Search

Purpose This paper aims to explore how the phenomena of corruption and fraud in the public sector have been portrayed in the literature using the Audit Society Framework (Power, 1997). Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a structured literature review (Massaro et al., 2016) to unveil relevant literature in the area of corruption and fraud in the public sector. Findings Results highlight that the literature using “The Audit Society” theory is still scant. Notwithstanding the call for a more decisive role of auditors in fighting corruption and fraud, much is still to be discovered about consequences of auditing and what “good quality” is. Research limitations/implications The main limitation is that only literature in English has been included. Practical implications This paper helps practitioners and policymakers to take and implement informed decisions with regards to the fight against fraud and corruption. Social implications In calling for more research in the domain of audit, fraud and corruption in the public sector, this paper promotes a higher focus of society on public interest and the common good. Originality/value This paper investigates one part of The Audit Society related to corruption and fraud, topics that are still very underdeveloped and unexplored by researchers. From the findings the authors suggest possible new avenues for further research.

Purpose: The agri-food sector is one of the most important in Europe. Although crises occurred, this industry has always had an anti-cyclical trend because of the increasing food and beverage demand. Albeit the global pandemic due to Covid-19, indeed, Food & Beverage (F&B) sub-sector has shown stability and resilience. The work analyses the financial structure of 1924 Italian SMEs belonging to the F&B, to understand if (and eventually how and why) the owner’s gender can affect the preferences about financing sources, and how these choices had influenced the reaction to the worldwide crises. Research design: An empirical analysis is performed on a sample of F&B Italian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) from 2013-2019. The data are collected by AIDA, a database containing the balance sheet data of all the Italian firms. Firstly, the firms extracted were classified according to gender ownership, then their financial structure is explored through an index analysis. Findings: The results demonstrate that both women’s and men’s businesses tend to move away from the traditional form of bank financing, seeking alternative sources. Secondly, the quantitative gender gap due to a higher presence of male-led SMEs, is not supported by a financial gap in terms of stability, profitability and financial dependence. Practical and social implication: Findings could be useful to agents belonging to the agri-food industry to support the decisionmaking about the financial structure, especially in a period of uncertainty or crisis. In addition, it could be an opportunity for both SMEs to explore new typologies of financing sources and for investors to be aware of different approaches to financial decisions existing between male and female companies’ management. Originality of the study: Although other research has already investigated the relationship between the financial structure and the owner’s gender, this type of study has not interested yet the agri-food companies.

Purpose: The agri-food sector is one of the most important in Europe, taking into account employment and financial performance (Hirsch and Gschwandtner, 2013). Although crises occurred, this sector has always had an anti-cyclical trend because of the growth of the food and beverage demand (European Parliament, 2019). Even today, albeit the global pandemic due to Covid-19, has deeply proved many enterprises, Food & Beverage (F&B) sub-sector has shown stability and resilience. In particular, F&B had positive performance connected to the production of the registered PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) and PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) products which can be considered as Made in Italy products that drive the Italian economy and exportation (ISMEA, 2020). The work analyses the financial structure of Italian SMEs belonging to the Food & Beverage, to realise if the different gender ownership could influence financial policies, as previous studies focused on another sector have already shown (Kozubíková et al., 2017; Cesaroni and Sentuti, 2016). The paper aims to understand if (and eventually how and why) the owner’s gender can affect the preferences about financing sources and, in which way these choices had influenced the reaction at the worldwide crises. Design: To reach the goal, an empirical analysis is performed on a sample of F&B Italian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). In the first step of the work, the distinction between female and male ownership is done; in the second phase, the financial companies’ structure is explored, using ratio analysis, a method that has been already exploited to evaluate it in other sectors (De Martini, 2018). The data are collected by AIDA, a financial database powered by Bureau Van Dijk, which contains the balance sheet data of all the Italian firms (Pederzoli and Torricelli, 2010). The time period considered is 2013-2019. Originality: This article explores firms operating in a sector that, even if has been damaged and strongly proved by the pandemic, revealed a big resilience; in fact, agri-food in general, and F&B in particular, is still characterized by a high level of employment and great relevance in GDP composition. In addition, although other research has already investigated the relationship between the financial structure and the owner’s gender, this type of study has not interested yet the agri-food companies. Practical implication: The results of this analysis could be useful to agents belonging to the agri-food industry to support the decision-making about the financial structure, also in a period of uncertainty or economic crisis. In addition, it could be an opportunity for both SMEs to explore new typologies of financing sources and for investors to take into account the different approaches to financial decisions between male and female companies' management.

The present study aims to understand if and how the public sector literature has analyzed the gender issue, focusing on the role of women during an uncertain period (Jia et al., 2020). From this analysis, it will be possible to i) define the state of the art of the public sector accounting, audit and management literature considering the gender diversity; ii) identify the literature gap in this area; iii) think about the further lines of research. The authors adopted a bibliometric analysis, a quantitative approach to analyze previous research papers, combined with a qualitative literature review. This mixed-method allows obtaining a more reliable and objective analysis due to the quantitative investigation and an in-depth and critical analysis thanks to the qualitative method (Massaro et al., 2016; Aria and Cuccurullo, 2017; Xu et al., 2018; Paoloni et al., 2020a; Paoloni et al., 2020b). The database has been extracted from the ISI Web of Science (WoS), and the eligible sample includes 101 documents. First Findings: The analysis shows that this is a trending topic, and the attention of scholars is still growing. The major number of publications analyzed the agency level of governments located in the US; therefore, other potential organizational contexts and countries could be considered. Most documents implement quantitative methods, which are preferred to any other typology. More studies could focus their attention on qualitative in-depth research approaches. Finally, from the co-citation analysis, the topics on representative bureaucracy and the impact of women on public performance turn out to be widely examined in the sample. Conversely, no one analyzed the role of women during a crisis or a significant change in the public sector. Although public sector literature is an area already much explored by scholars, not so many contributions are focused on the gender issue, on the contrary of what happens in the private one (e.g. Paoloni and Demartini, 2016). Therefore, this work could be considered original for the topic addressed and the methodology implemented. The main contribution consists of the emphasis given to gender topics in public sector studies. Furthermore, it also could bring out the gap between gender research and practice. In particular, it highlights how literature analyzed most common discriminatory phenomena, such as glass ceiling and glass cliff, and how it suggested to prevent them in the public sector.

