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The purpose of this paper is to identify the significant role of accounting in the expropriation of Jewish real estate after the enforcement of race laws under Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime in Italy.

Hannah Arendt’s understanding of government bureaucracy in the twentieth century totalitarian regimes informs the research which draws upon a wide range of primary sources.

Implementation of the program of expropriation was the responsibility of a government body, EGELI, which was created specifically for this purpose. The language of accounting provided the means to disguise the nature and brutality of the process and allow bureaucrats to be removed from the consequences of their actions. Accounting reports from EGELI to the Ministry of Finance confirmed each year that those who worked in EGELI were devoted to its mission as an agency of the Fascist State.

The findings of this study recognize the need for further research on the role played by servicemen, bureaucrats and accounting as a technology of government in the deportation of Italian Jews to Germany. The study also provides impetus to examine how other countries managed the properties confiscated or expropriated from the Jews in the earlier stages of the Final Solution.

The study is the first to identify the significant role played by accounting and accountants in the persecution of Italian Jews under the Fascism.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role played by accounting in managing an early nineteenth century lunatic asylum in Palermo, Italy.

The paper is informed by Foucault’s studies of lunatic asylums and his work on governmentality which gave prominence to the role of statistics, the “science of the State”.

This paper identifies a number of roles played by accounting in the management of the lunatic asylum studied. Most importantly, information which formed the basis of accounting reports was used to describe, classify and give visibility and measurability to the “deviance” of the insane. It also legitimated the role played by lunatic asylums, as entrusted to them in post-Napoleonic early nineteenth century society, and was a tool to mediate with the public authorities to provide adequate resources for the institution to operate.

This paper encourages accounting scholars to engage more widely with socio-historical research that will encompass organisations such as lunatic asylums.

This paper provides, for the first time, a case of accounting applied to a lunatic asylum from a socio-historical perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether an existing sourcing strategy can effectively supply products of appropriate quality with acceptable levels of product waste if applied to an international perishable product supply chain. The authors also analyse whether the effectiveness of this sourcing strategy can be improved by including costs for expected shelf life losses while generating order policies.

The performance of sourcing strategies is examined in a prototype international strawberry supply chain. Appropriate order policies were determined using parameters both with and without costs for expected shelf life losses. Shelf life losses during transport and storage were predicted using microbiological growth models. The performance of the resulting policies was assessed using a hybrid discrete event chain simulation model that includes continuous quality decay.

The study's findings reveal that the order policies obtained with standard cost parameters result in poor product quality and large amounts of product waste. Also, including costs for expected shelf life losses in sourcing strategies significantly reduces product waste and improves product quality, although transportation costs rise.

The study shows that in perishable product supply chain design a trade-off should be made between transportation costs, shortage costs, inventory costs, product waste, and expected shelf life losses.

By presenting a generically applicable methodology for perishable product supply chain design, the authors contribute to research and practice efforts to reduce food waste. Furthermore, product quality information is included in supply chain network design, a research area that is still in its infancy.

Nowadays manufacturers companies are increasingly compelled to navigate towards servitization. Different methods and approaches were proposed in literature to support them to switch from traditional product-based business model to product service systems (PSSs). However, new knowledge, capabilities and skills were needed to consistently develop PSSs, since they need a joint focus on both customer’s perspective and company’s internal performance and at the same time a proper support for the integration of product and service design. The purpose of this paper is to propose the Product Service System Lean Design Methodology (PSSLDM), a structured methodology to develop PSSs along their entire lifecycle.

Retrieving concepts from interpretative, interactive and system development research traditions, and strongly reminding the design research methodology framework, the adopted research methodology is composed of three main phases (observation and conceptualization, theory building and tool development, validation) and involved three heterogeneous companies.

This paper provides an overview of the PSSLDM, explaining how the different methods supporting its conduction should contribute to properly design an integrated PSS. Moreover, companies highlighted several benefits in the different stages along the PSS lifecycle deriving by the adoption of the PSSLDM.

The development of a platform based on the PSSLDM methodology raises a discussion on the possible changes needed by current Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) models and systems when they have to do with PSSs.

The PSSLDM enriches the already proposed SErvice Engineering Methodology, introducing new several components linked by lean rules in each of its phases (starting from customer analysis, going through solution concept and detailed design, until the offering analysis) and better supprting the deatil design of both prodcut and service components.

