Accounting and quality control in the Royal Tobacco Factory of Seville, 1744-90: an historical perspective

Studies in the history of accounting have, to date, centred on the costs and efficiency of productive systems. However, the influence of quality assurance in management control systems is an aspect that has not been studied in detail from an historical perspective. For that, this study analyses the use made of accounting techniques as a contributory element to quality control in the case of the Royal Tobacco Factory of Seville, belonging to the Spanish Tobacco Monopoly, during the second half of the eighteenth century.     

Early cost management practices, state ownership and market competition: the case of the Royal Textile Mill of Guadalajara, 1717-44

Existing literature on the deployment of cost techniques in early public sector organizations largely relies on archival evidence gathered from late eighteenth and nineteenth-century settings. Arguably, these contexts are characterized by a number of idiosyncratic characteristics that advise caution in generalizing conclusions beyond the institutional elements that forged those settings. Our investigation examines the case of the Royal Textile Mill of Guadalajara (RTM), a setting characterized by state ownership, competitive markets, organization of production around medieval guilds, and recruitment of foreign experts to conduct productive operations. Our findings show that the management of RTM deployed cost accounting techniques that comprised aspects such as control of raw materials and waste, control of labour and management, and allocations of overhead to product costing. We also find evidence which departs from predictions that standards relating to the control of raw materials should have preceded the implementation of labour cost standards.     

Foreign-currency transactions and the recovery of German industry in the aftermath of the First World War: the case of Schering AG

While historians have for a long time recognized the importance of the First World War to the general flow of history, business economists do not fully appreciate the impact of the war on commercial relationships. The First World War transformed the political, economic, and social context, in which business was done, forcing companies to develop new strategies and activities, some of which were almost unimaginable before August 1914. This article focuses on one aspect of doing business: foreign exchange management. It argues that Schering AG and its parent, like many German companies after the First World War, were obliged to refocus their activities around their foreign exchange exposures and that the management of foreign exchange issues contributed to a much tighter relationship between businesses, government, and business associations than had existed before the war and for which some aspects of Germany's system of corporate control were not well adapted to handle.     

The Boulton & Watt Case: The Crux of Alternative Approaches to Accounting History?

In accounting history, authors who have adopted a ‘Foucauldian’ approach have recently debated with those representing the ‘Neoclassical’ school of thought the relative sophistication and significance of cost accounting developments in the UK and US respectively during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This paper argues that the differences between the two schools' understandings are important for comprehending the genesis and scope of modern cost and management accounting systems. It re-examines the historical case of Boulton & Watt, an engineering firm believed to have been in the vanguard of British Industrial Revolution accounting practice (Roll, 1930; Pollard, 1965 and 1990; Fleischman and Parker, 1991), in an attempt to clarify some of the key points of difference in the debate. It proposes that the historical crux for deciding where a modern managerial approach to accounting began lies in distinguishing between the development of engineering standards for materials and machine efficiency and the transfer of such performance measurements to human behaviour. A pressing task for historians is to establish when, where, how and why ‘labour standards’ were first articulated on the grounds that such forms of human accounting, by constructing norms of managerial performance, form the basis for modern management control. The paper reviews the primary sources on the history of cost accounting at Boulton & Watt, including the previously-acclaimed development of labour and engine standards. Its findings are that, while the latter were highly sophisticated as measures of engineering performance, they were less so on the economic dimension of cost measurement. Meanwhile, the evidence for labour standards is unconvincing; there was, around 1800, an intense period of investigating labour time and cost, but no subsequent long-term systematic control exercised over them analogous to the modern managerial approach found slightly later in US contexts. The paper suggests that one priority for further research is the detailed examination of early industrial enterprises on both sides of the Atlantic, in order to establish more definitively when, where, how and why this crucial development occurred.     

