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This work is part of the academic debate focused on the information inadequacy of public administrations and the consequent need to imagine an overall reporting system for a fruitful dialogue with the reference community. Financial sustainability requires the implementation of policies that ensure the feasible provision of public services to the present generation, while protecting the needs of future ones, thus ensuring intergenerational equity. Such information does not normally fall in the domain of traditional financial reports; therefore, one naturally questions how information about financial sustainability can be disseminated to the users of local governments. For these reasons, governments should be interested in developing an integrated popular report (IPR). The present research, using a theoretical-deductive methodology, proposes some characteristics and content that an effective integrated popular report should contain in order to respond to the information needs of public sector user groups — citizens, in particular. The research objective can be summarized in the proposition of IPR as a new transparency and communication tool for citizens, which simplifies the existing voluntary reporting in order to jointly acquire the unique benefits of integrated reporting (IR) and popular reporting (PR).

In this work, we examine whether earnings management affects the debt maturity structure of Italian non-SMEs. We employ accruals quality as a proxy for earnings management. We measure the accrual quality as the absolute value of residual reflects the accruals that are not related to cash flow realized in the current, following or previous year. We measure the debt maturity in two ways. First, we consider it as a dummy variable that takes the value equal to 1 if some of the debt is long-term (exceeding one year), and 0 otherwise. Second, we compute the debt maturity as the ratio of long-term debt to total debt. We employ a quantitative approach, carrying out several regressions (probit, logit, and tobit) analyses to investigate the effect earnings management on debt maturity structure, using financial statement data of 1,001 Italian non-SMEs sampled over the period 2011-2017. This paper provides theoretical and practical findings that support the literature on earnings management. First, the study confirms that accrual quality can use as a proxy of earnings management by the academic community. Then the findings show that earnings management is negatively associated with the possibility to access to long-term debt, and with a proportion of long-term debt in total debt. This evidence may support the managers when they have to plan the financial structure, the lenders and the creditors in their decision-making processes, and the policymakers when they have to set programs aimed to make easier the access to external financial resources.

The social impact bond (SIB), at the present in Italy, is a financial instrument issued by a bank to support social initiatives in which the subscriber will receive a limited financial return on investment. As part of that performance, the social return for the community is considered as an integration of the financial performance that will replace a part of the interest rate. The first experience in Italy is represented by a bank that has issued 45 Social Bond for 472 million euros. The research analyses, on the basis of the character-ristics of the third sector in Italy, with particular reference to the financial weakness of the sector, the possible impact on the financial management process in the social enterprises by the use of SIB. Moreover, we would demonstrate that, with a well-conducted cost-benefit analysis, it is possible to construct a hypothesis of SIB in which the repayment is based on market rate. In particular, is proposed the development of a SIB with the objective of formulating hypotheses of response to the innovative following questions: Given certain cost drivers, what social outcomes would generate savings for the state budget able to fully repay the fixed costs of the SIB, to give a percentage of the benefit to the government and to ensure the repayment to investors? How to identify the timing of cash flows in order to structure a potential internal rate of return objective satisfactory for investors? Due to the lack of already developed case studies, with the technics of the business plan, we analyse the impact of SIB on social and financial performance, both from the point of view of the Public Administration and of the social enterprise, in a project of social housing introducing a remuneration rate at market level. The development of the project shows that, with the integration of the private and public perspective, it is possible to improve the social and financial performance offering an adequate interest rate and, moreover, without limit the hypothesis of SIB underwriting to the philanthropic institution.

The activity-based costing, applied in public services, is a full costing method which recognizes the relationship between costs, activities, and products/services of a public administration. The ABC has the function to support the decision-making process and to inform the management about the resources acquisition and the level of resources utilization. In fact, a cost accounting system aims to provide an organization with relevant cost information, related to product and services, to support the decision-making process. Traditionally, the cost accounting system of an organization was designed to support the needs of financial (external) reporting and to help the determination of a satisfactory price for goods and services sold. When traditional methodology has been developed, direct labor and materials were the most significant product or service costs, with overhead costs that engraved only with a small percentage of total costs. In the recent context of the public administration corporatization and of the outsourcing processes for the public services delivery, the awareness that the resources are becoming increasingly scarce and, therefore, that it is necessary to use them in a cost-efficient way, in order to achieve high standards, plays a pivotal role. Therefore, with reference to the public service sector, the ABC verifies, for each service, the acquired financial resources, the costs of each productive factor, the obtained qualitative and quantitative results, and the revenues.

The purpose of this paper is to define a new combined model of business valuation for family firm, considering the implications of IC. The role of the family component in business valuation is condensed into the continuity of a trans-generational perspective. The question appears to be centred on the consistency of the familiness link with respect to the economic entity. In other words, it becomes essential to understand the provisional character of the proactive action of family members on business performance levels. After having discussed some of critical theoretical opinions on the peculiar aspects of family business—with particular attention to the relationship between the contribution of cognitive resources inferable from the familiness in the company management and the propensity to create value by the company itself—the aim is to find the most appropriate method to enhance the specificity of the family business and express the size of the equity value in a neutral and objective manner. The methodology is deductive; the integrated model is structured starting from the general framework of business valuation and then proceeds with its adaptation to familiness, intended as a particular attestation of IC. In this way, a new integrated model is made available for a subsequent step of empirical implementation and validation through its application in a family organization. The main advantage of this model is the ability to measure and manage IC and financial/non-financial performance. The added value of this work will enrich the academic literature regarding IC measurement systems in family firms; it also provides an original integrated model that is able to exhibit the advantages highlighted above.

