The use of the postal questionnaire in accounting history research

This methodological article discusses the first project in accounting history to use the postal questionnaire as a research tool. The historical context was the changing nature of the company audit in Britain, and this article outlines the process by which the questionnaire was devised, the stages through which the project developed, the data that were collected, and how these were analysed and interpreted. A significant innovation was to sample, in equal proportions, accountants who qualified in each decade from the 1920s and 1930s down to the 1980s, and direct the questioning toward their early training and careers, thereby generating historical trends in the responses. Some of the results of the survey are given here by way of illustrating the weaknesses and strengths/costs and benefits of the technique in comparison with oral history and traditional documentary sources.     

The influences of Confucianism, Feng Shui and Buddhism in Chinese accounting history

This paper attempts to examine the influences of Confucianism, Feng Shui and Buddhism on the evolution of Chinese accounting before recent accounting reforms commencing in the 1980s. Chinese cultural variables (e.g. Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, etc.) have been widely utilized in studying Chinese accounting systems, the accounting profession and the evolution of Chinese accounting techniques. However, the literature has not taken into account the traditional Chinese Feng Shui belief, which was broadly considered as the most important part of Chinese traditional culture. There is much evidence to show that Chinese accounting development was not only influenced by Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, but also by the prevalence of Feng Shui belief in ancient China over thousands of years. This paper first discusses the concepts of culture and describes Confucianism, Feng Shui and Buddhism in China, and then examines the influences of Confucianism, Feng Shui and Buddhism on the evolution of Chinese accounting. The influences discussed are those on bookkeeping methods, accounting information, accounting profession/accountants, regulating and standardizing accounting practice, government accounting and private-sector accounting respectively. This paper also identifies some areas for future research in Chinese accounting history and culture.     

Commentary on: A synergistic approach to an accounting educator's primary responsibilities

Many students find the application of sampling theory to audit testing difficult, even if they have a good grounding in business statistics. This paper describes an action-learning technique used to teach audit sampling theory to third-year business degree students at The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand. Feedback from students indicated that they found action-learning better than traditional lectures and printed material in enhancing their understanding of sampling theory and practice and in maintaining their interest and enjoyment.     

Auditing standards,increased accounting disclosure,and information asymmetry: Evidence from an emerging market

The interest in accounting disclosure and audit quality by academics, practitioners, and regulators heightened following the various financial reporting scandals, and subsequent legislative and professional response to these scandals. An important question is whether the implementation of stricter auditing standards such as those mandated by the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act would improve the information environment of firms whose shares are publicly traded. In this paper, I investigate the link between information asymmetry, measured by bid-ask spread, and increased accounting disclosures following the adoption of new auditing standards in China—an environment in which disclosure hitherto was relatively low. I report the following primary results of the statistical analyses. First, information asymmetry cost is substantial in the Chinese order-driven emerging markets. Second, the firms in the sample experienced significant reductions in their bid-ask spreads subsequent to the adoption of the new auditing standards. Third, the reductions in the bid-ask spreads were abrupt and permanent. However, no significant result is found for firms in the control group with foreign ownership, whose financial statements were prepared in accordance with international accounting standards and were audited with international auditing standards. The results have implications for policy makers and regulators in general, and those in emerging markets in particular.     

Chinese bookkeeping systems: a study of accounting adaptation and change

The evolution of bookkeeping methods is one of the main features in the advance of Chinese accounting over several thousand years. This paper outlines the invention and application of Chinese-style bookkeeping methods from a historical perspective. With an emphasis on the rise and fall of the 'increase-decrease' bookkeeping method in the mid-1960s to 1980s, the paper not only illustrates the main characteristics of this bookkeeping system, but also analyses its relative strengths and deficiencies in contrast to the Italian-style debit-credit bookkeeping system. It is contended that the increase-decrease system is a continuing innovation of the Chinese-style bookkeeping and an attempt to adapt the western bookkeeping system in terms of the Chinese social and cultural traditions. Studies of this bookkeeping system may generate certain insightful input for the potential improvement of modern bookkeeping in other countries in light of the changing technological and economic conditions.     

The internationalization of British professional accounting: the role of the examination exporting bodies

This paper extends the seminal study of the role of the UK accounting profession undertaken by Johnson and Caygill (1971). It is argued that the influence of the British accounting profession upon overseas countries has changed significantly from the export of UK accountants to the export of examinations. This has greatly facilitated the attainment of a UK qualification by overseas nationals and thus enhanced the international influence of UK accounting principles and practices. The possible implications of this trend for importing countries are also explored. Finally, the paper discusses the impact of this new development upon the professional body which is the leading provider of overseas examinations.     

