Pub Date : 2019-11-04DOI: 10.1080/21552851.2019.1686036
Giacomo Manetti, M. Bellucci, L. Bagnoli
ABSTRACT Accounting practices played a fundamental role in the construction of Brunelleschi’s dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence during the fifteenth century. This study examines the accountability practices and government technologies adopted by the Opera del Duomo, the organisation entrusted to build and maintain the Cathedral of Florence, between 1420 and 1436, when the dome was constructed. This research draws on the theories of Foucault and Dean regarding technologies of government within quasi-public administrations to explain historical evidence for the accountability practices supporting Brunelleschi’s dome construction. Through the collected evidence, we identify the application of ‘technologies of government’ hundreds of years before Foucault’s arguments about governmentality. We also describe a system of accountability, especially downward accountability, inspired by religious values that pays attention to users, the local community and other affected constituents as a result of the Opera’s special status as a ‘quasi-public’ (but formally private) administration. Our findings touch on the willingness to account for and report public funding, the presence of checks and balances inside the governance framework, the active engagement of citizens and local partners to achieve consensus, and notions of social responsibility toward the workers who helped to build the dome.
15世纪，在布鲁内莱斯基设计的佛罗伦萨圣母大教堂穹顶的建造过程中，会计实践发挥了重要作用。本研究考察了1420年至1436年穹顶建成期间，受托建造和维护佛罗伦萨大教堂的歌剧院(Opera del Duomo)采用的问责制实践和政府技术。本研究借鉴了福柯和迪安关于准公共行政中的政府技术的理论，以解释支持布鲁内莱斯基圆顶结构的问责实践的历史证据。通过收集到的证据，我们确定了“政府技术”的应用，比福柯关于治理的论点早了数百年。我们还描述了一个问责制，特别是向下问责制，受到宗教价值观的启发，关注用户，当地社区和其他受影响的成分，因为歌剧院作为“准公共”(但正式私人)管理的特殊地位。我们的研究结果涉及到对公共资金进行解释和报告的意愿、治理框架内存在的制衡、公民和当地合作伙伴的积极参与以达成共识，以及对帮助建造圆顶的工人的社会责任观念。
{"title":"The construction of Brunelleschi’s dome in Florence in the fifteenth century: between accountability and technologies of government","authors":"Giacomo Manetti, M. Bellucci, L. Bagnoli","doi":"10.1080/21552851.2019.1686036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21552851.2019.1686036","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Accounting practices played a fundamental role in the construction of Brunelleschi’s dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence during the fifteenth century. This study examines the accountability practices and government technologies adopted by the Opera del Duomo, the organisation entrusted to build and maintain the Cathedral of Florence, between 1420 and 1436, when the dome was constructed. This research draws on the theories of Foucault and Dean regarding technologies of government within quasi-public administrations to explain historical evidence for the accountability practices supporting Brunelleschi’s dome construction. Through the collected evidence, we identify the application of ‘technologies of government’ hundreds of years before Foucault’s arguments about governmentality. We also describe a system of accountability, especially downward accountability, inspired by religious values that pays attention to users, the local community and other affected constituents as a result of the Opera’s special status as a ‘quasi-public’ (but formally private) administration. Our findings touch on the willingness to account for and report public funding, the presence of checks and balances inside the governance framework, the active engagement of citizens and local partners to achieve consensus, and notions of social responsibility toward the workers who helped to build the dome.","PeriodicalId":43233,"journal":{"name":"Accounting History Review","volume":"41 1","pages":"141 - 169"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77493895","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-02DOI: 10.1080/21552851.2019.1646460
Pierre D. Gervais, Yannick Lemarchand, C. McWatters
The Colloquium in History of Management and Organizations (JHMO) is the annual, international and interdisciplinary colloquium organised by the French Association for History of Management and Organizations (AHMO). It gathers scholars in history, management studies, sociology, economics and other related fields, who share the historical approach of AHMO research topics: organisations, managerial thought and practice, and the field of management studies. As in previous years, the 25th JHMO is divided into two sessions. The general session is open to any papers dealing with managerial matters using historical methods. The thematic session focuses on ‘paths and networks’.
