Michele Bigoni’s main area of expertise is critical accounting, both from contemporary and historical perspectives. He is particularly interested in analysing how the cultural, ideological and political values in a society or organisation can influence the development and use of accounting tools. His research is strongly interdisciplinary in nature and combines accounting with theories and principles specific to political economy, philosophy and sociology. The work of theorists such as Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben and Gilles Deleuze has been particularly important in Michele’s research. Public value accounting is another area of interest. Michele’s work has appeared in many highly regarded international journals, including Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Accounting Forum, Accounting History, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, The Accounting Historians Journal, The British Accounting Review and Public Money & Management. Michele has received numerous prizes for his teaching and research, including the Margit F. and Hanns Martin Schoenfeld Scholarship, which is awarded by the American Accounting Association. Michele currently serves as Editorial Board Member for Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal and Accounting History, for which he has also Guest Edited Special Issues. He is an Associate Editor of Critical Perspectives on Accounting.

Visiting activity

The visit is going to focus on starting an interdisciplinary project on accounting history. In particular, the project will apply insights from sociology and political economy to the study of the evolution of accounting practices in key institutions, such religious entities, especially in the 19th century. The project will seek to connect accounting change and broader economic and political phenomena with the view to showing the contributions of accounting to societal change. The visit will be an opportunity to identify institutions to be analysed, assess the availability of materials, and discuss the theoretical lens to be applied in the study of the latter.