BOOKS BY ALBERTO QUAGLI

Il volume si pone come una possibile guida euristica e flessibile per quanti decidano di svolgere una ricerca qualitativa nell’ambito delle scienze umane utilizzando la metodologia della Grounded Theory Costruttivista. Indicando una cornice epistemologica di riferimento e suggerendo una metodologia coerente con questa cornice teorica e con il campo di indagine, il testo intende guidare gentilmente il lettore nel percorso di costruzione della propria ricerca.

There is a growing consensus around the pivotal role of interdisciplinary research (hereafter IDR) in achieving innovative results and addressing the challenges of modern societies, whose solutions are often beyond the scope of a single discipline. This paper builds on this literature to explore the trends in IDR and its evaluation in research quality assessments in the context of accounting studies by Italian scholars, even in comparison with disciplinary research. This exploratory study covers a da- taset of all articles published by Italian accounting scholars in international journals indexed in Scopus from 1985 to 2015 (1,233 articles). We operationalise IDR as diversity in the subject area of journals where the articles are published and diversity in the disciplinary sector of coauthors. Thus, the novelty of this article is that instead of using a single indicator of IDR, we consider the interaction of two alternative perspectives of analysis. The main findings reveal a relevant increase in disciplinary and interdisciplinary articles, with a comparatively smaller increase for IDR. Additionally, we observe that IDR by Italian accounting scholars is strongly oriented towards medical publi- cations. Regarding quality evaluation, the findings show a significantly higher eval- uation of disciplinary studies compared to IDR according to the criteria followed by the national assessment exercise (VQR). This explorative study contributes to the debate on IDR in two different ways. On the one hand, our study shows a relatively low growth of IDR in the under-re- searched context of social sciences in a non-Anglo-Saxon setting, where national research evaluations have stimulated radical changes in the features and outlets of scientific production. On the other hand, our results are consistent with the view that papers with a clear disciplinary focus receive comparatively higher evaluations be- cause the standards established for assessment are usually defined within the disci- pline.

This paper focuses on the manner in which the interplay of several external and internal forces can affect a company control-system architecture over time. As its object of enquiry, the Italian manufacturer Piaggio provides us with a glimpse of management accounting techniques across a century in a context of economic instability and political and social tensions in Italy. The authors examine the contextual factors conditioning influences and their interplay with Piaggio costing techniques. The study suggests that accounting change was dependant on a complex set of relationships and preconditions. The specificity of the company accounting controls was tied to the interplay of internal and external forces, for instance changes in the production motivated by the war requirements, the rise of fascism and protectionism, low market competition, high-skilled technicians, investment on innovation, low wages, and strikes of the workforce. The findings highlight that the occurred developments and changes were carried out in order to enable the survival of the firm and to respond to specific managerial, behavioural, and organizational needs.

Il sistema informativo di bilancio è stato fortemente inciso dalla promulgazione del D. Lgs. n. 139/2015, che ha recepito in Italia la Direttiva n. 34/2013/UE, nonché dalla successiva ed estesa revisione dei principi contabili emanati dall’Organismo Italiano di Contabilità. Il volume si propone di approfondire le questioni relative alle scelte valutative che caratterizzano il percorso impresso all’informativa societaria, segnato dall’integrazione tra i valori storico originari e i valori correnti. Il volume, promosso dalla Società Italiana dei Docenti di Ragioneria e di Economia Aziendale (SIDREA), accoglie i contributi di numerosi studiosi italiani che dedicano la loro prevalente attenzione accademica e professionale ai temi del bilancio.

Il lavoro colma una significativa lacuna negli studi aziendali per le imprese del settore immobiliare, la cui specificità gestionale impone la comunicazione di indicatori ben diversi da quelli usati per i tradizionali settori industriali o commerciali. Pertanto l’opera risulta particolarmente utile per gli operatori del settore e per quella parte della dottrina interessata alle diverse forme di concreta implementazione della disclosure aziendale in presenza di best practice codificate da associazioni di categoria.

The recent exercise of Evaluation of Quality and Research boosted by the Italian Agency for the Evaluation of University and Research has reopened reflections on the evaluation methods, including the bibliometric ones. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact factor as the main instrument of bibliometric evaluation, "old" in the field of natural and technological sciences but recently introduced by Law and by the Agency also for business and economic disciplines (Bonaccorsi, 2012). The reflections proposed come to the conclusion that the impact factor is not suitable and then it is proposed a new indicator capable of taking into account the usefulness for all users (both primary and secondary): the real impact factor.