{"title":"25th Colloquium of the History of Management and Organizations","authors":"Pierre D. Gervais, Yannick Lemarchand, C. McWatters","doi":"10.1080/21552851.2019.1646460","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21552851.2019.1646460","url":null,"abstract":"The Colloquium in History of Management and Organizations (JHMO) is the annual, international and interdisciplinary colloquium organised by the French Association for History of Management and Organizations (AHMO). It gathers scholars in history, management studies, sociology, economics and other related fields, who share the historical approach of AHMO research topics: organisations, managerial thought and practice, and the field of management studies. As in previous years, the 25th JHMO is divided into two sessions. The general session is open to any papers dealing with managerial matters using historical methods. The thematic session focuses on ‘paths and networks’.","PeriodicalId":43233,"journal":{"name":"Accounting History Review","volume":"445 1","pages":"391 - 395"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77851228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-02DOI: 10.1080/21552851.2019.1660190
S. Mckinstry, Kirsten W. Kininmonth, Kenneth Mathieson
ABSTRACT This study provides a history of the introduction and implementation of standard costing at J&P Coats Ltd, the British-based multinational thread manufacturers, between 1925 and 1961. By 1896, the firm had centralised sales and marketing, strategic and treasury management in its head office in Glasgow. The introduction of standard costing was intended to bring financial discipline within each of its home and overseas mills, to add to the central discipline and control which already existed across the company, as well as to facilitate some aspects of central accounting in Glasgow. The study ends in 1961, the year the company merged with Patons and Baldwins, another UK-based textile firm. As a theoretical lens, our history uses institutional theory, as it affects an understanding of the implementation and operation of new management accounting systems. In particular, we explore the concept that the development and use of new accounting systems may well be conditioned by both external and internal ‘institutions’, or ‘ways of doing things’. The Coats study responds to the call for longitudinal analyses of management accounting innovation from an institutional point of view. It shows how institutional factors affected the implementation and use of standard costing within the firm, operating through human actors and changing organisational structures. In addition, the study adds to what is known about the history and chronology of the development of standard costing in the UK, pointing out similarities and differences between what happened at Coats and other adopters. It underscores that what is known about the installation and usage of costing systems would benefit from an understanding of the institutional factors involved.
本研究提供了1925年至1961年间英国跨国线制造商J&P Coats Ltd引入和实施标准成本核算的历史。到1896年，该公司在格拉斯哥的总部集中了销售和市场营销、战略和财务管理。引入标准成本计算的目的是在其国内和海外的每个工厂中引入财务纪律，增加已经存在于整个公司的中央纪律和控制，以及促进格拉斯哥中央会计的某些方面。研究截止到1961年，也就是该公司与另一家英国纺织公司Patons and baldwin合并的那一年。作为一个理论镜头，我们的历史使用制度理论，因为它影响了对新管理会计系统的实施和运作的理解。特别是，我们探讨了这样一个概念，即新会计系统的开发和使用很可能受到外部和内部“机构”或“做事方式”的制约。科茨的研究响应了从制度角度对管理会计创新进行纵向分析的呼吁。它展示了制度因素如何影响公司内部标准成本的实施和使用，通过人力行动者和不断变化的组织结构进行操作。此外，这项研究增加了对英国标准成本发展的历史和年表的了解，指出了科茨和其他采用者之间的异同。它强调，对成本计算系统的安装和使用的了解将受益于对所涉体制因素的了解。
{"title":"The introduction and operation of standard costing at J&P Coats Ltd., 1925–1961: an institutional interpretation","authors":"S. Mckinstry, Kirsten W. Kininmonth, Kenneth Mathieson","doi":"10.1080/21552851.2019.1660190","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21552851.2019.1660190","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study provides a history of the introduction and implementation of standard costing at J&P Coats Ltd, the British-based multinational thread manufacturers, between 1925 and 1961. By 1896, the firm had centralised sales and marketing, strategic and treasury management in its head office in Glasgow. The introduction of standard costing was intended to bring financial discipline within each of its home and overseas mills, to add to the central discipline and control which already existed across the company, as well as to facilitate some aspects of central accounting in Glasgow. The study ends in 1961, the year the company merged with Patons and Baldwins, another UK-based textile firm. As a theoretical lens, our history uses institutional theory, as it affects an understanding of the implementation and operation of new management accounting systems. In particular, we explore the concept that the development and use of new accounting systems may well be conditioned by both external and internal ‘institutions’, or ‘ways of doing things’. The Coats study responds to the call for longitudinal analyses of management accounting innovation from an institutional point of view. It shows how institutional factors affected the implementation and use of standard costing within the firm, operating through human actors and changing organisational structures. In addition, the study adds to what is known about the history and chronology of the development of standard costing in the UK, pointing out similarities and differences between what happened at Coats and other adopters. It underscores that what is known about the installation and usage of costing systems would benefit from an understanding of the institutional factors involved.","PeriodicalId":43233,"journal":{"name":"Accounting History Review","volume":"40 1","pages":"369 - 389"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82668208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-02DOI: 10.1080/21552851.2019.1657679
{"title":"Quantification in Accounting History","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/21552851.2019.1657679","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21552851.2019.1657679","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43233,"journal":{"name":"Accounting History Review","volume":"58 1","pages":"397 - 398"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73871874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-26DOI: 10.1080/21552851.2019.1657024
Yin Xu, Xiaoqun Xu
ABSTRACT In light of certain conceptual constructs in comparative taxation, this study examines how Chinese tax reformers chose and adopted a particular form of business tax from a variety of tax models and how they justified and implemented the new tax in the political-social-economic conditions of early twentieth-century China. By illustrating a ‘hybrid tax transplant’ at discursive, institutional, and operational levels, or in terms of justification, design, and enforcement of business taxation, it presents a case study of global circulation and national/local adoption and adaptation of a tax model in a changing tax culture in China. The study reinforces the relevance and usefulness of these concepts to historical analyses and interpretations of taxation studies in different countries and offers a comparative case for research in other contexts.
