Laura Maran - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Laura Maran

XV IRSPM Conference, 2011

Il lavoro di tesi, ed in particolare quello della tesi di Dottorato, è uno dei più impegnativi, n... more Il lavoro di tesi, ed in particolare quello della tesi di Dottorato, è uno dei più impegnativi, non tanto perché sia esteso nel tempo o perché richieda un intenso sforzo fisico e intellettuale quanto più perché è il frutto di un percorso formativo nel quale si sceglie di mettersi personalmente e completamente in gioco. Allora, l'accrescimento professionale è solo una delle sfide poste dal lavoro di tesi, mentre l'altra importante sfida è saper sviluppare quella serie di capacità trasversali che aiutano a confrontarsi con realtà, situazioni e circostanze, accademiche e non accademiche, mutevoli ed incerte. Forse paradossalmente, la consapevolezza dei limiti e delle imperfezioni di un lavoro che è sempre "a finire" è il suo valore aggiunto: l'aprire nuove finestre e nuove domande di ricerca ogni volta che se ne chiudono alcune o se ne esauriscono altre ed il saper cancellare e ricominciare di fronte ad ipotesi alternative. Il mio personale percorso di Dottorato m...

Benchmarking an International Journal, 2008

Purpose – The paper suggests an application of the benchmarking technique on the content evaluati... more Purpose – The paper suggests an application of the benchmarking technique on the content evaluation of the Health District Activity Plans (HADPs). Design/methodology/approach – A literature review on benchmarking leads to the definition of a benchmarking process, which is utilized to evaluate and compare the contents of the Health District Activity Plans. These documents link the planning activity of the Health Districts of a Region to the objectives comprehensively established at higher levels. Consequently, to define a common level of comparison of the HADPs, the contents of the texts are evaluated through an in-depth study of the specific law prescriptions and the adoption of an hermeneutic point of view. The HADPs collected among the Health Districts of a single Italian Region represent the empirical data set and their specific benchmarking involves the definition of benchmark scales and placement of “best practices”. Findings – Benchmarking can improve planning capabilities of the Health Districts pointing out their most positive differences. Its specific application on the HDAPs highlights its flexibility and usefulness; whilst at the same time it opens new insights on the recent evolution of the health care systems towards accountability, cost consciousness and efficiency. Practical implications – The results of the benchmarking comparison will lead to the design of an empirical blueprint for framing Health District planning data and improve the understanding of the Region. Originality/value – The paper highlights the role of benchmarking both in providing a comprehensive lecture key of the reality of District planning and suggesting cues from the best practices observed. Keywords – Health District Activity Plans, strategic planning, benchmarking, hermeneutic analysis Paper type – public sector benchmarkin

Accounting History

Set in the municipal archives of Braga, this article studies the accounting system and practices ... more Set in the municipal archives of Braga, this article studies the accounting system and practices of the Monastery of Santa Ana, a female monastery located in a small town, Viana do Castelo, in the north of Portugal, during the eighteenth century. This work is a full-scale examination of the interlink between governance and accounting aspects of Benedictine organisations. It sheds light on the extent of management and administration that the female gender was able to exercise pertaining to a monastic order. The use of ‘displacement’ and ‘restraint’ concepts is pivotal to such exploration in the Monastery. The analysis of the accounting practices makes visible that large parts of its governance was embedded in social and internal accounting controls rather than the principal-agent type of relationship between the abbess, her auxiliaries and the monastery. Moreover, accounting practices help to appreciate the level of freedom of nuns that exceeded the actual freedom of a contemporary m...

Critical Perspectives on Accounting

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 2021

PurposeThis paper reports an investigation of a hybrid ex-state-owned enterprise (ex-SOE) providi... more PurposeThis paper reports an investigation of a hybrid ex-state-owned enterprise (ex-SOE) providing ICT (Information and Communication Technology) services in the Italian healthcare sector (in-house provision). The authors aim to offer a framing that reflects the concerns expressed in the interdisciplinary literature on hybrid SOEs from management, public administration and, more recently, accounting.Design/methodology/approachThis study operationalizes Besharov and Smith’s (2014) theoretical model on multiple logics to analyze institutional structures and organizational outcomes at an ICT in-house provider. It builds on extensive textual analysis of regulatory, archival, survey and interview data.FindingsThe study results show that the combination of hybridity in the form of layering of multiple logics in the health care sector (Polzer et al., 2016) creates problems for the effectiveness of ICT provision. In particular, the hybrid organization the authors study remained stuck in es...

