L'Impresa pubblica in Italia nella storia aziendale e nella dottrina

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to survey the contributions that the Italian doctrine in business disciplines and accounting gave to the social and economic phenomenon of the public firm, under the light of the peculiar national history that this country experienced. The interval of time considered spreads from around the national unification (1860/61) to the ‘advent’ of the globalization (since 1990, approximately) because of the relative importance of public firms in Italy through this long period. The paper presents a historical interpretation of this evolution, sharing it into three main phases, each of which shared in its turn into two stadia. After this general history of public firms presented as the framework where the Italian doctrine was inserted, the proper history of ideas is presented. Such ideas were nearly all embedded in the peculiar Italian scientific revolution of ‘Economia aziendale’ and showed a lower evolution than its relevance in the real economy, looking at the public firms more as branches of the state organization than as separate institutions. Notwithstanding that, however, in the final decades a full and mature perception of the ‘public firm’ as a special kind of entities finally emerges in the Italian schools, together with a strengthening of the traditional general conception of the entities (as a ‘concern’ or ‘azienda’),