The third age can be a period of major food consumption changes. Either voluntary or imposed by health issues, they may be accompanied by alterations in sensory acuity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how lifelong food habits and health-age issues affect food choice at a later age, with the aim of developing strategies to direct aged people toward healthier food habits.

A survey, aimed to investigate differences between current and past food habits, was carried out in a group of 170 Italian older adults. Questions focused on the composition of the main meal, asking participants to describe its actual structure and to highlight differences in previous years’ food habits. A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was planned, during which participants were asked to help formulating innovative pasta sauces with healthy ingredients.

This survey clearly illustrated gender-related differences: women were characterized by a higher consumption of vegetables, while men revealed a more frequent use of wine, pasta and meat. The DCE technique suited older adults’ abilities and enabled the development of innovative sauces, indicating a clear preference for extra virgin olive oil, as compared to cream or butter. Gender-related differences were confirmed: women mainly chose a vegetarian sauce, while men expressed an inclination for red meat.

This is the first report of a successful application of the DCE technique to investigate older adults’ dietary choices. The outspoken preference for olive oil as fat in sauce composition is a positive finding for future actions aimed at directing older adults toward healthier food habits.

This paper aims at investigating the quality of non-financial reporting (NFR) in light of Directive no. 2014/95/EU. Specifically, it focuses on the quality of NFR in Italian companies, as required by Legislative Decree no. 254/2016.

The method used to develop the analysis is mainly qualitative. A content analysis of 184 non-financial reports (NFRs) was conducted on a sample of 92 companies that have been previously involved in the process of NFR on a voluntary basis. Then, a longitudinal analysis was carried out to assess the quality of the NFR conducted from a voluntary to a mandatory basis.

This study shows that the quality of NFR does not increase when moving from a voluntary to a mandatory basis, especially for 25% of the companies that publish supplementary sustainability reports and/or plans. This result demonstrates that preparers may perceive mandatory NFR as a comprehensive best practice to adequately report their social, economic and environmental performance.

The contribution of this research is threefold. Firstly, it contributes to the social and environmental accounting literature that focuses on NFR quality assessment. Secondly, it contributes to the literature that emphasizes the role of mimetic, coercive and normative isomorphism mechanisms on accounting systems and reporting practices. Thirdly, it contributes to the research gaps for academics highlighted by previous literature on mandatory corporate reporting as a consequence of normative requirements and on the relationship between regulation and mimetic, coercive and normative isomorphic mechanisms within organizations.

This article aims to report on the development and validation of a bribery measurement index for the business sector, which, based on institutional theory, seeks to overcome the limitations of traditional measurements, recognizing the dynamics that originate the phenomenon and identifying process components.

To construct the index, correlational and principal component analysis techniques were used, as well as rigorous statistical tests, validating the instrument in a sample of 2,963 companies in Latin America, including Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru.

The result was an instrument composed of two dimensions: (1) anti-bribery game rules, composed of regulations knowledge and anti-bribery efforts, and (2) bribery as a perceived habit, allowing an objective representation of reality due to its internal consistency, concurrent and discriminant validity.

This instrument is one of the few that focuses on measuring bribery in the business sector in terms of corrupt practices, applicable for both public and private institutions to promote game rules against bribery. Additionally, the proposed theoretical model can be used to measure other phenomena with similar characteristics.

This article empirically highlights different variables that make bribery possible. The results can be helpful in the design of strategies to prevent this type of behavior. It also highlights the importance of designing mechanisms to record information related to bribery and the different expressions of corruption in order to explain its different nuances.

Este artículo informa sobre el desarrollo y validación de un índice de medición de soborno para el sector empresarial, que, basado en la teoría institucional, busca superar las limitaciones de las mediciones tradicionales, reconociendo las dinámicas que originan el fenómeno e identificando los componentes del proceso.

Para la construcción del índice se utilizaron técnicas de análisis correlacional y de componentes principales, así como rigurosas pruebas estadísticas, validando el instrumento en una muestra de 2.963 empresas de América Latina, entre ellas Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, México y Perú.

El resultado fue un instrumento compuesto por dos dimensiones: (1) reglas de juego antisoborno, compuestas por conocimiento normativo y esfuerzo antisoborno (2) soborno como hábito percibido, permitiendo una representación objetiva de la realidad debido a su consistencia interna, validez concurrente y discriminante.

