Angelo Riccaboni

Transmitting Knowledge Across Generations: The Role of Management Accounting Practices

This article aims to shed light on the distinguishing features of management accounting in family firms in relation to processes of professionalization and succession. The study combines insights offered by the debate on family businesses and management accounting with the empirical findings of a longitudinal case study (Monnalisa). By exploring the evolution of management accounting practices within the company and the processes of succession and professionalization, this article shows that management accounting can affect the transfer of knowledge across generations and between the owner family and the management team, thus representing and reproducing the priorities, values, and vision of the entrepreneur.

Implementing strategies through management control systems: the case of sustainability

Purpose – This paper aims to explore if and how management control sysems (MCS) have a role in implementing sustainable strategies. In particular, the paper aims to investigate how MCS work in order to translate these strategies into action and how they should be modified when a strategic change in a sustainable direction occurs.Design/methodology/approach – The research relies upon a deeply conducted case study, drawing evidence from documentary research and field research.Findings – Relying upon the case of Procter & Gamble (P&G), the paper finds that integration with the traditional planning and monitoring systems, combination of both formal and informal controls, coordination across business units and decentralized structures are key‐factors for successful implementation of sustainability‐oriented strategies.Originality/value – From a theoretical point of view, it has been observed that research in the field of social and environmental accounting has been mainly focused on social and environmental rep...

Stability to profitability: managing interdependencies to meet a new environment

Abstract Management control systems represent what is believed to be an important element in managing internal and external interdependencies. The case study we present in this paper is an attempt to provide additional information contributing to the understanding of the influences on and the roles of management control systems in managing interdependencies. The management control systems were used to deal with changes in the internal and external interdependencies in the domains of strategy and structure of the organization, the organizational field, and the state. The role of the Chief Executive Officer was a key element in both defining the internal and external interdependencies and the employment of the management control systems.

Accounting and power: evidence from the fourteenth century

During the past few years research on cultural, behavioural and social aspects of organizational activities and interactions have proliferated considerably in the accounting literature, thereby emphasizing the role played by accounting practices in shaping and/or balancing power relations in modern organizations. A relevant contribution to understanding the origins of the power of accounting can be found in accounting history. The present article examines a fourteenth-century case, that of the Opera della Metropolitana di Siena, an institution in charge of the construction and maintenance of the cathedral of the city of Siena, Italy, to explore the potential role played by accounting systems in influencing power relations. By analysing institutional and organizational change as well as the evolution of accounting practices within theOpera, this article shows that, since the medieval age, accounting data has played an important role not only in recording operational activities but also in managing power relationships.

Editorial: A general overview of perspectives and reflections on accounting’s past in Europe:

This editorial aims to portray the background to and motivations for this special issue on the theme “Perspectives and reflections on accounting’s past in Europe”. While the articles in this issue will focus on different specific country topics, this editorial offers a general outline of the international dimension of European research on accounting history, by analysing the publication patterns in specialist international (English language-based) journals. Whereas the analysis confirms the dominant role of contributions from Anglo-Saxon scholars, the number of articles from other European countries is growing. This trend is partly related to the stimuli provided by special issues on country themes as well as by the vivid debates, proliferating in the last decade, on the publication outlets of European accounting historians. The European setting is characterized by a complex mix of cultures, languages and research traditions. Whereas national research in accounting history is proliferating rapidly in various local contexts and in different languages, this variety has not received sufficient attention within the international debate. In this respect, various articles and commentaries have emphasized the need to encourage European scholars in accounting history, whose first language is other than English, to contribute to the specialist English language-based international journals, as

Regulating Accounting Within the Political and Legal System

This chapter provides an analysis of the process of accounting regulation in Italy, where corporate governance is greatly influenced by a legislature operating in its traditional interventionist form. The rules governing accounting in Italy are the product of the wider political system, rather than of a specialized institution charged with the task of overseeing accounting developments.

The Role of Roles in Risk Management Change: The Case of an Italian Bank

Abstract This paper explores the role of roles (i.e. groups of actors characterised by the same functional tasks within an organisation), and of their interactions, within processes of change in risk management (RM). By combining insights from the literature on RM and from institutional studies, this paper suggests that change in RM can be interpreted as a process that involves both enabling and precipitating dynamics [Greenwood, R., & Hinings, C. R. (1996). Understanding radical organizational change: Bringing together the old and the new institutionalism. The Academy of Management Review, 21, 1022–1054. doi:10.5465/AMR.1996.9704071862] between different roles. Aiming to address these dynamics empirically, we rely on a longitudinal case study of an Italian bank. The study shows that the interactions between roles were dependent on their respective specific interests, the different institutional templates they supported, and the shifts in power for control over relevant information. These dynamics both affected and were affected by the change in the template-in-use within the bank and allowed a sort of RM ideal (i.e. the search for more RM) to persist over evolving templates.

Towards Integrated Reporting: Concepts, Elements and Principles

Integrated Reporting is a process that results in communicating—through the annual integrated report—value creation over time. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the idea and the logic underpinning Integrated Reporting, shed light on the reasons that enabled the debate on Integrated Reporting to gain relevance over the recent years, and illustrate the features of the Consultation Draft released by the International Integrated Reporting Council on April 2013. In doing so, we focus our attention on a brief review of the fundamental concepts, content elements and guiding principles proposed within the Consultation Draft. We end the chapter with some reflections on the challenges ahead for Integrated Reporting, and on the potential impact of its adoption on the role of the management accounting function.

Sustaining multiple logics within hybrid organisations: Accounting, mediation and the search for innovation

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore how accounting and control practices contribute to the persistence of the multiple logics that characterise hybrid organizations, i.e. organizations that constantly incorporate elements from different institutional logics at the very core of their identity. Design/methodology/approach - The authors draw on the literature regarding institutional logics and on studies exploring the enabling power of accounting to interpret the findings derived from a longitudinal case study of a hybrid organization operating in the field of brain-computer interface technology. Findings - The study shows that the persistence of conflicting logics and innovation within hybrid organizations can be sustained through the mediating role of accounting and control practices. By engaging different interested parties within processes of innovation, these practices can establish complex interconnections between conflicting perspectives and their objects of concern. Consequently, accounting and control do not address a specific logic but instead contribute to lock different parties to their own logic, allowing them to engage and generate innovation while maintaining their diversity. Originality/value - Whereas previous studies have explored mechanisms for keeping the multiple logics of hybrids separate or for reconciling them, the paper shows that conflicts between these logics do not need to be reduced but can be mediated to generate innovation. Additionally, the authors contribute to the literature on accounting “in action”, by illustrating the role of accounting and control practices as boundary objects that act within a broader “ecology of objects” through which innovation materializes in a context of enduring institutional pluralism.

Performance Measurement Systems and Organisational Culture: Interpreting Processes of Unlearning and Change

This paper explores the intertwined relationship between performance measurement systems and organisational culture. With the aim of interpreting how they evolve across time and space, we intend to understand the way in which systems of measurement and accountability contribute to the ongoing creation and re-definition of organizational culture. Intepreted as a set of rules (the formalised statements of procedures), roles (the network of social positions) and routines (the practices habitually in use), the papers relies on Schein’s work on organisational culture and Giddens structuration theory to portray management accounting systems as socially constructed and institutionalised practices involved in the production and reproduction of organisational order. On this respect, the insights from an explanatory case study will inform the discussion on the role of accounting practices within evolutionary vs. revolutionary processes of unlearning and change, as well as their cognitive vs. behavioural implications.