Writing accounting and management history. Insights from unorthodox music historiography

Few disciplines are probably more different than music and accounting. Nonetheless possible suggestions about historiography in accounting and management can be drawn from an innovative textbook on the history of music [Favaro and Pestalozza, 1999]. This is a rather unusual music history textbook. It has several distinguishing features which raise issues about: histories of the present, history and theory making, a non-linear sense of history, a social history of music, a pluralist view of genres, and a multi-geographical emphasis. These features have interesting parallels with accounting history and historiography

Micro foundations in the Great Divergence debate: opening up a new perspective

Prevailing approaches in historical studies adopt a macro view and place an overwhelming emphasis on the Industrial Revolution as a major discontinuity in Western development. On the contrary, recent research in accounting, management and business history has suggested a different direction. When opting for a micro-level focus, crucial discontinuities in management and accounting in the West can be traced back to the Renaissance Period. The paper thus searches for ‘micro foundations’ in managing and accounting practices to address the on-going debate on the East-West divergence. Despite the obvious problems with source availability, we outline a new research agenda for the debate

The Chinese accounting profession in the People’s Republic: A preliminary understanding from an oral history perspective

While oral history still has a marginal role in accounting literature in general, it has not been applied at all in relation to the history of Chinese accounting. Within broader research on accounting change in China, this paper uses oral history to investigate patterns of the career of accountants in China. We interviewed 21 retired accountants, aging from 60 to 90 at the time of the interview, asking them to share their professional experience in open and unstructured talk. We reconstruct individual experiences, which provides insights into the working lives of our interviewees. Unlike previous studies that only focus on influential informants, we investigate Chinese accounting changes as they emerge from the collective memory of everyday accountants. Taking a pluralist perspective, we collect non-archival data to illustrate the education and common elements in accounting career development. Our approach takes a ‘view from below’, underlining the limitations of top-down perspectives in most of the literature on accounting change in China. The findings contribute to our understanding of accounting changes in China and their social and economic impacts on the profession while providing interesting implications for oral history in accounting in general

Threatening Venice and its Lagoon: The effect of international policies on management sustainability and heritage preservation

Art cities have been under scrutiny in the last decades, presenting phenomenon of over tourism with major impacts on livability. The case of Venice is particularly complex, presenting critical environmental conditions that threaten its survival. In 2016 UNESCO started a procedure to put Venice in the list of sites in danger, questioning to a large extent urban policies, and asking for enhanced preservation measures. This started a round of discussion with the State Party, mainly at the formal level. The purpose of this research is to review the case under the lens of value tensions between stakeholders. Reports, states of conservation and decisions produced are analyzed, applying a qualitative discourse analysis. The case study of Venice depicts the contradiction between vested interests that lie behind values, and the pivotal issue of the sustainability of the site. This research focuses on conflicts inside institutional actors, raised between the technical and the political level

The Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence: excellence in spite of mediocrity

The Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence (Masonry Workshop) is of ancient lineage, dating back to the Botteghe Granducali set up in 1588 by the Medici Grand Duke Ferdinand I. In the 1880's, after the Unification of Italy, it was turned into a restoration workshop (a discipline, at that time, just emerging), specializing at first in stone materials, then eventually becoming a state institute. After the 1966 flood in Florence, when most of the masterpieces stored in museums, libraries and churches were damaged, the Opificio played a fundamental role organizing around a single institution most of the Florentine laboratories active in restoring the artistic works and other complementary competencies. Facing the emergence was an extraordinary learning opportunity for the Opificio and this experience deeply marked the subsequent evolution of this organization. Given the uniqueness of the damage and the huge amount of work that had to be done without delays, tradition and experimentation were mixed together by taking advantage of both craftsmanship skills in art restoration and complementary scientific competencies. Our study investigates the historical development of the Opificio with regard to the evolution of the institutional environment under a strategic change perspective. The inconsistency between the nature of its "task" and the set of inflexible rules deriving from the institutional setting (i.e. a branch of the Ministry) is one of the most critical issues characterizing this organization. Because a large part of technical and organizational capabilities are context dependent and expressed in a tacit form, it is critical to analyze the everyday activity in an extensive way and rely our conclusions on direct observations. On the one hand, art restoration is supposed to be strongly based on tradition and experience; on the other hand, each project is unique and different from the previous one and it rises new problems and it leaves room for innovation and experimentation. What is striking about the Opificio is such a contradiction between its excellence in core competencies (art restoration) and the daily struggle with procedures and constraints posed by the administrative life. Making sense of organizational survival rises some intriguing issues in the interplay between processes at different levels. Looking at the micro processes that we observed in the everyday activity suggests to explore different interpretations of the coupling between superior reputation and administrative mediocrity that we provide and compare in the paper

