Searching for regulation in corporate narrative reporting for charitable organisations in the past: an historical exploration in Italy and the UK

Accounting practices are socially and historically contextualized. Hence accounting techniques and practices are shaped by their social, political and legislative contexts (Carnegie, Lee, Mcbride and Napier, 2020). In this regard, in recent decades, the harmonization of accounting principles through the IFRS has taken into account the influences deriving from the historical, cultural and legal differences at the country level (Saita, Saracino, Provasi and Messaggi, 2012). Accordingly, in the last decades of the 20th century, there has been progressive international adoption and harmonization of narratives in corporate reporting. In parallel with this, there has been a “growing interest among researchers, regulators and information users in narrative/nonfinancial information” (Marzouk and Hussainey, 2020). This chapter aims to contribute to the theme of corporate narrative reporting by adopting an accounting history perspective.