‘Residual headway’ of Degrange’s Five General Accounts in nineteenth-century Italian accounting practices: insights from a case study

During the Italian post-Unification period from 1861, Italian accounting scholarship experienced a ‘golden age’. The contributions of scholars such as Francesco Marchi, Giuseppe Cerboni and Fabio Besta promoted accounting in Italy to the rank of science. During this flourishing period of new theories and approaches, previously adopted accounting systems were maintained in some businesses’ accounting practices and, for a certain period, were taught in professional schools. This applied particularly to the eighteenth-century accounting practices, such as the ‘Five General Accounts’ system introduced by Edmond Degrange. Using an institutional theory lens, this study explores the case of Rossi & Gagliardi, a Sicilian textile trader, who, despite newer accounting theories and systems promoted by Italian scholars, maintained a Five General Accounts system in a ‘residual headway’ scenario. A longitudinal analysis of its account books and other information sources from 1870 to 1917 reveals key factors for the maintenance of the Five General Accounts in an adapted form. Within the neo-institutionalist history theory of accounting, a classification of the degree of institutional pressures for change/adaptation of accounting systems is developed and used.