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This study examines how accounting practices used by Deutsche Bank could conceal its role in the destruction of Jewish financial life (bios) as part of the Nazis' Aryanisation policy to eliminate Jews from German business as a prelude to their annihilation.

This study uses a close-reading method that draws upon a wide range of primary and secondary sources. The study is informed by Giorgio Agamben's theorisations on the state of exception and the duality of the example and exception.

The successful implementation of the Nazis' corporative economic model necessitated the cooperation of Aryan businesses to instrumentalise the financially exploitative process of Aryanisation. Accounting was part of the Nazi-Deutsch rhetoric used to disguise expropriation of Jewish businesses and other assets and, thereby, facilitate the eradication of the financial bios of Jews who owned German banks. Unknown to the Nazi authorities, Deutsche Bank, while a significant medium for Aryanisation, sought to ameliorate the long-term effects on Jewish owners, thereby recognising that not all those within Nazi Germany were fully committed disciples of Nazism.

The findings of this study identify how accounting practices were part of a Nazi policy designed to eliminate Jews from the German economy. The use of accounting as a form of “Nazi-Deutsch” functioned to disguise Aryanisations. The importance of these contributions of accounting practices calls for further research into the role of business and accounting in the attempted eradication of people.

The paper is the first to consider the process of Aryanisation in Nazi Germany (1933–1945) as a specific historiographical subject. Presented through the examination of the Aryanisation actions of Deutsche Bank, this study demonstrates the tension between Nazi ideology, the capitalist model and the culpability of accounting practices as a means to reinterpret morality to create the exception that allowed the Nazis to effectively remove all legal protections for Jews.

This chapter argues that the dead are stakeholders and that they should be regarded as such. In making that argument I will be exploring the claims of the philosopher Bob Brecher (2002) that we have real obligations to the dead because they made us what we are, if they were a part of our community. Indeed, Brecher (2002) argues that the dead never ceased ‘to be members of a particular community’ and therefore ‘the dead can be said to have interests’. This chapter explores the validity of their interests as stakeholders. Indeed, I argue that if they are not regarded as stakeholders, corporate management will overlook their interests. Admittedly, corporate managers might seem mindful of their interests. However, if they are not conceived of as stakeholders, such managers will not be primarily concerned with their interests, but with how other stakeholders might perceive those interests. In attempting to satisfy these other stakeholders’ perceptions of those interests, the actual interests of the dead could be overlooked. But that relies on the dead being legitimate stakeholders. To substantiate that status I therefore argue in this chapter that the dead are stakeholders, but also that their status as a stakeholder now that they are dead is dependent on their behaviour when they were alive, given Brecher's (2002) insistence as to them being a part of that community.

In arguing this, I utilize a recent article by Rosenbloom and Althaus (2010). I argue that the interest of the dead they mention in their article would best be served if they are considered as stakeholders. Indeed, that because Rosenbloom and Althaus (2010) do not consider those dead as stakeholders, their interests are never considered. I acknowledge though that being stakeholders relies on them remaining a part of that community (Brecher, 2002), which I argue they were a part of. If they do not remain a part of that community, I cannot argue that they are stakeholders. I therefore consider a historical argument which if accepted would prove that the dead which Rosenbloom and Althaus (2010) consider had not remained a part of that community and therefore cannot be accepted as stakeholders. This chapter rigorously examines the validity of that historical argument as to the behaviour of those dead when they were living, and whether their behaviour negates any claims as to them being stakeholders. This chapter completely refutes any arguments as to these dead being involved in such activities which would have removed them from their community and thus from being stakeholders. It furthermore argues that successfully rebutting such arguments is essential to my argument that the dead I am considering are stakeholders.

Make a contribution on company business models and typical reactions to economic crises.

Media-analysis-based case study.

Crisis is handled through drawing on a strategy deriving from the typical features of the company; through the crisis these features are even intensified.

Multinational companies are complex and only transparent to a small degree; the empirical data therefore rests on a database with articles.

Social implications can be seen at the BMW as a functioning example for social partnership as a form of economic embeddedness at the societal level.

This paper explores the development of a luxury retail shoe brand in Belle Époque Vienna.

