Giuseppe Cerboni and the Italian Unification. Principal and Agent: a new concept of business and a new concept of accounting method

The research aims at identifying the contribution of an Italian scholar, Giuseppe Cerboni (1827-1917), who lived the pre and post-Unitarian period, to the process of harmonization in the Italian business environment. Placement of Cerboni’s thought in the Italian school of accounting. It is possible to refer to different types of periodization (division into periods) of the history of accounting. If we refer to periodization made by Melis, according to the most significant sources (Melis, 1940), Giuseppe Cerboni (1827-1917) is in the last period beginning in 1840, the date of publication of the greatest work of Francesco Villa, considered the starting point of Accounting Science. If we use the periodization made Giannessi (Giannessi, 1971), Cerboni is positioned in the third phase (second half of the nineteenth century), characterized by the struggle to make accountancy raise to the status of science, and is inserted in the first period, called logismogical. • Concise statement of key research questions The two main areas of Cerboni’s literature will be the focus of the analysis: 1. definition of a business model of post-unity Italy; 2. definition of a unified accounting method: the “Logismografia”. The main research questions will be the following: • Is it possible to attribute to Cerboni the definition of a new business model capable of responding to the needs emerged from a new economic and social context, and in particular from the new production systems and asset-ownership of the post-unity industrial environment? • What was the role played by the creation of a new accounting method, the “Logismografia”, applied to both public and private companies? • Is it possible to identify in these studies the origins of the theory of the firm and of the agency theory (Jensen & Meckling, 1976; Fama, 1980)? In regard to the first area of research, the analysis will focus on the definition of administrative functions, the law of similarity of firms and the introduction of the concept of corporate accountability, which was partially influenced by the account personalistic theory (Cerboni, 1886; 1894; 1902). The transformation of asset-ownership will be analysed through the lens of the theory of the firm, which, in the opinion of the authors, was anticipated by the firm model defined by Cerboni. (Holson, 1981; Hawkins, 1969; Jensen & Meckling, 1970; Ross, 1973; Haugen & Senbet, 1979; Fama, 1980). In the second area of research, the technical methods of accounting acquire stronger relevance mainly in the context of post-unity industrial environment. The analysis will then focus on whether the “Logismografia” had the potential to adequately represent the economic and financial situation of the companies of the time, reaching a "revolutionary juncture" between private and public accounting (Mattesich, 2003). Should this be confirmed, it could be stated that Italy not only achieved political but also accounting unity (Cavour, Acts of the Sub-Alpine Parliament, 1867).