In the aftermath of the last Great Recession in 2007, firms’ commitment to social responsibility and sustainability started to be considered a corporate leverage to make extra-returns as well as to improve corporate reputation on institutional markets. This in turn has implied a lower uncertainty among investors and a higher trust from stakeholders’ categories, rising virtuous firms’ returns to over-perform their less responsible peers. Hence, this paper investigates the positive externalities of CSR on Italian stock exchange market, focusing on Blue Chips’ financial performance over the ten years post-crisis. In particular, we examined whether a listed company has been rewarded by its stakeholders over a high volatility periods, leveraging on CSR and Sustainability issues. Empirical findings highlight, ceteris paribus, two implications in regards to the impact of sustainability rating on corporate financial health. Indeed, the effect of CSR and corporate sustainability improves significantly companies’ earning performance (Return on Asset), although firms do not benefit from economic outperformances (Earning per Share) on stock exchange market.

The Corporate Social Responsibility is traditionally viewed not as a productive investment, but like an expense of defensive character, destined to consume resources without producing new value. However, in the actual context, the public interest cannot be an objective only for the Public Administration; each enterprise should integrate in the management choices a CSR strategy (Borgonovi & Rusconi, 2008).The CSR is, primarily, intended as the ability to follow those lines of action which are desirable in relation to the aims and values of our society (Bowen, 1953). The development of studies on CSR has produced subsequently further definition, which tend to emphasize the importance of expectations of the community and the resulting social role played by itself in increasing weal (Frederick, 1960); to the definition of corporate social responsibility contained in the EU Green Paper, which identifies CSR as those behaviours oriented to the integration between economic, social and environmental variables in the management company (EU, 2001).This work aims to investigate the potential of investment in CSR in terms of creating new value as part of a new definition of sustainable business performance based on the joint and balanced maximization of economic, social and environmental objectives (Elkington, 1997). The objective of this research is to verify the impact on business performance due to the implementation of a specific design of CSR, named Contact, in a local public transport company of medium/big size (Turnover € 56.613.130, Employees 1.341).

he aim of this paper is to amend the research on the economic consequences of the proposed changes in equity and liabilities classification. The distinction between equity and liabilities is a challenging question for international standard setters. On this topic, the IASB and the FASB have developed a long-term project with the aim of addressing unresolved issues around classifying financial instruments as either equity or liabilities. With this regard, many approaches, which involve various effects on the gearing and on the reported earnings, have been proposed. In its 2008 discussion paper “Financial Instruments with Characteristics of Equity” the IASB exposed the alternative methods previously presented by the FASB in former Preliminary Views. Among the three different approaches, the Basic Ownership Approach was recommended in consideration of its simplicity with the hope of reducing structuring opportunities. Also the EFRAG gave its contribution to this debate by issuing its own discussion paper; it suggested a new classification method, the Loss Absorption Approach.

Il presente lavoro esamina le tendenze evolutive in atto nel procedimento di rendicontazione economico-finanziaria delle imprese di assicurazione conseguenti all’applicazione dei principi contabili internazionali IAS/IFRS. L’obiettivo della ricerca, condotta con taglio prevalentemente deduttivo, e verificare/dimostrare come alcuni postulati del modello di bilancio promossi dal Conceptual Framework possano ritenersi applicati o disattesi - a seguito della disciplina dettata dal Progetto Insurance dello IASB - nello specifico ambito pertinente l’industria assicurativa. L’indagine, pertanto, si rivolge inizialmente e brevemente ad esaminare da un punto di vista economico-aziendale gli aspetti caratteristici dell’attivita assicurativa e l’impostazione della prassi contabile nazionale riguardante le componenti economiche/ patrimoniali tipiche delle imprese di assicurazione. Dopo di che, e posta attenzione alle problematiche ed agli aspetti evolutivi dell’Insurance Project, anche alla luce dei contenuti delle comment letters ricevute dallo IASB a seguito della emanazione dell’ED/2010/8 on insurance contracts; infine, nell’ultimo paragrafo, in relazione a quanto discusso in precedenza, si compie un’analisi su come e se possano reputarsi applicati quei postulati del modello IASB anzidetti; si tenta altresi una comparazione, unicamente ove possibile, tra i probabili riflessi desumibili a seguito dell’adozione di un sistema di Fair value accounting (previsto nella Fase I) o di Present value of the fulfilement cash flows (prescelto nella Fase II).

