Purpose: This study aims to examine the over 60-year evolution of behavioral accounting research (BAR), with the main aim of critically and accurately tracing its past, present and future. Design/methodology/approach: This study used Scopus and Google Scholar databases to collect 2,263 articles of BAR published on relevant accounting journals. Thus, this study used Bibliometrix to provide a temporal overview of articles and a temporally oriented network co-occurrence analysis of BAR topics. Findings: This study retraces the history of BAR since its origins and, also on the basis of triggering events inside (e.g. Nobel Prizes for behavioral economics studies) and outside (e.g. accounting scandals) the academic debate, this study critically discusses the evolution and interconnections of BAR topics. Then, future research is addressed toward main promising avenues, thus integrating recent technological applications into the behavioral accounting experimental designs to improve their external validity, exploring the potential positive effects of professionals’ heuristics in performing accounting tasks under certain environmental conditions, exploiting behavioral accounting frameworks to analyze and improve sustainability reporting and sustainability performance management. Originality/value: Although BAR is rich of contributions, including subfields and contaminations, it lacks a holistic evaluation of its origins, development and future perspectives. In this vein, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to use a bibliometric analysis to evaluate the evolution of BAR.

Purpose: This study aims to examine how institutional logic evolved in the narrative elements of Barilla’s annual reports and accounts as the company transitioned from being a family-owned business to ownership and management by US-based W. R. Grace and Co. (1971–1979), and its subsequent reacquisition by the Barilla family. Design/methodology/approach: Data were gathered from the annual reports of W. R. Grace and Co. and the Board of Directors’ Reports of Barilla (1968–1979), various legal records and other sources. The concept of institutional logic is used to investigate Barilla, focusing on the potential emergence of new logic sets during Grace’s ownership. Findings: The analysis suggests a shift in the institutional logic of the firm, with a decline in family-driven logic and an increase in market- and corporation-driven logic. These changes appear to have been at least financially successful. In addition, the analysis highlights how multiple logics coexisted and were not necessarily in conflict. Originality/value: This study sheds light on a previously unexplored transitional phase that bridged the early dynastic period of Barilla, the global leader in the pasta industry, to its subsequent long-lasting success. By doing so, this research provides novel insights into a rarely occurring transition management process, complementing and stimulating studies on succession and the role of transitional actors in linking a family firm’s past ownership to future generations.