Gino Zappa (

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...

, 1879 -

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

, 1960) was an Italian

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

Biography

He was a professor at

Bocconi University Bocconi University ( it, Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, ) is a private university in Milan, Italy. Bocconi provides education in the fields of economics, finance, law, management, political science, public administration and comput ...

in Milan and University Ca'Foscari of Venice, where he was also Rector. Zappa dedicated his life to the study of business economics. Pietro Onida, Pasquale Saraceno, Tommaso Zerbi, Giordano Dell'Amore, Ugo Caprara, Aldo Amaduzzi, Giorgio Pivato, Ettore Lorusso, Carlo Masini, Lino Azzini, Luigi Guatri, Arnaldo Marcantonio and others would later expand his ideas.

Business Economics: the unity of the disciplines detection, management, organization

"The science that studies the conditions of existence and manifestations of corporate life, the science of economic administration companies, in other words, business administration is our science." From G. Zappa New Trends in the Studies of Accounting (1927). The lines of the renewal of economics and business studies are drawn from him in this historic inaugural address, delivered in 1926, on the occasion of the inauguration of the academic year at the University

Ca 'Foscari Ca' Foscari University of Venice ( it, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, simply Università Ca' Foscari) is a public university in Venice, Italy. Since its foundation in 1868, it has been housed in the Venetian Gothic palace of Ca' Foscari, from w ...

, and published the following year, in 1927. This speech marks the official start of the modern teaching of

business economics Business economics is a field in applied economics which uses economic theory and quantitative methods to analyze business enterprises and the factors contributing to the diversity of organizational structures and the relationships of firms with ...

(“economia aziendale”) in Italian Universities. With this work, Zappa proposed the following challenge: to create a "unified science” of "vast content" "to compose a whole, generally ordered for principles, the study of economics by company in its multiple and complex manifestations" (Zappa 1956, p. 3). G. Zappa proposed a more integrated approach in Italy: scholars of public accounting, management and organization are called to broaden their horizons and to work on complementary research. More specifically Zappa proposed to unify

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "languag ...

, business legal forms,

Corporate governance Corporate governance is defined, described or delineated in diverse ways, depending on the writer's purpose. Writers focused on a disciplinary interest or context (such as accounting, finance, law, or management) often adopt narrow definitions ...

organizational studies Organization studies (also called organization science or organizational studies) is the academic field interested in a ''collective activity, and how it relates to organization, organizing, and management''. It is "the examination of how individua ...

and business economic analysis (see

Investment analysis In finance, valuation is the process of determining the present value (PV) of an asset. In a business context, it is often the hypothetical price that a third party would pay for a given asset. Valuations can be done on assets (for example, inve ...

) in one coherent and unified subject. This vision can be opposed to dominant view of economic profession at the time (see

microeconomics Microeconomics is a branch of mainstream economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics fo ...

) which tended to see business as “black-boxes” not worrying in describing its internal modes of operation. Modern Italian universities usually offer both courses of business economics as above defined as well standard course in microeconomics to their

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...

students.

Notes and references

*Galassi, Giuseppe
"Zappa, Gino (1879-1960)."
In ''History of accounting: An International Encyclopedia,'' edited by

Michael Chatfield Michael Chatfield (1930s-2004) was an American economist, accounting historian, and Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the Southern Oregon University, known for his work on the history of accounting and accounting thought, and particularly for hi ...

and

Richard Vangermeersch Richard G.J. Vangermeersch (born 1940) is an American economist, and Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Rhode Island, particularly known for his ''History of Accounting: An International Encyclopedia,'' edited with Michael Chat ...

. New York: Garland Publishing, 1996. pp. 617–618. * M.A. Romani (ed.), ''Gino Zappa'', Milano, 2008. Italian economists Writers from Milan 1879 births 1960 deaths Academic staff of Bocconi University Academic staff of the Ca' Foscari University of Venice {{Italy-economist-stub

Biography

Business Economics: the unity of the disciplines detection, management, organization

See also

Notes and references