Managing Change and Master Plans: Machu Picchu Between Conservation and Exploitation

Machu Picchu is among the world\u2019s most controversial heritage sites. It represents a case where raising money through ticket sales and other activities, rather than an opportunity to fund site preservation, in fact constitutes a major threat to the survival of the site through overexploitation. Unesco has been very critical in recent decades about the management of Machu Picchu. International pressure resulted in the establishment of two master plans, in 1998 and in 2005. In this paper we investigate in depth the contents and rhetoric of the two plans, comparing changes in the two different versions, and linking the change in planning attitude to actual changes taking place in the site. This is also an opportunity to open a discussion on the interdisciplinarity of master plans in heritage sites

Behind the scenes of public funding for performing arts in Italy: hidden phenomena beyond the rhetoric of legislation

This paper focuses on how Italian performing arts organizations were funded between 2003 and 2005. How does policy regulate the financing system for performing arts? What are the underlying logics that govern financing choices? In this paper the authors move beyond the simple examination of formal policies by analysing the funding data and organizational routines of the ministerial offices responsible for the allocation of grants. The authors implemented a multi-method research methodology consisting of document analysis, in-depth interviews, and quantitative analysis of funding data. The main findings can be summarized as follows. First, funds are continuously allocated to the same group of organizations. Second, although rigid, the system is imbued by a 'rhetoric of the project'. Third, the system does not reward innovation. In conclusion, only by studying how the law is actually implemented can one capture the choices that underlie financing actions, and thus unravel unanticipated outcomes and inconsistencies between rhetoric and conduct

Change and continuity in managerialism: 100 years of administrative history at the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza

This paper offers a long-term perspective on the debate on managerial transformations in the public sector: how public sector organisations actually arrived at such changes, what processes, discourses and practices are transformed and how. This is investigated through archival research and a longitudinal analysis of 100 years of the administrative history of an Italian museum. Taking a historical perspective allows us to account for organisational changes that occurred over time, including major reforms in the governance structure and the dynamics of some core managerial features. Such an approach enables a more in-depth, empirically grounded and historically aware discussion on the so-called rise of managerial issues in the public secto

Impact of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on short-term outcome in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction during COVID-19 pandemic: insights from the international multicenter ISACS-STEMI registry

Background Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is projected to become the third cause of mortality worldwide. COPD shares several pathophysiological mechanisms with cardiovascular disease, especially atherosclerosis. However, no definite answers are available on the prognostic role of COPD in the setting of ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), especially during COVID-19 pandemic, among patients undergoing primary angioplasty, that is therefore the aim of the current study. Methods In the ISACS-STEMI COVID-19 registry we included retrospectively patients with STEMI treated with primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) between March and June of 2019 and 2020 from 109 high-volume primary PCI centers in 4 continents. Results A total of 15,686 patients were included in this analysis. Of them, 810 (5.2%) subjects had a COPD diagnosis. They were more often elderly and with a more pronounced cardiovascular risk profile. No preminent procedural dissimilarities were noticed except for a lower proportion of dual antiplatelet therapy at discharge among COPD patients (98.9% vs. 98.1%, P = 0.038). With regards to short-term fatal outcomes, both in-hospital and 30-days mortality occurred more frequently among COPD patients, similarly in pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 era. However, after adjustment for main baseline differences, COPD did not result as independent predictor for in-hospital death (adjusted OR [95% CI] = 0.913[0.658-1.266], P = 0.585) nor for 30-days mortality (adjusted OR [95% CI] = 0.850 [0.620-1.164], P = 0.310). No significant differences were detected in terms of SARS-CoV-2 positivity between the two groups. Conclusion This is one of the largest studies investigating characteristics and outcome of COPD patients with STEMI undergoing primary angioplasty, especially during COVID pandemic. COPD was associated with significantly higher rates of in-hospital and 30-days mortality. However, this association disappeared after adjustment for baseline characteristics. Furthermore, COPD did not significantly affect SARS-CoV-2 positivity. Trial registration number: NCT 04412655 (2nd June 2020)