Philanthropic women and accounting. Octavia Hill and the exercise of 'quiet power and sympathy'

Philanthropic work involved large numbers of middle-class women in the performance of accounting functions during the nineteenth century. This hitherto 'hidden' group of women accountants is explored through a biographical study of housing reformer Octavia Hill. It is revealed that in her early life Octavia Hill practised accounting as the manager of a craft workshop, college secretary and manager of a household. She also taught bookkeeping. Octavia Hill's application of accounting in housing management was founded on contemporary notions of order, hierarchical accountability, debt avoidance, the importance of detail and accuracy, and concepts of stewardship and trust. The manner in which Octavia Hill employed accounting as a technique of watching, disciplining and improving her tenants is also examined. There follows an analysis of the relationship between Octavia Hill's accounting and prevailing concepts of domesticity and gendered spheres. The importance of accounting in the feminised profession of housing management during the interwar period is also discussed. Other examples illustrative of the importance of accounting to women's philanthropic endeavour are alluded to.     

The Accountability of Municipal Corporations

The popular view that market forces controlled the development of financial reporting practices among nineteenth-century British companies has recently been shown, by Parker (1990), to be an oversimplification. Large companies engaged in the provision of public utilities, transportation and financial services were the subject of close regulation, though not necessarily or only for the purpose of shareholder protection. The nineteenth century also saw the creation of municipal corporations, and their development is marked by a further variation in the process of accounting change. A regulatory structure, including requirements for accountability, was established when the modern municipal corporation was created in 1834, and this broad framework remained in force without major amendment until 1930. The accounting practices employed by municipal corporations underwent fundamental change, however, to accommodate major alterations in the nature of their activities. The process of 'voluntary' change in response to market pressure received reinforcement from recommendations made by the highly active local-authority-oriented professional accounting body.     

Companies,Corporations and Accounting Change, 1835–1933: A Comparative Study

The accounting literature usually associates the development of external reporting in nineteenth century Britain with the emergence of the limited company. Innovation and progress is attributed to pressure from market forces in an unregulated environment. This is an oversimplification, and ignores the process of acccounting change within two important categories of trading organisation. Companies in certain industries—including water, gas, electricity, tramways and railways—were subject to close statutory regulation, while municipal corporations operated within a statutory framework of accountability which left scope for market forces and professional leadership to influence the development of contemporary practices. This paper compares and contrasts the accounting and audit regulations and practices of the three categories of ‘business’ entity. The developmental path is charted and differences are identified. The differential reporting objectives and environmental conditions applying to these entities are acknowledged throughout, and the mechanism by which ideas were transferred between various sectors is considered.     

The construction of the professional accountant: the case of the Incorporated Institute of Accountants,Victoria (1886)

Set in colonial Australia, this study examines the professionalisation trajectory of a group of accountants in Melbourne culminating in organisational fusion on the formation of the Incorporated Institute of Accountants, Victoria (IIAV) in 1886. The study portrays professionalisation as a dynamic process involving a diversity of “signals of movement” towards occupational ascendancy that arise in periods before as well as after the formation of occupational associations. It employs the prosopographical method of data collection to interrogate the occupational and commercial backgrounds of the 45 founders of the IIAV in the pre-1886 period and is also informed through the critical-conflict analytical framework. The findings reveal that intraprofessional rivalries fuelled by international relations of power and nationalist self-interests provided the impetus to organisational assembly in this case.     

The genesis of accountability: The west point connections

We focus on the genesis of the new managerialism in U.S. business and factories in the nineteenth century and re-examine the published histories of the U.S. armories and the railroads. We trace the influence in both arenas of the engineering/military graduates from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, who represent and reproduce the meticulous “grammatocentric” and “panoptic” system for human accountability introduced there in the years after 1817. Our overall concern is to re-analyse apparently economic-rational changes in accounting and accountability in a wider frame which explains their development as aspects of a general shift in power-knowledge relations—a shift which Foucault characterised as the development of disciplinary power and which we argue originated in elite educational institutions. We propose further examination (or re-examination) of the original accounting and administrative records relating to the armories and the railroads in order to establish the precise process of historical change.     

Public accountability: a new paradigm for college and university annual reports

This paper argues that the decision usefulness paradigm, which currently dominates accounting theory, is not an adequate basis for considering external reporting. A theoretical foundation is developed that draws upon older ideas of stewardship, as well as more recent notions of public accountability and social responsibility. The specific case of college and university reporting is used to delineate the impact a public accountability conceptual framework could have. The new paradigm is needed to address changes in society and in the environment of higher education in the US and other Western-style countries during the last three decades of the twentieth century. Numerous scandals and other dubious affairs involving even the most senior public officials has brought about an erosion of public confidence, and led to widespread demands for improved accountability by public officials and institutions. Comprehensive disclosures on the condition and performance of institutions would move college and university external reporting beyond decision usefulness and towards true public accountability.     

