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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of De Computis is the property of Asociacion Espanola de Contabilidad y Administracion de Empresas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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.

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of De Computis is the property of Asociacion Espanola de Contabilidad y Administracion de Empresas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper is focused on an interesting aspect of accounting education: based on the analysis of the syllabi of Economia Aziendale (EA) from all 65 Italian universities teaching economics or business administration, strong inconsistencies emerge among themselves and between syllabi and theory. The choice of the analysed subject is very relevant in Italian universities of Economics and Business Administration, since it represents a fundamental subject of the curricula and deeply impacts on financial accounting. EA is strongly related to the specific Italian approach to financial accounting compared with many other countries, and in particular with the 'Anglo-Saxon' and International Financial Reporting Standard system. Our findings are the following. First of all, the analysed syllabi are generally not fully consistent with the theory as it was stated at its origin, and how it is still considered today. In particular, the unitary approach of the discipline specifically stated as one of the main characteristics of this science is missing. One of the pillars of EA is, in this way, omitted or deleted. Our paper analyses the reasons of these inconsistencies and finds an important connection with these three elements: the career needs, the working constraints and the legal system of rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accounting scholars investigate the role of academia in the process of knowledge production, highlighting how paradigms may produce negative effects on knowledge innovations, nourish academic elites, and limit fruitful debates. The current article extends this debate by investigating the cultural isolation experienced by Italian accounting scholars during the twentieth century, when accounting academia supported and protected the Italian paradigm of Economia Aziendale. Drawing on a Foucauldian genealogy perspective, this story of Italian accounting studies demonstrates that isolation results from an interplay of broad paradigmatic content and a recruitment policy focused on professors aligned with this paradigm. The Foucauldian perspective helps interpret knowledge innovation, thus enriching the debate about knowledge production, paradigm innovation, and the role of elites in accounting research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates how Italian mutual credit cooperative banks, understood as ethical banks, conceive and implement the intention to contribute to the Common Good. The literature highlights that it is a complex task to identify what, in practical terms, the Common Good consists of for an entity. Hence, we refer to a Common Good-driven theory, namely, Economia Aziendale, that has the potential to overcome the above-cited lack of practical application, thus strengthening the Common Good theory's ability to provide an appreciable framework for CSR and ethics studies. Economia Aziendale is used as a lens to analyse the case of the Banca di Credito Cooperativo di Napoli. The study provides a detailed picture of the values, activities and practices of the bank contributing to the achievement of the Common Good for the local community of Naples. The findings are of relevance for the international debate on ethics in finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing global economic and financial crisis has exposed the risks of considering market and business organizations only as instruments for creating economic wealth while paying little heed to their role in ethics and values. Catholic Social Teaching (CST) could provide a useful contribution in rethinking the role of values in business organizations and markets because CST puts forward an anthropological view that involves thinking of the marketplace as a community of persons with the aim of participating in the Common Good (CG) of society. In the light of the CST tradition, and in particular Caritas in Veritate, this article investigates the thinking of some of the historical scholars of the Italian Economia Aziendale ( EA), by focusing on the concept of azienda, in order to reinterpret in a more humanistic way the role of business organizations in society. By linking CST and EA, the dichotomy between for-profit and not-for-profit organizations and the stereotype of the so-called business amorality that has, for a long time, driven business managers can be transcended. The conclusions imply a forward-looking application of the ethical concepts embedded in the Italian science of EA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the development of Economia Aziendale as a peculiar Italian theoretical construct, arguing that the current model — at least since Zappa’s ideas of 1927 — is not compatible with Italian practice, nor with the largely successful efforts of the legal profession to stifle government attempts to increase flexibility and relevance. More precisely, two key research questions are addressed. First, is the strong theoretical tradition of Economia Aziendale consistent with the prevalent adoption of the historical cost principle in Italian financial accounting in the twentieth century? Second, how has the historical cost principle achieved this prevalence? We show that the theoretical tradition is clearly inconsistent with the prevalence of the historical cost principle, and provide a coherent rationale explaining this outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

At first glance the Italian accounting tradition of Economia Aziendale and Chambers’ system of Continuously Contemporary Accounting (CoCoA) appear extreme opposites. The ex ante financial calculation of distributable income drawing on the net present values of the aggregative net assets in the former, and in the latter a system of accounting for an all-inclusive income with the separable assets measured in terms of their current cash equivalents, appear irreconcilable, unlikely bedfellows. But the International Financial Reporting Standards present a system using separable and aggregative assets’ fair values and calculations of their net present values in assessing asset impairment. Whether Economia Aziendale and CoCoA are indeed so opposed deserves renewed examination. Anglo-American accounting, of which expositions of CoCoA are part, is said to lack a business economics tradition of the kind said to justify Economia Aziendale. This stands in stark contrast with European traditions manifested in the Dutch Bedrijfseconomie, the German Betriebswirtschaft, and the Italian Economia Aziendale. This article seeks to understand that absence by contrasting—the Economia Aziendale framework and accounting theory developed in the Anglo-American tradition. The primary elements of space and time coordination—the lynchpins of the pure theory of the azienda (the core of Economia Aziendale)—are generally regarded as missing in the Anglo-American tradition. But the original construction of Economia Aziendale leads to the generalization that any attempt to determine a firm's value or to measure and analyse its performance during its lifetime would result in an unacceptable interruption of the space and time coordination, and yield unreliable results. Curiously, the analysis here exposes an unexpected complementarity of Chambers’ CoCoA and some postulates of the pure theory of Economia Aziendale. The theory that has been only partially acceptable to the Anglo-American profession (namely its use of market [fair] values) emerges as highly compatible with the most theoretically extreme in the Italian tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]