RISULTATI RICERCA

Digitalization has a significant impact on the social economy organizations, acting as a key driver of growth and success. This paper aims to explore the effects of digitalization on the social economy. We conducted a thorough systematic review of 40 articles using the PRISMA protocol, and we utilized NVivo software to clas-sify and arrange the identified themes in the studies. Our study demonstrates that digital tools are essential, empowering social economy organizations to achieve their goals with greater confidence. We considered technologies such as Big Data that powerful tools for gaining deeper insights into social issues through advanced analytics, allowing organizations to target their interventions more effectively. Similarly, Artificial Intelligence (AI) contributes to the social economy by auto-mating routine tasks and offering sophisticated solutions to complex social chal-lenges. Another transformative digital tool is blockchain technology, which holds enormous potential to influence this kind of organization. Together, these technol-ogies enable organizations to make informed decisions, enhance transparency, re-duce costs, and drive innovation. At the end of this systematic literature review, we conclude by offering suggestions for further research.

To address global sustainability, engagement from every social sector is necessary. In this context, businesses can play a pivotal role. Therefore, it is urgent to establish proper management tools in order to support or-ganizations’ top management in addressing these goals. While larger firms are making progress in measuring, managing and reporting sustainability performance, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are lagging behind for various reasons – such as the lack of regulatory frameworks, standards, managerial competence and more. In OECD countries, SMEs account for 40% of private sector GDP. As such, their relevance and role in pursuing sustainability cannot be overlooked. This research aims to advance understanding of the development and implemen-tation of performance measurement and management (PMM) systems taking into account the sustainability dimensions of performance in SMEs. This is key to al-lowing businesses and their management to measure and monitor their impact at the economic, social and environmental levels. In order to do this, the research is based on action research and the incorporation of an interventionist approach. In particular, the authors have developed a sus-tainability PMM for a medium citrus company operating in the B-to-B market and based in Southern Italy.

The rising popularity of performance management systems (PMSs) as a means of navigating the uncertain competitive landscape shaped by the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent economic crises and armed conflicts is a well-documented phenomenon in the field of managerial studies. A substantial body of research has been dedicated to examining the role of PMSs in facilitating decision-making processes, strategy implementation, and management efficiency within large organizations. However, a clear discrepancy exists between theoretical and practical perspectives on the implementation and utilization of PMSs in medi-um, small, and micro-enterprises. This article relies on 26 in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs and accountants involved in performance assessment in medium, small and micro-enterprises in Italy. The results demonstrate that the unprecedent-ed levels of uncertainty brought about by the advent of the COVID-19 and the subsequent periods of economic crisis have stimulated a more intense and com-prehensive use of PMSs among medium and small enterprises. In contrast, micro-enterprises have not been affected in their reconsideration of performance moni-toring. This work aims to provide scholars, managers, financial advisors, and con-sultants with a more precise overview of PMS in small and micro enterprises. It also strives to complement the limited number of studies on this topic by providing valuable theoretical and practical implications that both scholars and practitioners can leverage. Additionally, future research avenues are provided.

The aim of this article is to stress the possibility of a specific and innovative gaze on borders and borderlands: one that puts solidarity as an encounter and a fabric among people on the move enacting a relentless dynamism along unauthorized routes, constituting one of the key elements for understanding the journey as a social construction. The turn we propose aims to mark a clear and novel theoretical break by: (i) overcoming the opposition between state mobility governance and migrants’ agency; (ii) considering unauthorized movements as a variable social construction that can be originally explored from the perspective of solidarity networks. To deepen the theoretical implications of this hypothesis, we would like to start from our ethnographic notes in different borderlands, along the internal and external European frontiers, where we have been doing fieldwork since 2016, about the everyday deployment of grass-root solidarity.

This work aims to investigate whether Bologna (Italy), a medium-sized Mediterranean city, can be described as a “proximity city”, analyzing service distribution within the city and populations inhabiting them. Using information on urban service provision in Bologna and census tracts data, the spatial distribution of public services across neighborhoods is analyzed, to measure service provision and accessibility in 5, 10 or 15 minutes by walking. The socioeconomic composition of each area is then taken into account, to go beyond a mere description of service proximity, inquiring urban fragilities, their spatialization and the relations existing among socioeconomic fragilities and service accessibility in Bologna’s neighborhoods. The results draw a geography made of a partial overlap of fragilities and lack of services, but also interesting “outliers”.

