and European Directive requirements either. Our research question is to investigate the proposition that they significantly should be so applied. Our key area of study, therefore, is the complex and multi-faceted problem of income measurement and asset valuation, valuation issues in short. In order to properly investigate these considerations, we present a thorough survey of the theoretical development and arguments of the EA tradition, showing its logicality and usefulness, and contrasting these effects with the present-day regulatory systems. This forms the major theoretical element of the paper. In summary, therefore, the paper could be characterised as an analytical presentation of major theoretical arguments, with significant application to the real world of today and tomorrow. The EA tradition is not new. But we demonstrate its current relevance, and expose it to an international audience.

Ethical Firm System and Stakeholder Management Theories: A Possible Convergence

This paper presents a model for exploring the relationships between the stakeholder management theory (SMT) and the firm system theory (FST) which are interpreted from an ethical perspective. FST forms part of the Italian economia aziendale or business administration studies. The author proposes to include SMT in an ethical application of FST (EFST, ethical firm system theory), where ethical duties are considered to be strictly linked to the management of the firm system (mutatis mutandis, such as production, marketing, finance and so on). Such a metaphorical merger is useful for many purposes. In particular, this paper focuses on the use of EFST to tackle three important and critical ethical points of SMT (the dichotomy between economic success and ethics, stakeholder engagement and ethical responsibility and competition in a cooperative, but not corporatist context), without changing the essential nature of the managerial idea underlying SMT, but inserting it in EFST with mutual benefits for both approaches.

List of Reviewers - 2016

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Goodwill and value creation: insights from Italian pioneers

This paper aims to determine the contribution of Italian pioneers of 'Economia Aziendale' to the debate on goodwill. The relations between Italian pioneers' thoughts and modern concepts and practices in goodwill valuation, are analysed by an in-depth literature review of studies published between 1840 and 1940. We develop a comparative analysis of past theoretical approaches in order to, on one hand, investigate the relations with the current studies and practices and, on the other hand, build new insights for future studies. Our findings show that the studies of the Italian pioneers intertwine with international research. Italian pioneers contributed to the development of the knowledge on goodwill with farsighted thoughts about the relations among accounting, value creation and strategic valuations. Moreover, we found additional hidden suggestions on goodwill 'duration' and accounting, which should have relevant implications for future developments in studies, accounting standards and the professional valuations of acquisition value of this asset.

On the italian debate concerning “Economia Aziendale”. The recent discovery of a manuscript by Emilio Ravenna (1930)

The paper relies upon the recent discovery of the textbook of Accounting adopted in Palermo’s High Business School (the ‘ancestor’ of the Faculty of ‘Economics & Business’, founded after in 1936), just in its first years of opening (academic year 1930-31). It is a printed manuscript. This book was written by the local professor of Accounting, Emilio Ravenna, who operated in Sicily between the last decades of XIX century and the firstones of XX one, commonly considered (Guzzo, 2003) an intermediate scholar between the ‘Venetian’ (Besta) and ‘Tuscan’ (Cerboni) Italian Schools, adhering to the former for the accounting method and to the latter for the general theory of administrative functions, but here revealing more as belonging to the latter. The book is placed within a period of strong debate for the Italian community, after Zappa’s manifesto for the new science of “Economiaaziendale”, and also includes a full conception of Accounting as an open criticism to “Economia aziendale”. The interest for this discovery is due to the explicit answer to the defy launched at ‘Ca’ Foscari’ (University of Venice) by Gino Zappa. But the most relevant issue is that this answer does not come from the main ‘Venetian School’ of Besta disciples, then dominating in Italy, but from a true ‘survivor’ of the older ‘Tuscan School’, strictly follower of Giovanni Rossi work, and in those times already declined. It is noteworthy the fact Ravenna generally agrees with Zappa, confuting, however, only that his conceptions would be really new. The following paper, then, presenting the basic contents of the aforementioned book, with a peculiar stress on the doctrinal items concerning Accounting and “Economia aziendale”, reveals a continuity, perhaps overestimated by Ravenna,between the late XIX-century ‘Scientific Accounting’ by Cerboni and the early XX-century “Economia aziendale” by Zappa.

Accounting Theory and Accounting Practice as Loosely Coupled Systems: A Historical Perspective on the Italian Case (1930-1990)

Despite its crucial role for a practically oriented discipline such as accounting, the relationship between theory and practice in this domain appears to be relatively unexplored, and even more so it is in comparative terms. Adopting a longitudinal approach, the paper aims to investigate this relationship referring to the Italian experience in the period 1930-1990, which is set against the background of a well-known interpretation of the theory-practice interplay proposed for the USA, i.e. the market for excuses model (Watts and Zimmerman, 1979). In the Italian environment, the relationship between accounting theory and accounting practice shows contents and trajectories which are rather dissimilar from those implied by positive researchers with reference to the American context. In particular, it emerges that in Italy accounting theory, that has an inherent ex ante nature and is encapsulated into a wider institutionally-veined body of knowledge called ‘economia aziendale’, has been in the main detached from practice and operational needs. Thus, Italian theory and practice could be fruitfully described as two loosely coupled systems with occasional and unintended intersections, each of which has its own internal logics and its own demand-supply dynamics. In this respect, the Watts and Zimmerman’s model denotes a limited explanatory power when applied to contexts - such as the Italian one - presenting socio-economic features, as well as a theoretical tradition, which are distinctively different from the USA.