Considering that both revenues are an ideal component to examine as it is the largest earnings component for firms and that from 1st January 2018 became mandatory adopt IFRS 15 that discipline “revenues from contracts with clients” is interesting to understand if Italian listed companies provide information about the potential impact of this new standard. The present study focuses the attention to the telecommunications industry that is considered one of the most involved by the adoption of IFRS 15. The methodology used to carry out the research is a content analysis. In line with the expectations of authors, the study concludes that in the Italian Telecommunications listed companies exist a direct correlation between the potential impact of IFRS 15 and the quantity and quality information provided in the annual reports elaborated for the two years prior to adopting the new standard.

Starting from the assumption that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performances and financial performances are the results of the plan of actions of companies and depend on the financial and sustainability policies, the aim of this paper is to understand, thanks to a traditional literature review, what kind of relationship exists between the companies’ strategy and the composition of the corporate governance, already identified from scholars. From this, it is possible to hypothesize, thank the support of the literature, others types of relations not yet test, enclosing these in a framework that will be used in a following part of the present research.

The Italian banking system has profoundly changed during the last 20 years both due to the privatization of the major State banks and out of the greater use of market financing taken place on the stock exchange. Thanks to the M&A process, nowadays, banks are larger and more complex than in the past but, M&A is a dangerous process if it is not appropriately dealt. The major risks are related to the numerous different items that must be well managed during the transition period such as, e.g., employees and information systems. Concurrently, banks’ managers are being asked to incorporate the new features and changes deriving from the recent years’ digitization. These important changes, unavoidably, lead to the need to close branches reducing the number of employees which has repercussions on the relations that the bank has with the territory and this could compromise the economic local grow. The present work revolves around the idea of understanding which actions the managers could undertake to ensure that the relationship with the territory is not lost while facing exponential growth in size, caused by the M&A process, and the challenges brought about by digitalisation. The methodology used in the present paper is an ethnographic exploratory single case study where the information will be collected using semi-structured interviews. In this first part of a wider project, in addition to a literature review, the process required to elaborate the schemes of the semi-structured interviews is explained. The value of the work is interesting for scholars as well as for practitioners; in fact, from the analysis of the answers provided by managers it will be possible to learn a lesson regarding the actions that were carried out, but also about the activities that have not led to the desired results and therefore should be avoided. At the same time, this study could contribute to the academic debate as it allows us to add literature on management while selecting which prior author’s position to endorse, regarding the influence of managers’ behaviours on obtaining profitability in banking institutions.

In 2013 the European Commission started addressing issues concerning public sector accounting harmonization across EU Member States, embarking on a project to develop European Public Sector Accounting Standards (EPSASs). Although acknowledging the indisputable reference of the existing International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs), it highlighted that IPSASs, as they were, could not be suitably applied in the EU context (European Commission, 2013a). IPSASs were considered as not covering specific important matters of public sector accounting, not showing enough stability due to the need of constant convergence with IFRSs, and offering several options that compromised comparability. Comparability of public sector accounts across Member States is one of the main objectives of EPSASs (EUROSTAT, 2016, 2019), clearly established as a qualitative characteristic in the draft EPSAS Conceptual Framework (EUROSTAT, 2018). It is critical for EU economic and fiscal convergence that countries’ accounts allow for substantial comparison and standardized transition to the National Accounts (Jorge et al., 2014). The IPSAS Conceptual Framework (IPSASB, 2014), meanwhile issued, sustains that adopting these standards would improve comparability of General Purpose Financial Reporting (GPFR), in this way strengthening transparency and accountability of public sector finance. Given that, despite the above concerns, EPSASs are to be developed on the basis of IPSASs (European Commission, 2019), the purpose of this paper is to show that IPSASs are not an adequate reference for EPSASs in terms of allowing the desired comparability of countries’ accounts in the EU. It relies on evidence gathered from IPSAS-based financial reports prepared by some Agencies of the United Nations System and from audit reports of the UN Board of Auditors. The research illustrates that IPSASs only allow for de jure comparability of financial reports at a very broad level. Their implementation and interpretation in practice (due to the options permitted and the judgement required) does not allow for de facto comparable GPFR. European standard-setters need to be aware that the comparability EPSASs need to address across EU Member States’ accounts must go beyond the one that is permitted by IPSASs – EPSASs need to stretch IPSASs harmonization to a higher level of standardization., The author Susana Jorge acknowledges that her work in this paper was supported by Fundacão para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [grant number UID/CP0/0758/2019]. All authors would like to thank to Stefano Penati for his contribution to the empirical part of the paper