This article proposes a statistical analysis of the Italian mutual aid societies’ annual report data from 1862,\ud 1873 and 1904, and tests the hypothesis, supported by the mainstream literature, that mutual financial\ud support for the poor is just a facade for organizing the political activity of the working classes. Factor analysis\ud allows the data, signaling these two commitments, to be kept separate. Their time evolution, as outlined\ud by an inter-temporal comparison of a latent class cluster analysis, reveals that political commitment, even\ud if generally prevalent, oscillates as a function of environmental conditions, whereas the mutual financial\ud support retains a solid foundation, regardless. The study demonstrates the potential of unconventional\ud annual report data analysis to reveal the deepest nature of the organizations and contributes to exploring\ud the links between political activism and accounting data in not-for-profit organizations

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of accounting in the enactment of the Napoleonic imperial project in Tuscany and the Kingdom of Naples in the early nineteenth century. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts the Foucauldian theoretical framework of governmentality and a comparative approach to highlight similarities and differences between the two regions. Findings The presence of different cultural understandings and structures of power meant that in Tuscany accounting mirrored and reinforced the existing power structure, whereas in the Kingdom of Naples accounting practices were constitutive of power relations and acted as a compensatory mechanism. In the Kingdom of Naples, where local elites had been traditionally involved in ruling municipalities, control of accounting information and the use of resources “re-adjusted” the balance of power in favour of the French whilst letting local population believe that Napoleon was respectful of local customs. Research limitations/implications The ability of accounting technologies to act as compensatory mechanisms within governmentality systems paves the way to further investigations about the relationships between accounting and other governmentality technologies as well as the adjustment mechanisms leading to accounting resilience in different contexts. Social implications By identifying accounting as an adaptive instrument supporting less obvious practices of domination the study helps unmask a hidden mechanism underlying attempts to know, govern and control populations which still characterises modern forms of imperialism. Originality/value The comparative perspective leads to a new specification of the multifaceted roles that accounting plays in different cultural and political contexts in the achievement of the same set of imperial goals and enhances understanding of the translation of politics, rhetoric and power into a set of administrative tasks and calculative practices.

PurposeThe paper investigates the closure mechanisms and strategies of exclusion concerning the establishment and subsequent functioning of the Collegio dei Rasonati, the professional body of accountants that was established in Venice in 1581 and operated until the end of the 18th century.Design/methodology/approachThe research design offers a critical longitudinal explanation of the emergence of the Collegio dei Rasonati as a professional body in the context of Venetian society by relying on the social closure theory elaborated by Collins (1975); Parkin (1979) and Murphy (1988).FindingseThe Collegio dei Rasonati was established to overcome the prerogatives of a social class in accessing the accounting profession. However, the pre-existing professional elites enacted a set of social closure strategies able to transform this professional body into a stronghold of their privileges.Research limitations/implicationsAs virtually all of the evidence concerning the admission examinations has been lost over time, the investigation is restricted to the study of the few examples that have survived. The main implication of the study concerns the understanding of some dynamics leading to neutralize attempts to replace class privileges with a meritocratic system.Originality/valueThe research investigates the structure of the rules of social closure revealing the possibility of an antagonistic relationship between different co-existing forms of exclusion within the same structure. Moreover, it highlights that a form of exclusion can be made of different hierarchical levels.

The article uses Latour’s actor-network perspective to explore the role of accounting and the intendants (administrative officials) in integrating the Kingdom of Naples into Napoleon’s empire during the first decade of the nineteenth century. By comparing the ‘action at a distance’ network planned by the French empire and its actual ‘translation’ played by both human actors and accounting technologies, we reveal certain unintended consequences. Although the French plan assigned the main translating role to the budgets, the intendants resulted as the main players. Their role as intermediates of the budgets transmission between local and central levels of government had the greatest influence on the ‘translation’ process. This role stemmed from the need to overcome the resistance of the local governments against the French plan. The main contribution of this work is to highlight that network survival may require human actors to replace technologies in ‘translation’ processes.

El proyecto "Gobierno corporativo en las organizaciones deportivas: Un enfoque de género" (en adelante, proyecto GESPORT), pretende reforzar la igualdad entre hombres y mujeres en los ámbitos de decisión de las organizaciones deportivas en Europa. El objetivo principal del proyecto es mejorar el acceso de las mujeres a las juntas directivas de todas las federaciones nacionales deportivas en el marco de las acciones deportivas de Erasmus+. En otras palabras, el proyecto GESPORT pretende avanzar en el conocimiento de la presencia femenina en la toma de decisiones estratégicas y, con ello, contribuir a las políticas europeas de mejora y apoyo a la buena gobernanza en el deporte. Aunque hemos definido el género en términos binarios, como "masculino" y "femenino", reconocemos que se trata de términos ambiguos a los que no todas personas pueden o desean asignarse. Por ello, reflexionamos más sobre la cuestión de lo no binario como identidad social y la transexualidad en el deporte más adelante, en la sección de antecedentes del informe que sigue a la introducción.