The changing genderization of the accounting workforce in the US, 1930-90

The accounting profession in 1930 was predominantly a male workforce. By 1990, the gender composition of accounting had changed dramatically. Women, who in 1930 had represented only 10 per cent of the accounting workforce, now represented over 50 per cent of the workforce and earned 53 per cent of the accounting degrees. Increases in the aggregate workforce were not accompanied by subsequent proportional increases in participation at the upper-management levels of accounting firms. Thus, what occurred was a stratified regenderization of the aggregate workforce rather than an overall regenderization of the accounting profession. This paper delineates the historical, cultural, legal, economic and educational forces that led to this changing genderization.     

The deliberation around accounting techniques: accounting for depreciation and foreign exchange in an Indian jute company, 1870-1900

This paper examines the way two accounting techniques, namely depreciation and foreign exchange, were deliberated on, between 1870 and 1900, in an Indian jute company whose shareholders resided in the UK. The arena for these deliberations was the conflictual relationship between controlling and non-controlling shareholders as to how best to account for depreciation and foreign exchange especially when the particular accountings affected distributional issues such as the dividend decision. The purpose of this paper is to analyse and explain the processes by which a company's accounting practices emerge and develop as a contest between different interests. Accounting framed the parameters of the deliberations and provided the language of power and dissent. The paper uses a rich archive that includes narrative and accounting material.     

The effect of accounting firm mergers on the market for audit services: New Zealand evidence

This article examines the outcomes of accounting firm mergers using data about the frequency of audit switches, the numbers of partners in the respective firms, and perceptions revealed in interviews with partners. Evidence from client switches does not show any evidence that the mergers were followed by cost reductions, or of collusion to force prices up. The effects of the mergers appear to have been elsewhere—the merging firms reduced partner numbers substantially, increasing partner leverage so that individual remaining partners were better off. Data from interviews confirm these findings, and show that the culture of individual firms had a significant effect on determining which group of partners controlled the merged firm.     

Creating a profession ‘out of nothing’? The case of the Belgian auditing profession

This paper presents the results of a study on the emergence and development of an auditing profession in Belgium in the late 1940s and 1950s. Recent research on Anglo-Saxon professions stresses the role of the state in their development. In continental European contexts, the state played an even more significant role, and civil servants in public administration often served as a model for professional organization and behaviour. The main parties that were involved in the creation of the Belgian auditing profession were the state, the employers and the unions. The state maintained a separation between the Belgian profession of independent auditors, the reviseurs d'entreprises, and the associations of accounting professionals, the experts comptables, who tried first to prevent the creation of an auditing profession and then to obtain control over it. This paper demonstrates that the parties in the debate supported different professional models, depending on what they considered the main role of the auditors to be. The debates preceding and following the introduction of the profession focused on the autonomy and structure of the profession, the services to be provided by the auditors, and access to the profession.     

The 'particular gain or loss upon each article we deal in': an aspect of mercantile accounting, 1300-1800

Merchandise accounts for each category of goods, voyage or venture are a prominent feature of many ledgers of the period 1300 to 1800. The characteristics of these accounts and the uses to which such accounts were put are considered.     

A Weberian model applied to the study of accounting stagnation in late Qing China

The industrialization and commercial expansion that China experienced following foreign intrusion, in 1840, necessitated the modernization of its accounting, but its accounting technology continued to stagnate for more than half a century. Weber's socio-historical model provides a framework for posing the question why indigenous accounting systems persisted even though superior western bookkeeping techniques were available. Weber's framework for the study of the relations of accounting to organizations and society may be divided into two analytic layers: structural conditions of accounting and the historical dynamic arising from the tensions between formal and substantive rationalities. All structural conditions specified in his first analytic layer as necessary for capital accounting were basically satisfied in Qing China. The second layer of Weber's framework is ideational. Rationality is the key concept in Weber's work. Replacing traditional accounting amounted to a direct challenge to substantive rationality of ti ('substance', 'essence') by the formal rationality of yung ('instruments', 'utility').     

Whose voice is it anyway? Rethinking the oral history method in accounting research on race, ethnicity and gender

Drawing on contemporary feminist and postcolonial writings, this paper endeavors to provide a critique of some underlying assumptions of the oral history method. The very methodology of the oral history method re-enforces hegemonic Western ideologies about race/ethnicity, gender and class perpetuated through the connection between the cultural identity of the speaker and the notion of authenticity as a ground for academic authority. Without recognizing the inherent subjectivities of the research methods we use, we may unwittingly perpetuate these hegemonic ideologies, despite our good intention. If other histories are to be heard, this bias and viewpoint needs to be challenged, not in a threatening way but in an enlightening way, so that the “Other” voices can tell their stories in a more, if not fully, liberated way.     