{"title":"Global circulation and local adaptation of tax models: business tax in China, 1931–1949","authors":"Yin Xu, Xiaoqun Xu","doi":"10.1080/21552851.2019.1657024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21552851.2019.1657024","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In light of certain conceptual constructs in comparative taxation, this study examines how Chinese tax reformers chose and adopted a particular form of business tax from a variety of tax models and how they justified and implemented the new tax in the political-social-economic conditions of early twentieth-century China. By illustrating a ‘hybrid tax transplant’ at discursive, institutional, and operational levels, or in terms of justification, design, and enforcement of business taxation, it presents a case study of global circulation and national/local adoption and adaptation of a tax model in a changing tax culture in China. The study reinforces the relevance and usefulness of these concepts to historical analyses and interpretations of taxation studies in different countries and offers a comparative case for research in other contexts.","PeriodicalId":43233,"journal":{"name":"Accounting History Review","volume":"29 1","pages":"347 - 367"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74631570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.1080/21552851.2019.1651350
K. Clarke, J. Flanagan
ABSTRACT This study looks at the relationship between accounting and legal practitioners in nineteenth-century England and Wales through the application of comparative, sociological occupational-status metrics to observe the changing relative social status positions of these disciplines from 1821 to 1911. The study uses an approach to attributing occupational status based on the methods developed by Nam and Powers utilising existing nineteenth-century datasets to assign status to a range of occupational groupings. The data generated measures of relative occupational status and the magnitude of the differences, along with the education and earnings status metrics, for the occupational groups labelled Accounting and Legal, both prior to and after the establishment of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. The measurements of relative status confirm the impact of changing legislation and a better-educated workforce on the status of the élite of accounting and the pressure they felt to professionalise their activities to differentiate their status from the burgeoning educated workforce attracted to accounting as an occupational discipline.
{"title":"A comparative analysis of the relative occupational status of lawyers and accountants in nineteenth-century England and Wales","authors":"K. Clarke, J. Flanagan","doi":"10.1080/21552851.2019.1651350","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21552851.2019.1651350","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study looks at the relationship between accounting and legal practitioners in nineteenth-century England and Wales through the application of comparative, sociological occupational-status metrics to observe the changing relative social status positions of these disciplines from 1821 to 1911. The study uses an approach to attributing occupational status based on the methods developed by Nam and Powers utilising existing nineteenth-century datasets to assign status to a range of occupational groupings. The data generated measures of relative occupational status and the magnitude of the differences, along with the education and earnings status metrics, for the occupational groups labelled Accounting and Legal, both prior to and after the establishment of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. The measurements of relative status confirm the impact of changing legislation and a better-educated workforce on the status of the élite of accounting and the pressure they felt to professionalise their activities to differentiate their status from the burgeoning educated workforce attracted to accounting as an occupational discipline.","PeriodicalId":43233,"journal":{"name":"Accounting History Review","volume":"101 1","pages":"305 - 346"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90081910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-04DOI: 10.1080/21552851.2019.1611938
R. Chandler, J. Edwards
Malcolm was born on 22 January 1970 and grew up in Cramlington, Northumberland. The schoolboy Malcolm showed a flair for leadership, serving as Deputy Head Boy and captain of the school football and cricket teams. He also displayed other characteristics which were to become familiar to all who knew him in later life. In a testimonial supporting Malcolm’s university application, the Headmaster of Cramlington High School wrote: ‘Malcolm’s attitude to his work is exemplary... He is able to work very well on his own... He has a clear style which displays his arguments forcefully and logically using both sound analysis and his dry sense of humour’. Thirty years of academic life failed to diminish those qualities. Malcolm studied economics and economic history at Cardiff University between 1988 and 1991. On graduation, he secured appointment as a Research Assistant at the University’s Business School. He was promoted to Lecturer in Accounting in September 1995 and added to his qualifications with an MPhil from Cardiff University and a Certified Diploma in Accounting and Finance from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. He married Diane in St Austell, Cornwall in 1993. They had three daughters, Hannah, Rachel and Bethan. Malcolm took his own life at the Business School on 19 February 2018. He was posthumously promoted to the grade of senior lecturer.
