The Role of Stakeholders in Accounting of Private Patrimonies The Management Of The Osuna Ducal Estate (1590-1633)

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to test the validity of the stakeholder approach in a historical context (16th and 17th century), very different to the one in which the theory was originally developed and has normally been used. For this purpose, the paper deals with management in the Osuna Ducal Estate at the end of the 16th century and beginning of the 17th century. In that period, the Ducal Estate reached such a high level of indebtedness that creditors could not even collect the interest on their loans. This led them to lodge a complaint with the Crown and consequently, as of 1590, the Ducal Estate patrimony was seized by the Government. Since the changes that occurred in the ODE patrimony were promoted by creditors and the Crown, the stakeholder approach has been applied to analyse the case. We can conclude that stakeholder approach is sufficiently able to explain the changes that took place in the management of the Osuna Ducal Estate in the 16th and 17th century and, mainly, the role of accounting in these changes.Accounting History, Stakeholder Approach, Aristocratic Accounting, 16th and 17th century