Footwear retailing and marketing history is a neglected area. Unfortunately, no business records have survived from Robert Schlesinger’s shoe stores. However, it has been possible to reconstruct the history of the development of the Paprika Schlesinger brand from its extensive advertising in the Viennese newspaper, the Neue Freie Presse, with the guidance of the founder’s grandson, Prof Robert A. Shaw, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, Birkbeck, University of London, England. This case study would not have been possible without the digitization of some major collections of primary sources. In 2014, the European Union’s Europeana digitization initiative launched a new portal via the Library of Europe website which provides access to selected digitized historic newspaper collections in libraries across Europe. The project partners include the Austrian National Library which has digitized full runs of several major historic Austrian newspapers, including the Neue Freie Presse. Other project partners which have digitized historic newspapers which are relevant to this paper are the Landesbibliothek Dr Friedrich Teßmann of Italy’s Südtirol region, the National Library of France and the Berlin State Library. An associate project partner library, the Slovenian National and University Library’s Digital Library of Slovenia, has also digitized relevant historic newspapers. Furthermore, the City of Vienna has digitized a complete set of Vienna city directories as part of its Wienbibliothek Digital project.

This paper suggests that Robert Schlesinger created one of the first European luxury retail shoe brands.

This is the first academic study of the historical development of the advertising and marketing of a European luxury retail shoe brand.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the significant role of accounting in the expropriation of Jewish real estate after the enforcement of race laws under Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime in Italy.

Hannah Arendt’s understanding of government bureaucracy in the twentieth century totalitarian regimes informs the research which draws upon a wide range of primary sources.

Implementation of the program of expropriation was the responsibility of a government body, EGELI, which was created specifically for this purpose. The language of accounting provided the means to disguise the nature and brutality of the process and allow bureaucrats to be removed from the consequences of their actions. Accounting reports from EGELI to the Ministry of Finance confirmed each year that those who worked in EGELI were devoted to its mission as an agency of the Fascist State.

The findings of this study recognize the need for further research on the role played by servicemen, bureaucrats and accounting as a technology of government in the deportation of Italian Jews to Germany. The study also provides impetus to examine how other countries managed the properties confiscated or expropriated from the Jews in the earlier stages of the Final Solution.

The study is the first to identify the significant role played by accounting and accountants in the persecution of Italian Jews under the Fascism.

The purpose of this paper is to profile the role played by the House of the Wannsee Conference, a house used by Nazis which is now an educational centre.

The paper provides a descriptive analysis supported by relevant literature.

The paper concludes that one of the biggest challenges for educational work at such a dark tourism site lies in simultaneously revealing and breaking or contextualizing the link between the site and the perspectives and the thinking of the perpetrators.

The paper provides a practitioner perspective on the challenges of linking education on a dark tourism theme with the history and atmosphere of the location itself.

This paper aims to present a preliminary exploration of the intersections between the accounting and information systems (IS) disciplines. Using the illustrative example of the COVIDSafe app, released by the Australian federal government in response to the “wicked problem” of COVID-19, we demonstrate the value of interdisciplinarity to broaden the boundaries of accounting beyond a technical orientation to encompass social and moral considerations.

We apply a high-level view of socio-technical theory derived from the IS discipline by using a close-reading method of publicly available media and federal government sources related to the COVIDSafe app collected between April 2020 and April 2021. This theoretical lens allows for an enhanced understanding of the technical, environmental/regulatory, and social subsystems relating to accounting and accountability while supporting interdisciplinary reflection.

Addressing complex and wicked problems in accounting requires interdisciplinary approaches, whereby the accounting discipline must move beyond its technical origins. Dialogue between the accounting and IS disciplines is necessary to gain a deeper appreciation of the social, technical and moral implications of accounting in context.

Viewing accounting beyond a technical practice through collaboration between accounting and IS offers a theorisation to consider the multi-dimensional nature of complex societal challenges. This theorisation can support the advancement of our practice and research meaningfully toward a view of accounting that centres on ideas of the public interest and the betterment of society. There remains much scope for progressing this dialogue, and we commend other scholars to engage in interdisciplinary work on the boundaries of accounting.

This study illustrates opportunities for accounting and IS approaches to solving “grand challenges”. Further, the study answers multiple calls for interdisciplinary discourse in accounting scholarship by contributing a socio-technical framing toward addressing complex challenges in our calculative era by initiating a dialogue that moves beyond accounting's traditional technical practice or the “accounting information systems” context.