LIBRI DI DANIELA MANCINI

Il presente volume si pone l’obiettivo di investigare i concetti di crisi e di sviluppo sostenibile, anche attraverso gli effetti della pandemia da SARS-COV-2, inquadrando sia le attuali cause del disequilibrio aziendale, sia la proposizione di rinnovati modelli di governance e di business. Tali aspetti sono indagati a partire dalla visione sistemica dell’azienda, in un’ottica unitaria e integrata delle strategie che ne governano le condizioni di sopravvivenza e i processi di sviluppo.

The university modernization process has introduced a new concept of such institutions: the "Smarter University". According to this concept, the new role of universities in modern society consists not only of cooperation with other actors focusing on social, cultural and economic activities but also the wide use of web-based technologies to support traditional teaching and research, as well as engagement and social interaction (Coccoli et al., 2014). The Smarter University model is the result of technological innovations and, in particular, digital tools that facilitate interconnection, networking and sharing be-tween individuals and groups (Coccoli et al., 2014) and increase the ability of uni-versities to contribute to economic and social development. The new concept of the university has attracted research attention aimed at finding appropriate models to measure the performance of such institutions. In this paper, we develop a model to measure the contribution of smarter universities to social, economic and cultural development. We adopt an integrated approach that links performance measurement to the smart university’s mission and its new business model.

The paper aims to examine the main changes that performance measurement systems of firms have to face after the adoption of sustainability strategies. The relationship between sustainability strategies and performance measurement systems is analysed along three main dimensions: the reasons that lead to the implementation of sustainability strategies; the changes that these strategies produce within the performance measurement systems; the feedback effects that the revised performance measurement systems determine on the sustainability strategies. We adopted a qualitative research methodology analysing a single case study: ASIA Napoli S.p.A. The case study and the results have been achieved through a theoretical framework built in the first step of the research. The case study allowed to examine the role of legitimacy and reputation when a company chooses to implement sustainability strategies, and confirmed, overall, that the decision to integrate sustainability into business strategy produces changes in performance measurement systems. Our findings showed that the implementation of sustainability strategies produce some changes in the performance measurement systems with regard to the processes and the tools for information and data collection. However, tools for information processing and analysing for decision-making support are less developed. The results also suggested that the measurement of social performance represents an incentive to revise sustainability strategies.

During the second decade of the XXI Century, several contextual forces have changed the way in which firms interact with environment. The economic and financial crisis, the development of technologies, the convergence between different communication channels and the spread of social networks are just some of the forces that determine a quick and radical change in the way employees and firms look at the future and interact each other. This contribution focuses on the meaning of the word "open" as one of the keywords of this period and highlights how the open society affects accounting information systems, as systems processing information to support strategic decisions in such a complicated environment.

The research examines the compliance of firms with laws and rules concerning accounting information and financial control systems. In particular it investigates the role of accountants and the skills they employ during the adoption of laws and regulations (regulatory compliance). In the preliminary step, the research suggests a reviewed concept of regulatory compliance: it is based on the idea that firms must consider compliance as a strategic opportunity, able to activate key changes in accounting procedures, information tools, organizational roles, control mechanisms. In the following step the research examines how the revised vision of regulatory compliance affects accounting positions, accountants’ role and their skills. Using data collected on a sample of Italian accountants, an empirical research provides some evidences on key skills and competencies requested for an effective regulatory compliance.

La collaborazione tra aziende è sempre più il percorso tipico per realizzare la crescita e determinare la strategia aziendale: dalle singole relazioni di partnership tra due aziende, alla rete di aziende, per arrivare all’azienda-rete. Parallelamente, si determina un ampliamento, oltre i confini della singola azienda, dell’orizzonte nell’ambito del quale formulare i giudizi di convenienza. Oggetto di questo articolo è l’evidenziazione di alcune problematiche ancora aperte nello studio dei sistemi informativi dell’azienda-rete. L’autore ritiene, infatti, che la gestione delle informazioni rappresenti un elemento chiave per il successo della rete di collaborazioni sviluppate. Il sistema informativo diventa un elemento fondamentale per la sincronizzazione dei processi di governo e di controllo della rete di collaborazioni ed il fenomeno delle alleanze ne costituisce un elemento di cambiamento che deve essere investigato nei diversi aspetti. Nel primi due paragrafi l’autore descrive proprio la relazione chiave che si stabilisce tra sistema di governo, sistema di controllo e sistema informativo in contesti relazionali, mentre nei paragrafi successivi l’attenzione viene focalizzata sul sistema informativo relazionale.

La gestione dei dati contabili mediante strumenti informatici è una delle sfide che le aziende devono accettare e governare. Il volume esamina le diverse fasi del processo informativo-decisionale: la selezione e l’acquisizione dei dati contabili mediante strumenti software gestionali integrati; l’analisi dei dati consuntivi mediante strumenti software per la gestione delle basi di dati; l’elaborazione dei dati per la costruzione e il controllo di scenari prospettici mediante i programmi software di gestione dei fogli elettronici…

Gli impatti più significativi dell’applicazione dei principi contabili internazionali IAS/IFRS sui sistemi di controllo interno e, in particolare, sui sistemi di: corporate governance e risk management, reporting, costing, budgeting e business planning, sistemi informativi e procedure organizzative. Un contributo interessante per ampliare la comprensione delle novità introdotte dai principi contabili internazionali e delle implicazioni legate all’uso delle informazioni a essi correlate.