Questo volume intende offrire al lettore, sia esso impegnato concretamente nell'ambito socio-... more Questo volume intende offrire al lettore, sia esso impegnato concretamente nell'ambito socio-sanitario o studioso di problematiche inerenti l'integrazione socio-sanitaria, la possibilità di approfondire gli esiti cui sono giunte alcune recenti ricerche, i risultati conseguiti e le difficoltà incontrate nel corso di una serie di esperienze operative. I contributi qui raccolti sono suddivisi in due diverse sezioni. La prima raccoglie gli esiti delle ricerche scientifiche sull'integrazione socio-sanitaria realizzate da economisti aziendali provenienti da vari atenei italiani. Nella seconda, grazie ai contributi di autori che hanno concretamente seguito lo sviluppo di alcune esperienze di integrazione socio-sanitaria, sono presentate iniziative anche molto differenti fra loro, il cui resoconto vuole mettere in evidenza i risultati e le criticità dei percorsi intrapresi

The vast majority of the Italian accounting scholars considers the Eighteenth century as a centur... more The vast majority of the Italian accounting scholars considers the Eighteenth century as a century of decline for the Accounting studies since the works of Italian Authors did not stand out for innovation and originality at the time. However, a minority of Accounting scholars remarks that the Eighteenth century in Italy should not be simply interpreted in a negative light because it ideally joints the fruitful Seventeenth century to the Positivism of the Nineteenth century. This work is inspired by this latter consideration and it aims at analysing the Italian studies published in the Eighteenth century which have some - major or minor - focus on Accounting. The analysis will provide a full account of the Italian Accounting literature of that time, instead of giving partial - and often brief - account of individual Authors as usually provided in more 'comprehensive' Accounting history works. The whole nineteen studies which have been published in the Eighteenth century have ...

The last decades of the 1800s are recognized by being the most relevant for the development of th... more The last decades of the 1800s are recognized by being the most relevant for the development of the Italian accounting. In those years, in Italy, the eager effort of the accountants led to the scientific growth of the discipline and the dignification of the accounting studies and the profession. This historical period has been identified as the “golden age” of accounting since a number of new accounting applications emerged and contributed to a different extent to the above mentioned development of the accounting studies. Among those applications, the “Sillografia” is a particular bookkeeping tool which was consciously designed to be inscrutable, in other terms to prevent third parties from reading and interpreting the accounting status and dynamics of an economic entity such as a firm. The most relevant trait of the “Sillografia” is the omission from the bookkeeping of relevant transactions such as cash, inventories, payables and receivables, with the result that only the specific a...

Medium and small family firms are a fundamental element for the Italian economic development and ... more Medium and small family firms are a fundamental element for the Italian economic development and wealth. One of the main reasons of failure of this type of firm is the business succession, within the family members. The literature considers the business succession as a natural and progressive phenomenon that is linked to both the long-term survival of the firm and/or an increasing efficiency. Despite the vast literature on the topic, a few studies try to focus further dimensions of the business succession as the role of management accounting systems (MASs) in connection with trust and organizational routines. The aim of the present research is to deepen a process of business succession, with a specific focus on both the inter-generational relationships and their influence on the role played by MASs. A qualitative methodology will be used to conduct a longitudinal case-study, using a deductive-inductive-deductive approach, that is typical of the business administration studies. The e...

CONTABILITÀ E CULTURA AZIENDALE, 2018

Higher electrolyte concentration in the effluent causes worst effect such as; impairing the delic... more Higher electrolyte concentration in the effluent causes worst effect such as; impairing the delicate biochemistry of aquatic organism, destructive attack on pipes if sodium sulphate is used as electrolyte due to the formation of alumino-sulphate complexes which swell and crack concretes with considerable alumina content. This may lead to emission of hydrogen sulphide gas under anaerobic conditions, dissolution of such sulfides and subsequent bacterial oxidation, which may form the corrosive sulphuric acid. The aforementioned process will lead to higher Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Total dissolved Solid (TDS) [11]. Finally, if the effluent must