Economia Aziendale: a missing connection between the theory and academic syllabi

The paper is focused on an interesting aspect of accounting education: based on the analysis of the syllabi of Economia Aziendale (EA) from all 65 Italian universities teaching economics or business administration, strong inconsistencies emerge among themselves and between syllabi and theory. The choice of the analysed subject is very relevant in Italian universities of Economics and Business Administration, since it represents a fundamental subject of the curricula and deeply impacts on financial accounting. EA is strongly related to the specific Italian approach to financial accounting compared with many other countries, and in particular with the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and International Financial Reporting Standard system. Our findings are the following. First of all, the analysed syllabi are generally not fully consistent with the theory as it was stated at its origin, and how it is still considered today. In particular, the unitary approach of the discipline specifically stated as one of the main characteristics of this science is missing. One of the pillars of EA is, in this way, omitted or deleted. Our paper analyses the reasons of these inconsistencies and finds an important connection with these three elements: the career needs, the working constraints and the legal system of rules