‘All sorts and conditions of men’: The social origins of the founders of the ICAEW

The early organisation of accountants in Scotland during the 1850s and 1860s has excited the intellectual curiosity and research endeavour of a number of students of professionalisation. By contrast, until recently there was a dearth of academic interest in institutional developments in England and Wales during the 1870s and 1880s. Yet, organisations such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) which emanate from this period soon became the most significant players on the British professional scene and were to exert considerable influence on the development of accountancy institutions and professional ideologies in several locations. Exploiting a variety of genealogical sources this paper seeks to fill a void in the literature by analysing the social origins of the founding members of the principal professional association in England and Wales. It provides evidence of early chartered accountancy as a destination for long distance, upwardly mobile males, both intergenerationally and intragenerationally. The rate of self-recruitment among the founders of the ICAEW is shown to be low. The proportion of founders deriving from the upper and upper-middle classes is revealed to have been markedly less than that of their Scottish counterparts. The paper contributes to understandings of the complex professionalisation of British accountants, the extent of social mobility in Victorian Britain, the pathways to social advance in a class-based society, and illuminates the social complexion of one of the ‘new’ professions which emerged during the nineteenth century.     

The genesis of professional organisation in English accountancy

The organisation of accountants in Liverpool, London, Manchester and Sheffield during the 1870s has not been subject to exhaustive historical investigation. This paper analyses the first organisations of accountants in England in the context of theories of jurisdictional boundaries, occupational conflict, the creation of labour market shelters and social closure. It is shown that the Bankruptcy Act, 1869 disturbed the division of labour between accountants and lawyers and threatened the status of established accountants by encouraging competition from lesser practitioners. The study illustrates that the organisation of accountants in Liverpool was instigated by lawyers anxious to establish a medium for negotiating the boundaries of bankruptcy work with local accountants. In London, Manchester and Sheffield (and partly in Liverpool) organisation concerned the protection of established accountants from interlopers and was actualised by erecting market shelters and the imposition of exclusionary closure. Organisation was a device for the institutionalisation of occupational difference and protecting market advantage. During the 1870s the occupation of accountant was bifurcated into professional practitioners, marked by the badge of organisational membership, and less reputable individuals who were denied it. It is also contended that inter and intra professional conflict are pervasive themes in professional organisation and that individual actors were significant to engineering formation processes.     

Public sector audit history in Britain and Australia

The introduction of an independent public sector audit function was a critical element in the nineteenth century constitutional reforms of parliamentary and government accountability and created an essential precedent for current practice. By examining the extent of scholarly research on public sector audit history, findings reveal considerable research examined the teleological development of public sector audit and the modern history in a New Public Management context. However, there has been very little published regarding the complex rationales around the origins, development and importance of independent public sector audit notwithstanding that without an appreciation of these precedents it becomes very difficult to protect the Westminster‐based system of democratic government.     

The role of accountability in determining the relationship between financial reporting quality and the performance of public organizations: Evidence from Vietnam

Drawing on the new public management and agency theory, this study examines the mediating role of accountability in the relationship between financial-reporting quality and the performance of public organizations. The research model and hypotheses tested with a survey of 177 responses obtained from accountants and managers working in the public sector in Vietnam. Our analysis shows that accountability has a mediating role on the relationship between financial-reporting quality and performance, with significant implications for public organizations seeking to improve both their financial-reporting quality and their organizational performance with better designed systems of accountability.     

Working on the Railroad: Public Accounting Talent in the United States—The Case of Haskins & Sells (Now Deloitte)

Nineteenth century US railroads were the first ‘big businesses’ and had profound influence on society. This paper addresses one source of talent for the early US public accounting profession—railroads. Following the end of the US Civil War (1861–65), industrial expansion was a revolutionary experience, with large trusts appearing in the wake of the railroad's maturing influence on the development of a vast continental economy. Accounting practice also was impacted by railroads. For example, the development of annual reports, income measurement, the standardization of reporting by regulators, developing fixed and variable cost, and throughput concepts for capital intensive business—all were related to the railroads. This paper focuses on a significant link between the emerging public accounting profession and the railroads by examining how an early major US public accounting firm relied upon accounting skill developed within railroads as an important source of talent. Arguably, talent is the most important resource of a professional firm. While it is a commonly held view that the immigration of UK accountants in the late nineteenth century was the source of public accounting talent, this paper provides evidence of a competing explanation—the sourcing of talent from a firm (Haskins & Sells) that continues to the present day as Deloitte. Key leadership and personnel of that time gained their experience while working on the domestic railroads.     

Economic Effects of Accounting Regulation for Public Accountants: Evidence from the Netherlands

This paper provides empirical evidence on the size of the audit market and the number of public accountants supplying services in an attempt to understand the effects of accounting regulation for public accountants. Intuitively, the size of the market for public accounting services would be expected to increase because of accounting regulation and have beneficial effects for public accountants. However, the actual effects of accounting regulation depend on the level of voluntary disclosure before the regulation, the degree of compliance with the regulation by firms and the number of public accountants supplying services. The size effects of two changes in Dutch accounting regulation, one in 1970 and one in 1983, are analysed empirically. The indicators of the size of the market for public accounting services used suggest an increase in the size of the audit market. The results for the supply side suggest that the total number of employed public accountants adjusted to this increase. However, the total number of partners did not adjust to the increased size of the market. Two alternative explanations for the different findings for employed public accountants and partners are provided and discussed.     