Introduction: This work addresses a particular aspect of Fabio Besta’s legacy, that is the spread of his is thought through the training of accounting teachers. Aim of the work: Fabio Besta’s scientific “legacy” has long been studied. Nevertheless, the Master’s role in the training of accountancy teachers has been less investigated than other aspects. This article aims to fill this gap. Methodological approach: The paper is based on a broad documentary research work, whose pillars are provided by a range of primary and secondary sources. which have been thoroughly examined and triangulated. More in detail, the analysis covered both documentary research on biographical writings and the publications of the “Scuola Superiore di Commercio” of Venice, as well as scientific articles and teaching publications. Main findings: By identifying the teachers who graduated at Ca’ Foscari under the direct guidance of the Master and by investigating their careers including those who have remained unknown – the work sheds light on the cultural hegemonisation of the early 20th century operated by Fabio Besta’s School. The Master’s pupils held in fact the chairs of accountancy in Technical schools, Middle schools of commerce, and Business school throughout the entire country. Originality: The research is limited to Fabio Besta’s “first generation” pupils and to the Italian context. Nevertheless, it is original in its breadth and depth of analysis.

Introduction: This paper deals with the Franciscan convent of La Verna and addresses an under-researched aspect: identification of its stakeholders, the relationships between them and the convent, and their engagement in creating moral, spiritual, and religious values. Aim of the work: This paper contributes to the historical literature on accounting and non-accounting systems as support in identifying a religious institution’s stakeholders and revealing the reciprocal relationships between it and its stakeholders. Methodological approach: This study employs a qualitative research method to explore, from both primary and secondary sources, the accounting and nonaccounting systems of the La Verna convent over the fifteenth century. Main findings: Thorough research into the sources revealed a varied system of accounting and non-accounting records for the chosen case study, enabling the exploration of the evolution during the fifteenth century of the typology of stakeholders, nature of the relationships between convent and its stakeholders, and their engagement in creating intangible values. Originality: By elaborating and interpreting the information gleaned from pri- mary and secondary sources. first, the study investigates the causes that contributed to the discontinuous evolution of La Verna’s convent during the fifteenth century, which was always marked by the search for consonance with its stakeholders of moral, spiritual and religious interests and expectations. Second, it addresses a less-explored aspect: identifying the convent’s ‘active’ stakeholders, compilation of two lists of stakeholder groups related with the convent, and construction of two stakeholder maps, both lists and maps referring to the beginning and the end of the fifteenth century. Third, the study identifies the predominantly intangible values created and achieved by the convent and its stakeholders as a result of reciprocal relationships. As a novel contribution, a matrix was drawn, which, in qualitative terms and with reference to the end of the 1400s, provides multiple values generated by the relations between the convent and its stakeholders.

Introduction: This study presents the biography of Professor Nicola Di Cagno: a master who contributed to the Accounting Academy and society, favouring the relationship between research and practice and between university and local territory. Aim of the work: This study mainly aimed to expand and deepen the knowledge of Nicola Di Cagno’s contribution to accounting studies, mainly relating to two fruitful lines of research: financial reporting and European accounting directives (this line of research started between the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s and continued for more than 30 years with several publications) and insurance companies (this line of research started at the end of the 1980s and concluded in the 2000s). This biographical work is also useful for explaining the reasons for, and factors influencing, research directions undertaken by Professor Di Cagno. Methodological approach: This article is placed in the field of biographical studies and adopts a diachronic approach. First, it presents a brief analysis of the environment in which Di Cagno lived and related circumstances influencing his life and career, followed by an exploration and a horizontal reading of all his publications to identify the evolution of his ideas and theories. Main findings: This biographical analysis allows us to identify the common threads of Di Cagno’s academic and institutional contributions and explains the development of his research fields and the unconformity and distinctiveness of his main lines of research with respect to the orientation prevailing at the national academic level at that time (between the end of the 1970s and the 1990s). Originality: This study presents the contributions of Di Cagno, which have never been explored in the literature. This biographical study also highlights the circumstances, personal decisions, and political influences that determined the master’s scientific research and academic career.

Introduction: This study investigates how the accounting practices influenced the crisis of the Ente partecipazioni e finanziamenti industrie manifatturiere (EFIM). Aim of the work: This study examines the events that characterised the crisis of the third public body for the management of equity investments, the EFIM, to highlight the role that accounting practices – in particular, the equity stakes – have played in the EFIM crisis, not allowing to identify early symptoms of crisis and reverse the process of deterioration, or to liquidate the Institution with less public and private sacrifice. Methodological approach: This study is based on a critical interpretative methodological approach. Main findings: Accounting practices with specific reference to the accounting rules of corporate participations and the legal form of public-law entities have played a decisive role in the financial distress of the EFIM. Originality: This study expands the knowledge on the role that accounting practices of corporate participations can play in company financial distress, particularly in the EFIM’s financial distress.

Questo articolo propone una lettura in chiave gestaltica dell’ausilio della scrittura durante il processo di elaborazione del lutto, attraverso alcuni principi della psicoterapia della Gestalt (consapevolezza, sé, creatività). Il lavoro sul lutto in psicoterapia della Gestalt consiste nel consegnare alla vita i beni relazionali maturati con la persona perduta. La scrittura e il terapeuta diventano custodi di un processo che facilita il passaggio dal dolore alla bellezza, intensificando e valorizzando in termini estetici l’elaborazione del lutto, assenza e presenza al tempo stesso.