{"title":"Malcolm Anderson 1970–2018: his academic career","authors":"R. Chandler, J. Edwards","doi":"10.1080/21552851.2019.1611938","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21552851.2019.1611938","url":null,"abstract":"Malcolm was born on 22 January 1970 and grew up in Cramlington, Northumberland. The schoolboy Malcolm showed a flair for leadership, serving as Deputy Head Boy and captain of the school football and cricket teams. He also displayed other characteristics which were to become familiar to all who knew him in later life. In a testimonial supporting Malcolm’s university application, the Headmaster of Cramlington High School wrote: ‘Malcolm’s attitude to his work is exemplary... He is able to work very well on his own... He has a clear style which displays his arguments forcefully and logically using both sound analysis and his dry sense of humour’. Thirty years of academic life failed to diminish those qualities. Malcolm studied economics and economic history at Cardiff University between 1988 and 1991. On graduation, he secured appointment as a Research Assistant at the University’s Business School. He was promoted to Lecturer in Accounting in September 1995 and added to his qualifications with an MPhil from Cardiff University and a Certified Diploma in Accounting and Finance from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. He married Diane in St Austell, Cornwall in 1993. They had three daughters, Hannah, Rachel and Bethan. Malcolm took his own life at the Business School on 19 February 2018. He was posthumously promoted to the grade of senior lecturer.","PeriodicalId":43233,"journal":{"name":"Accounting History Review","volume":"9 1","pages":"165 - 170"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86453097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-04DOI: 10.1080/21552851.2019.1607169
D. Matthews
ABSTRACT In the recent political and academic debate over social exclusivity and inequality in Britain, accountancy has come in for specific criticism. The Milburn panel on fair access to the professions concluded that accountancy has seen the greatest decline in social mobility. Through the use of a postal questionnaire of members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), this study challenges this assessment by demonstrating that historically the ICAEW has always had a significant proportion of members from the lower middle and working classes. However, in recent decades there has been an increase in the proportion from the upper middle class and a decline in those from the lower classes. This shift was not due to educational changes such as the decline of grammar schools or the rise of the graduate profession but resulted from the reduced role of medium- and small-sized firms in recruitment and training and the rise in importance of the largest accounting firms which have always tended to take on trainees from higher social backgrounds.
{"title":"Social class and social mobility among ICAEW members from the interwar period to the present day","authors":"D. Matthews","doi":"10.1080/21552851.2019.1607169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21552851.2019.1607169","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In the recent political and academic debate over social exclusivity and inequality in Britain, accountancy has come in for specific criticism. The Milburn panel on fair access to the professions concluded that accountancy has seen the greatest decline in social mobility. Through the use of a postal questionnaire of members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), this study challenges this assessment by demonstrating that historically the ICAEW has always had a significant proportion of members from the lower middle and working classes. However, in recent decades there has been an increase in the proportion from the upper middle class and a decline in those from the lower classes. This shift was not due to educational changes such as the decline of grammar schools or the rise of the graduate profession but resulted from the reduced role of medium- and small-sized firms in recruitment and training and the rise in importance of the largest accounting firms which have always tended to take on trainees from higher social backgrounds.","PeriodicalId":43233,"journal":{"name":"Accounting History Review","volume":"18 1","pages":"199 - 220"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75713843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-04DOI: 10.1080/21552851.2019.1636183
R. Chandler
ABSTRACT The Kingston Cotton Mill Company (KCM) was one of the first companies to be formed under the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844. This Act led to an explosion in company formations, as it was intended to do. The provisions of the Act anticipated a number of the concerns about what would now be called ‘corporate governance’, caused by the divorce between ownership and management. The KCM provides an interesting case study on the effectiveness of the early governance provisions. The extent of the agency problem at the KCM was especially acute because of the relatively large body of shareholders (just over 400) starting a large-scale project from scratch with no knowledge of the cotton industry. Particular attention is paid to the accountability and audit provisions introduced into the KCM's constitution. Evidence of the weaknesses in these provisions is derived from the legal proceedings which followed the company's collapse in 1894. The purpose of this study is to provide a basis for better understanding some key issues in corporate governance in mid- to late-Victorian Britain through the examination of the background to a company whose name has been familiar to generations of accounting students and practitioners.
