Earnings management research: Italian convergence towards US

Facing the current convergence of Italian accounting research towards American accounting research, with specific reference to the stream of earnings management, the present paper aims at verifying if this convergence can be read as such institutional homogenization theorized in new institutional sociology (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Since accounting research can be viewed as an organizational field, immersed in the institutional setting of universities, the paper analyses the homogenization path of Italian EM research towards American one and detects the isomorphic mechanisms that drove such homogenization. To achieve its aims, the paper develops an historical comparison to highlight differences and similarities in the evolution of Italian and American EM research, according to international comparative accounting history. Such a comparison allows detecting those coercive, mimetic and normative pressures that drove the convergence of Italian EM research towards the dominating American EM research.