The Third Sector in Italy records a slow but consta nt growth due to the increase of the number of enti ties but not of their dimension. The difficulties in fin ancial management, generated by a low attraction of debt and equity financial resources and a low level of m anagerial skills characterized the non profit organizations. Focused on the social cooperatives, the article describe the effects on the financial s tructure of innovative financial instruments as the particip ative loan. In the last years in Italy there has be en an increasing attention towards the ethical finance. T he consideration of the social co-ops as a part of the Third Sector allows them to have a privileged interlocuti on with the institutions of the ethical finance. Bu t the development of this institutions, although it is or iginated from the will to support the social respon sible development, at the moment seems not to support a substantial resolution of the financial needs relate d to the management of the social cooperatives. The arti cle shows an analysis on a particular financial intermediary, the Cooperazione Finanza Impresa (CFI). This institution is a private equity investor wh ich since twenty years is dedicated to worker cooperati ves and social cooperatives. The interest for this institution, besides the entities financed, is base d on a particular form of participative loan develo ped. The investigation start from the observation of a singu lar social cooperatives with the elaboration of a s et of indicators based on the financial ratio analysis. T he evaluation regard the financial structure previo us to the financing operation and its subsequent modification . Due to the first conclusions, the investigation enlarged the analysis to a sample of 10 social cooperatives in order to confirm the first results. The observat ion of modified financial structure up a period of five ye ars shows significative positive change that suppor t both the economic and the financial equilibrium, with a significant reduction of the average cost of the de bt in all the cooperatives financing by participative loans.

This paper examines the trends taking place in the process of economic and financial reporting of insurance companies arising from the application of international accounting standards IAS/IFRS. The objective of the research, conducted with a mainly deductive cut, is to verify/demonstrate that some assumptions of the model promoted by the Conceptual Framework may be considered applied or rejected - following the rules laid down by the IASB Insurance Project - specifically the field concerning the insurance industry.This survey, therefore, initially aims to briefly consider from a business point of view the typical aspects of insurance and the setting up of national/italian accounting practice on the insurance companies’ economic components and assets. Secondly, it draws attention to the problems and the development of the Insurance Project (in light of the contents of the comment letters received by the IASB as a result of the adoption of ED/2010/8 on insurance contracts) and finally, (the last paragraph in relation to the previous discussion) it makes an analysis of how and whether those assumptions on the IASB models already mentioned can be considered applied; it also attempts a comparison, only where possible, including the probable results deriving from the adoption of a Fair value accounting system (as in Phase I) or the fulfillment Present value of cash flows (chosen in Phase II).In particular, with the present study, we especially intend to ascertain whether, the specific regulation of insurance liabilities (technical provisions) by the IASB, will guarantee an effective implementation of some general principles of the financial statement. One wonders on the will to fully implement, with the finding of an ad hoc standard, some postulates of the framework in the regulation of typical items in the industry. For this reason, we will carefully examine: a) the strengthening of the principle of substance over form; b) the choice of an estimation approach based on fair value as an alternative to historical cost; c) the overcoming of the accounting model required by the national accounting standards for the asset and liability view; d) Downgrading of conservatism approach in respect of recognition approach with anticipation of critical event.In that regard, it should be noted that the study will take into account the gradual evolution of the Insurance Project, to determine how the initial purpose of the IASB oriented towards fair value accounting has then also received confirmation or, vice-versa, has been neglected due to less innovative choices of weaker impact on levels of business performance.

The distinction between equity and liabilities is a challenging question for international standard setters. On this topic, the IASB and the FASB have developed a long-term project with the aim of addressing unresolved issues around classifying financial instruments as either equity or liabilities. With this regard, many approaches, which involve various effects on the gearing and on the reported earnings, have been proposed.The IASB decided not to develop his Discussion Paper into an Exposure Draft, however, and the project was abandoned in favour of addressing what were felt to be greater priorities at the time.

Sulla base dell’interesse per la condizione degli homeless , presente all’interno degli studi sociali sviluppatisi a Napoli, in questa pubblicazione si intende affrontare con un approccio interdisciplinare le problematiche collegate ai senza dimora, facendo interagire la prospettiva delle scienze sociali con altre aree disciplinari, come la psicologia, il diritto e l’ambito medico-sanitario. In campo antropologico l'attenzione per le condizioni di vita dei senza dimora questo ha significato dover fare i conti con una letteratura improntata da teorie come la cultura della povertà e il miserabilismo e dover superare queste impostazioni per porsi nella prospettiva di chi vuole conoscere e indagare la situazione reale delle persone senza dimora, per comprendere non solo le azioni, ma anche i significati che i soggetti attribuiscono alle loro azioni.

SOMMARIO: 1. Introduzione allo IAS 36. – 2. Gli indizi di impairment. – 3. L’impairment test: il calcolo del valore recuperabile. – 3.1. Calcolo del fair value al netto dei costi di dismissione. – 3.2. Calcolo del valore d’uso. – 3.2.1. La stima dei flussi attesi. – 3.2.2. L’individuazione del tasso. – 4. L’impairment test: la rilevazione contabile della perdita. – 5. La definizione della Cash Generating Unit. – 6. L’avviamento e la Cash Generating Unit. – 7. La imputazione della perdita di valore di una CGU. – 8. La ripresa di valore. – 9. Informazione extracontabile.