Elena Giovannoni

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.

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.

What Is Sustainability? A Review of the Concept and Its Applications

Whereas the concept of sustainability is broadly acknowledged as being multidimensional, its various dimensions have brought to light different discourses over time and have often been treated separately. In some cases, this separation has limited the actual implementation of sustainability to its mere rhetoric. By relying upon a review of the relevant literature which addresses the notion of sustainability (or of sustainable development), the present chapter aims to explore this notion by identifying its key dimensions and the intertwining relationships between them. In so doing, the challenges and opportunities brought out by an integrated approach towards sustainability are also emphasised, together with the role played by governance structures, business models, management, measurement and reporting systems in implementing ‘integrated sustainability’ within organizations. In this context, the contribution of integrated reporting is explored.

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

Moving from regional to international publishing in accounting history: Pressures, issues, strategies and implications:

As an extension of the Panel session held at the seventh Accounting History International Conference (7AHIC) in Seville in September 2013, the pressures, issues, strategies and implications of the movement from regional to international in terms of publishing in accounting history are presented. These dimensions are analysed from the point of view of four European countries: France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Although these four countries have languages well disseminated around the globe, and/or possess a long history and tradition of discoveries and were strong players in commercial trade for centuries, academic publishing internationally is dominated by Anglo-Saxon countries and journals. Therefore, English is the main language and different challenges and hindrances are faced by researchers whose native language is other than English. More than arguing for a radical move from the regional to the international, a call is made for a more cooperative environment within international accounting history research which takes into account the cultural differences and embraces those differences.

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.

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.

Report: The first Accounting History International Emerging Scholars’ Colloquium

The first Accounting History International Emerging Scholars’ Colloquium (1AHIESC) was hosted by the University of Siena, Italy during 15–17 July 2009. The event was held at Certosa di Pontignano, a landmark and prestigious venue on the outskirts of Siena. Built as a monastery in 1341, Certosa currently houses the Conference Centre of the University of Siena. With its historical significance, the Certosa proved to be an ideal setting to host the inaugural AHIESC, an international forum designed for emerging scholars of all ages and career stages – including doctoral degree students, new faculty and other emerging accounting researchers – who have an interest in accounting’s past and present and who seek directions and guidance in embarking upon and undertaking specific historical accounting research projects. The forum was organized by Angelo Riccaboni and Elena Giovannoni, both of the University of Siena, and it was strongly supported and promoted by the joint editors of Accounting History, Garry Carnegie and Brian West. The faculty members in charge of providing directions to the delegates of the Colloquium are all members of the Accounting History editorial team and comprised: Angelo Riccaboni, University of Siena, Italy; Nola Buhr, University of Saskatchewan, Canada; Christopher Napier, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK; Lúcia Lima Rodrigues, University of Minho, Portugal; Elena Giovannoni, University of Siena, Italy (Colloquium Convenor and president of the panel) as well as Garry

The materiality of absence: Organizing and the case of the incomplete cathedral

This study explores the role of absences in making organizing possible. By engaging with Lefebvre’s spatial triad as the interconnections between conceived (planned), perceived (experienced through practice) and lived (felt and imagined) spaces, we challenge the so-called metaphysics of presence in organization studies. We draw on the insights offered by the project of construction of Siena Cathedral during the period 1259–1357 and we examine how it provided a space for the actors involved to explore their different (civic, architectural and religious) intentions. We show that, as the contested conceived spaces of the cathedral were connected to architectural practices, religious powers and civic symbols, they revealed the impossibility for these intentions to be fully represented. It was this impossibility that provoked an ongoing search for solutions and guaranteed a combination of dynamism and persistence of both the material architecture of the cathedral and the project of construction. The case of Siena Cathedral therefore highlights the role of absence in producing organizing effects not because absence eventually takes form but because of the impossibility to fully represent it.