Snakes and career ladders in the investment banking industry: the making of Barclays De Zoete Wedd (BZW) - an international perspective, 1982-96

This paper emphasises the importance of business history for analysing labour market structures and practices in financial markets in the United Kingdom and more particularly at Barclays De Zoete Wedd (BZW), the international investment banking arm of the British bank Barclays plc. By adopting an historical perspective, this study departs from existing literature and presents new explanations concerning the importance of the relationship between business history and the origins and functions of internal labour markets. The theoretical framework elaborated involves a model and a timeline in its analysis, which highlights significant emerging patterns in internal labour markets that become evident over time. The study reveals evidence that, contrary to the arguments raised by scholars which suggest a decline in internal labour market practices in favour of a return to a more market-based system, internal labour market arrangements continue to apply to an organisation such as BZW at all stages in its organisational development.     

Oral history, accounting history and an interview with Sir John Grenside

This article arises out of a programme of oral history funded by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). It discusses the issues involved in setting up and carrying through the programme and the advantages and disadvantages of the technique particularly with regard to accounting history. It uses as an example an interview with one of the leaders of the accountancy profession in the period since the Second World War - Sir John Grenside. Grenside discusses his training and the changes he saw and helped bring about as senior partner in his firm, Peat Marwick Mitchell. Grenside was also one of the leading lights in the ICAEW in the 1970s and early 1980s and was the architect of the Joint Disciplinary Scheme on which he gives his views as well as on the recent troubles of the profession.     

基于EVA的国企价值管理体系构建

2010年始,国资委在央企全面推行以EVA为核心指标的年度经营业绩考核体系,国企如何建立与此相适应的价值管理体系是亟需解决的理论和实践问题.本文在阐述EVA的历史沿革、核心理念、国资委EVA考核体系政策意义基础上,初步探讨了以EVA为导向的国企价值管理体系的几个核心要素-战略管控、财务决策、绩效考核和激励制度设计相关问...     

试论个人破产与财务管理

本首先探讨了个人破产的历史渊源，然后论述我国当前实施自然人破产制度的必要性，再次提出完善和发展我国个人破产制度的具体对策，最后，探讨个人破产过程中的相关财务问题。     

The critical role of history in scenario thinking: Augmenting causal analysis within the intuitive logics scenario development methodology

The historian Eric Hobsbawm stated that ‘The safest empirical generalization about history is still that nobody heeds its obvious lessons much’. Whether at a macroeconomic level or within individual organisations there are numerous examples of this, such as the economic crash of 2008, the causes of which had many parallels with those that caused the great depression 80 years previously. On the other hand however, overly-relying on the past as a guide to the future has its own obvious dangers—not least that important future events may have no past precedent. As such, the present paper firstly provides a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of using the past as a guide to the future. It then examines the role of history in scenario work, arguing that history should receive greater emphasis as part of the scenario planning process. We suggest changes to the standard Intuitive Logics (IL) approach to scenario planning which would render learning from history a more central component of the scenario process, in contrast to its current peripheral role. Rather than diminishing scenario planning’s ability to facilitate a consideration of how the future may differ from the past, we show how a greater emphasis on history can enhance consideration of the causality of future change. An adapted IL that has more emphasis on historical analysis can augment scenario planning’s effectiveness as a tool for consideration of the future.     

外债管理的国际经验与启示

本文研究了发达经济体（美、欧、澳、韩）和发展中经济体（俄、印）的外债发展历史和外债管理实践，并基于外债管理的国际经验提供可行性建议，旨在为加快推进我国的外债管理体制改革提供有益借鉴。     

Employee leasing. The antebellum 1800s and the twenty-first century: A historical perspective of the contingent labour force

Management strategies have evolved over the centuries in response to economic and social needs of individuals and organizations. The maintenance of a flexible labour force was a management practice employed by industrialists more than a century ago. The use of employee leasing in the United States dates back to the industrial revolution that occurred during the nineteenth century. Industrialists leased bondsmen to supplement their labour force. This practice, known as 'hiring-out', permitted employers to obtain labour without making heavy investments in human resources. The motivations for maintaining a contingent labour force today are essentially unchanged from a century ago. This paper addresses the nineteenth-century use of a contingent labour force by the large Southern firm of Andrew Brown and Company in the period prior to the US Civil War.     