Accountants as layoff survivors: A research note

The beginning of the 21st century was witness to a wave of global forces and economic shocks that threatened the job security of accountants. Events such as the bursting of the stock market bubble, outsourcing, restructurings, and 9/11 created a dramatic rise in layoffs of white-collar workers. Drawing from theoretical and empirical research in the management and psychology literatures, the current study employed a field survey in testing a comprehensive model of the relationship among layoff survivors’ perceptions, psychological states, attitudes, and intentions. Our sample consisted of 125 accountants who had survived recent workforce reductions at a United States aircraft manufacturer in the wake of reduced demand following 9/11. The results of our structural equation analyses indicated that accounting survivors’ perceptions of procedural and interactional organizational justice affected their post-layoff stress and job insecurity, which in turn directly and indirectly influenced job satisfaction, affective commitment, and intent to turnover.     

Accountants and Empire: the case of co-membership of Australian and British accountancy bodies, 1885 to 1914

This study examines one aspect of the influence of the British Empire connection on the establishment of an accountancy profession in Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It does so by analysing data collected on the comembership of the numerous Australian and British accountancy bodies formed before 1914. It casts doubt on the conclusions of Johnson and Caygill (1971) regarding the predominance of accountants with British qualifications in the creation and growth of the Australian bodies and also elucidates the connection between the professionalization strategies of particular bodies and the membership choices of accountants in the context of imperialism.     

管理会计的发展与展望

我国管理会计的发展呈现出以下特点:大多数企业的信息系统依然是为财务会计而非管理会计设计的。而在管理会计的教育界,这种局限性体现在:一方面,对已有的管理会计应用经验缺乏总结和提高。另一方面,学术界投入的力量比较少,学者们不肯深入实践去调查,去总结经验。甚至可以说,长期以来理论界过于偏重财务会计。21世纪我国管理会计发展的关键是要充分发挥管理会计的作用,提高企业经济效益,因此,必须从推动管理会计发展的原动力出发,立足于我国的国情。现代管理会计具有系统化、规范化、职业化、社会化和国际化的发展趋势。     

Professionalising British central government bureaucracy c. 1850: The accounting dimension

The Northcote-Trevelyan Report (1854) recommended fundamental changes to public policy which included the replacement of patronage by examination as the basis for recruitment to the British Civil Service and of seniority by merit as the foundation for promotion decisions. This paper examines the accounting dimension of reforms designed to achieve enhanced administrative efficiency and greater economy in the operation of government departments. A growing interest in the role of accounting within British government during the second quarter of the nineteenth century is elucidated, and prevailing ideas concerning how accounting within government departments and accountability from the executive to parliament might be performed more efficiently and effectively are uncovered. The battle between divergent pressure groups concerning who should possess jurisdiction over accounting work is explored, and the solution to this problematic is found to connect with the nature of a central government accounting system that was itself undergoing significant change. Consistency between the Northcote-Trevelyan recommendations and ongoing internal initiatives designed to ensure the competence of clerks recruited to undertake accounting work and subsequently applying for promotion to a higher grade is demonstrated.     

The Tax Knowledge of South African Trainee Accountants: A Survey of the Perceptions of Training Officers in Public Practice

This empirically-based, exploratory study outlines the framework of chartered accountants' tax education and training in South Africa and focuses on training officers' perceptions of the existing tax knowledge of trainee accountants when entering into a training contract after completing their university qualification. The study identified the respondents' satisfaction with the performance by ‘entry-level’ trainee accountants of their duties. The results indicated that, although the educational background of trainee accountants was for the most part adequate, these trainee accountants were not sufficiently able to perform their duties when entering into training. The implication of this study is that the syllabus setters and educators should review the practicality of the current tax syllabi's content for the education and training of aspirant chartered accountants in South Africa.     

UK immigrants and the foundation of the US public accountancy profession

Building on a previous study (Lee, 1997) describing the case of Edinburgh chartered accountants, the current study observes 394 chartered and incorporated accountants who migrated to the US by the end of 1914. The data are reported in the context of an emerging US public accountancy profession, and the purpose of the paper is to document the migration and its place in the development of American public accountancy. A comparison is made with 112 unqualified emigrants from the UK to the US who became public accountants there by the end of 1914. This contrast provides a means of discovering subsets of the migrant group with respect to preemigration backgrounds and post-immigration careers of 506 men. Comparisons are also made of differences within defined subsets of the qualified migrant group. Data were collected from available UK and US sources. These were then aggregated in a manner that permits a coherent picture to emerge of the immigrants as public accountants in the US at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. The analyses reveal that the immigrant group was relatively small, and that the immigrants succeeded in their careers to differing degrees. A sizeable proportion returned to the UK or moved on to another host country. Of those that remained in the US, most had productive if unexceptional lives, typically in public accountancy. A few men became leaders of US public accountancy institutions and firms. A small minority achieved senior positions in industry and commerce. It is argued that the influence of UK accountants on US accounting and auditing went beyond the documented successes of specific individuals and firms. The paper is therefore more than the typical history of prominent US accountants and firms of the past.