Auditing,Reasoning Systems,Reporting Frameworks,and Accounting Policy Risk: A Response to Alexander

This response to Alexander (2010 ) clarifies the approach taken in Smieliauskas et al. (2008 ). Here we elaborate further on the significance of the accounting risk concept for fairness of presentation in financial reporting. In the process we show how Alexander's potentially important concept of accounting policy risk can be made operational via the concept of accounting risk.     

Concepts of cost and profit in Chinese agricultural treatises: with special reference to Shengshi Nongshu and Pu Nongshu in the seventeenth century

This article analyses the use of the concepts of cost and profit in Chinese agricultural treatises. Special attention is given to the agricultural works Shengshi Nongshu and Pu Nongshu in the seventeenth century. The analysis shows how Chinese people applied the concepts of cost and profit to agricultural production. This paper also analyses the reasons for the lack of further progress of Chinese accounting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It concludes that Chinese accounting reached its peak in the Ming and Qing dynasties under a feudal framework and that accounting development has been strongly associated and constrained by its social environment, including political and cultural constraints.     

In pursuit of legitimacy: A history behind fair value accounting

An examination of the history of attempts by regulators, practitioners and scholars from the mid nineteenth century to 2005 to establish an appropriate accounting measurement basis for financial reporting here leads to an evaluation of the likelihood of fair value accounting (FVA) practices becoming fully institutionalised. Using concepts drawn from theories of legitimation, it is shown here that historic cost accounting (HCA) only enjoyed an episodic legitimacy in the 1940s–70s and that prior and after this period mixed measurement incorporating market values is routinised. Although principles of FVA have been legitimised to an extent, it is argued here that this has resulted in the practice of mixed measurement bases being taken for granted.     

Progenitors of modern management accounting concepts and mensurations in pre-industrial England

Edwards and Newell (1994: 407) noted that 'the application of accounting techniques in business management continues to be a largely unexplored area of business history'. Outcomes of this lack of research and knowledge are simplistic conclusions such as 'accounting systems for managerial decisions and control can be traced back to the origins of hierarchical enterprises in the early nineteenth century' (Johnson and Kaplan, 1987). In contrast, the case and conclusion presented in this paper hold that innovative measurements for decisions and control attributed to industrial revolution managers were adaptations of concepts used by auditors, stewards and bailiffs who, on behalf of lords of the manor, controlled agricultural activities on landed estates. In addition, evidence is presented which shows that concepts of production standards and standard costs were used in pre-industrial England to control the manufacture and sale of bread. Much of the evidence used to build the case was drawn from translations of medieval management, accounting and legal treatises and is presented under six headings. In each of the six sections evidence of the use of a progenitor of a modern management accounting concept and associated mensuration (action of measurement) is presented and discussed. The headings are: production capacity; production standards; standard costs; cost allocation; performance analysis; and relevant costs.     

'A sort of guide, philosopher and friend': the rise of the professional auditor in Britain

This paper considers the legal and financial context in which professional audit emerged in Britain during the nineteenth century. It concludes that an important contributing factor to the rise of the audit profession was its provision of advice on prudent accounting, which represented a distinctive competence. The capture of a jurisdiction over business advisory services from the legal profession involved, however, a relationship of complicity with management and large insider investors the interests of social capital- to the exclusion of small investors, who were stigmatized as 'speculators'.     

规范会计行为 改善审计环境

本文系统论述了如何规范我国的会计工作 ,分别讨论了与之相关的几对重要观念 ,包括会计工作的国家监督与社会监督、内部监督与社会监督、会计责任与审计责任等。明确上述观念对加强我国会计工作的规范与监管 ,改善审计工作环境与质量都具有积极意义     

Making Profession and State, 1907 to 1914: The ACPA's First Charter Attempt

The Australasian Corporation of Public Accountants (ACPA) was founded in 1907, the first Australian national association of public accountants and their clerks. From 1907 to 1914 it endeavoured, against the opposition of both Australian and British associations, to obtain a royal charter. The ACPA's charter attempt brought into focus struggles within the emergent accountancy'profession'both in Australia and Britain. It also became implicated in the process of state formation during a formative period in Australia's political history. Using hitherto unexplored archival material, this study shows that the ACPA's charter attempt: (a) was a serious attempt to drive a wedge between the'public'and'commercial'accountant; and (b) raised issues about the legislative and executive domains of Australian state and Federal governments both inter se and in relation to Britain. The study suggests that the failure of the attempt can be ascribed to the interaction of (a) and (b). It also suggests that one of the outcomes of the attempt, namely, the (re-)assertion of authority of Australian state governments over accountancy matters, helped to diminish the hegemony of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia, eventually formed in 1928, over public accountancy in Australia.