Engineering culture and accounting development at Albion Motors, 1900-c.1970

This paper examines the relationship between the engineering-oriented culture at Albion Motors, Scotland's most successful vehicle manufacturers, and the development and use of accounting systems there. Utilizing primary sources and information obtained from interviews, the study concludes that Albion's comparatively rudimentary management accounting systems, in particular, were a direct result of the firm's technological values. The study also concludes that there is no evidence that any major disadvantage accrued directly from this. It ends with a discussion of the relevance of the findings for issues in the accounting and business history literature and for future research.     

Risk and risk management in management accounting and control

Recent world events, most notably the global financial crisis, have refocused and intensified interest on risk and the nature of systems that operate to manage risk. One area that has received relatively little attention is the interrelation between risk, risk management and management accounting and control practices. This editorial provides an introduction to the special issue of the journal on “Risk and Risk Management in Management Accounting and Control”. It argues that risk and the way it is managed has become a feature of organizational life in both the public and private sectors. By changing organizational practices risk management can facilitate and legitimise certain ways of organizing. It has the potential to change lines of responsibility and accountability in organizations, representing a particular way of governing individuals and activities. The argument is further made that risk management has moved away from being an issue of narrow concern to finance (value at risk, derivatives, etc.) or accountants (financial statement disclosure, etc.) to an issue about management control and therefore a key area in which management accountants need to engage. This editorial also highlights the potential side-effects of risk management, including issues around trust and accountability, but also the focus on secondary or defensive risk management and the rise of reputation risk.     

Deconstructing the future of management: Pharmakon,Gary Hamel and the impossibility of invention

There has been a growing tendency to argue that the practice of management must be reinvented in the future in order to energize the creative potential of employees. However, the discourse on ‘management innovation’ attributes a curious dual function to the concept of management. On the one hand, management is portrayed as the ‘toxin’ that can impede innovation. But on the other hand, management is portrayed the ‘cure’ that will heal the defects that prevents innovation. Informed by Derrida's reflection upon the dual meaning of pharmakon, a word that means both ‘remedy’ and ‘poison’, the paper engages with Hamel's popular management handbook The Future of Management. Although Hamel attempts to establish a clear-cut distinction between those principles of management that obstruct and those that facilitate innovation, one is ultimately left uncertain whether management is a cure or a poison for innovation. This ambivalence points to an underlying paradox of contemporary post-managerial thinking that is characterized by incorporating transgression into its productive logic.     

高校新绩效预算管理研究

论文从我国高校预算历史发展变迁的角度,研究了我国高校实行绩效预算改革的必然性,对绩效预算的理论基础进行了剖析,为我国高校绩效预算管理改革提供了可行的方案。     

政府成本管理理论分析框架的构建与应用

首先建立政府成本管理环境、政府成本管理技术与政府成本管理模式三个层次之间的内在逻辑联系,构建基于这三个层次的政府成本管理理论分析框架。然后在该理论分析框架指导下,探讨在现有政府成本管理环境条件下,政府是否可以采用与企业相同的成本管理技术,将面临哪些环境障碍;现有的政府成本管理环境如何通过影响政府成本管理技术的选择,进而影响政府成本管理模式的类型;现有政府成本管理模式的特点以及有效性分析;提出政府成本管理模式发展的方向和目标。     

Medical Labour Supply and the Production of Healthcare

Medical labour markets are important because of their size and the importance of medical labour in the production of healthcare and in subsequent patient outcomes. We present a summary of important trends in the UK medical labour market, and we review the latest research on factors that determine medical labour supply and the impact of labour on patient outcomes. The topics examined include: the responsiveness of labour supply to changes in wages, regulation and other incentives; factors that determine the wide variation in physician practice and style; and the effect of teams and management quality on patient outcomes. This literature reveals that while labour supply is relatively unresponsive to changes in wages, medical personnel do react strongly to other incentives, even in the short run. This is likely to have consequences for the quality of care provided to patients. We set out a series of unanswered questions in the UK setting, including: the importance of non‐financial incentives in recruiting and retaining medical staff; how individuals can be incentivised to work in particular specialties and regions; and how medical teams can be best organised to improve care.