{"title":"Auditing and corporate governance in nineteenth century Britain: the model of the Kingston Cotton Mill","authors":"R. Chandler","doi":"10.1080/21552851.2019.1636183","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21552851.2019.1636183","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Kingston Cotton Mill Company (KCM) was one of the first companies to be formed under the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844. This Act led to an explosion in company formations, as it was intended to do. The provisions of the Act anticipated a number of the concerns about what would now be called ‘corporate governance’, caused by the divorce between ownership and management. The KCM provides an interesting case study on the effectiveness of the early governance provisions. The extent of the agency problem at the KCM was especially acute because of the relatively large body of shareholders (just over 400) starting a large-scale project from scratch with no knowledge of the cotton industry. Particular attention is paid to the accountability and audit provisions introduced into the KCM's constitution. Evidence of the weaknesses in these provisions is derived from the legal proceedings which followed the company's collapse in 1894. The purpose of this study is to provide a basis for better understanding some key issues in corporate governance in mid- to late-Victorian Britain through the examination of the background to a company whose name has been familiar to generations of accounting students and practitioners.","PeriodicalId":43233,"journal":{"name":"Accounting History Review","volume":"60 1","pages":"269 - 286"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79475919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-04DOI: 10.1080/21552851.2019.1630946
Yannick Lemarchand
ABSTRACT Previous work by Boyns, Edwards, and Nikitin has demonstrated that while firms implemented industrial accounting later in France than in Britain, a specialised literature appeared much earlier in France. The first textbooks were published around the 1820s, while in Great Britain it was not until the 1880s. In trying to explain this paradox, Boyns and his co-authors have left aside a cultural and institutional element which seems to have played a decisive role: the progressive affirmation of an intellectual movement – industrialism – characterised, from the last quarter of the eighteenth century, by a new attitude of intellectual élites vis-à-vis scientific and technical knowledge, their applications and their dissemination. Once placed in this context, the early publication of these industrial accounting treatises loses its paradoxical character, to appear only as one of the many tangible expressions of this movement of ideas. Yet a review of the French accounting literature of the nineteenth century reveals a second paradox: the publication of more books on agricultural accounting than on industrial accounting! It is often ignored that, during this period, accounting had been the subject of in-depth reflection by French agronomists whose subsequent debates do not seem to have any real equivalent in the industrial world before the 1930s. Here again, the influence of the intellectual and institutional context was decisive, which confirms the relevance of our explanatory hypothesis regarding the early publication of industrial accounting textbooks. In addition, the picture shows, in negative, the relative lack of interest of engineers regarding management accounting, before they used it as a tool of legitimisation of their action in the introduction of scientific management.
{"title":"The birth of industrial accounting in France: some curious paradoxes","authors":"Yannick Lemarchand","doi":"10.1080/21552851.2019.1630946","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21552851.2019.1630946","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Previous work by Boyns, Edwards, and Nikitin has demonstrated that while firms implemented industrial accounting later in France than in Britain, a specialised literature appeared much earlier in France. The first textbooks were published around the 1820s, while in Great Britain it was not until the 1880s. In trying to explain this paradox, Boyns and his co-authors have left aside a cultural and institutional element which seems to have played a decisive role: the progressive affirmation of an intellectual movement – industrialism – characterised, from the last quarter of the eighteenth century, by a new attitude of intellectual élites vis-à-vis scientific and technical knowledge, their applications and their dissemination. Once placed in this context, the early publication of these industrial accounting treatises loses its paradoxical character, to appear only as one of the many tangible expressions of this movement of ideas. Yet a review of the French accounting literature of the nineteenth century reveals a second paradox: the publication of more books on agricultural accounting than on industrial accounting! It is often ignored that, during this period, accounting had been the subject of in-depth reflection by French agronomists whose subsequent debates do not seem to have any real equivalent in the industrial world before the 1930s. Here again, the influence of the intellectual and institutional context was decisive, which confirms the relevance of our explanatory hypothesis regarding the early publication of industrial accounting textbooks. In addition, the picture shows, in negative, the relative lack of interest of engineers regarding management accounting, before they used it as a tool of legitimisation of their action in the introduction of scientific management.","PeriodicalId":43233,"journal":{"name":"Accounting History Review","volume":"13 1","pages":"221 - 241"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75205958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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