Este artículo pone en evidencia empírica diferentes variables que hacen posible el soborno. Los resultados pueden ser útiles en el diseño de estrategias para prevenir este tipo comportamiento, también destaca la importancia de diseñar mecanismos para registrar la información relacionada con la lucha contra el soborno.

Este instrumento es uno de los pocos que se enfoca en medir el soborno en el sector empresarial en términos de prácticas de corrupción, útil para instituciones tanto públicas como privadas para promover mejores reglas de juego en contra del soborno. Adicionalmente el modelo teórico propuesto puede ser utilizado para medir otros fenómenos con características similares.

This paper provides a conceptual discussion of the bidirectional relationship between knowledge management (KM) and intellectual capital (IC) in a specific subset of knowledge-based organisations, i.e. professional sport organisations. Through the review and conceptual discussion of two relevant research themes, i.e. KM strategies for IC value creation and IC codification, this paper aims to highlight research gaps useful to future research.

The authors apply a systematic literature review method to analyse 66 management and accounting studies on KM and IC in sport organisations. Internal and external validity tests support the methodology adopted.

The authors provide a conceptual model to explain how KM strategies about IC investments can be optimal, i.e. they create value for all the stakeholders but also suboptimal, i.e. they create value only for a group of stakeholders. Next, they provide evidence of the opportunistic use of the codification associated with IC investments that impair financial reporting information transparency and mislead managers and investors.

The results are informative for managers, regulators and policymakers to mitigate the inefficiencies regarding KM and IC codification and decisions.

This study contributes to the understanding of the bidirectional relationship between KM and IC in knowledge-based organisations by focussing on professional sport organisations in which KM and IC have played an important role for a long time. It also includes future avenues for advances in managing, measuring and reporting IC.

Crowdfunding (CF) is a digital-financial innovation that, bypassing credit crisis, bank system rigidities and constraints of the capital market, is allowing new ventures and established companies to get the needed funds to support innovations. After one decade of research, mainly focused on relations between variables and outcomes of the CF campaign, the literature shows methodological lacks about the study of its overall behavior. These reflect into a weak theoretical understanding and inconsistent managerial guidance, leading to a 27% success ratio of campaigns. To bridge this gap, this paper embraces a “complex system” perspective of the CF campaign, able to explore the system's behavior of a campaign over time, in light of its causal loop structure.

By adopting and following the document model building (DMB) methodology, a set of 26 variables and mutual causal relations modeled the system “Crowdfunding campaign” and a data set based on them and crafted to model the “Crowdfunding campaign” with a causal loop diagram. Finally, system archetypes have been used to link the causal loop structure with qualitative trends of CF's behavior (i.e. the raised capital over time).

The research brought to 26 variables making the system a “Crowdfunding campaign.” The variables influence each other, thus showing a set of feedback loops, whose structure determines the behavior of the CF campaign. The causal loop structure is traced back to three system archetypes, presiding the behavior in three stages of the campaign.

The value of this paper is both methodological and theoretical. First, the DMB methodology has been expanded and reinforced concerning previous applications; second, we carried out a causation analysis, unlike the common correlation analysis; further, we created a theoretical model of a “Crowdfunding Campaign” unlike the common empirical models built on CF platform's data.

Possibilities for self-representation for transgender (trans) and gender non-conforming (GNC) youth must be conceptualized in relation to youths’ placement within frames of power. Powerful institutional forces in youths’ lives include schools and policing and, as is evidenced by youths’ statements, extend to mass media portrayals. Library approaches that reify the inclusion of representative texts do not adequately meet the needs of trans and GNC youth. As a profession, librarianship must reflect on ideological approaches to gendered embodiment to push against an ongoing repetition of institutional harms done to trans and GNC youth.

This chapter offers examinations of information needs, complex online worlds, and incorporation of histories made invisible by power alongside critical literacy skills as crucial aspects of providing services to all possibly or actually trans and GNC youth. It critically situates the circumstances of trans youths’ lives in relation to the effect that adult perceptions have on trans and GNC youths’ ability to access resources. It provides a framework for reflection on how young adult librarians often unconsciously limit library access by enacting gendered expectations that do not always match the possibility or actuality of youths’ experiences or self-conceptions. The chapter outlines modes of communication – through library materials, programs, community resources and partnerships – that convey deeper understandings of trans and GNC experiences to possibly or actually trans and GNC youth.