Richard K. Fleischman - Böcker

The critical tradition in accounting historiography has come to occupy a prominent place in the discipline’s academic scholarship. Some critical literature has confronted the responsibility of accounting and accountants in precipitating contemporary crises, such as the audit failures that spawned Sarbanes-Oxley and the world-wide recession. Certain contemporary issues have long histories, such as the difficulties encountered by women to break the glass ceiling in public accounting, and the suffering of indigenous peoples under the imperialistic yoke. Other episodes in accounting’s long history are seemingly more divorced from the present, but in reality they all have contemporary significance. Slavery in the New World, for example, although abolished more than a century ago, is still rampant in parts of the world, albeit less formally. Critical accounting historians feel it a duty to harken to the "suppressed voices" of the past, those groups of people who had no access to an accounting record – women, persons of color, indigenous populations, alienated proletarians, victims of governmental incompetence and graft, and many voiceless others. Critical Histories of Accounting: Sinister Inscriptions in the Modern Era draws on the foremost work in this developing literature, both that authored by the co-editors of this volume, and that written by others. Editors Richard K. Fleischman, Warwick N. Funnell, and Steve Walker have written extensively about "the dark side of accounting," gauging the complicity of those performing accounting functions in episodes in human history that are at worst evil and at best reprehensible. The editors have also hand-selected a series of historical and contemporary episodes that have been critically investigated by the wider accounting history community, preceded by a thorough introduction.

This is a collection of eleven essays authored by prominent accounting historians and designed to aid potential as well as experienced researchers in the methodologies and resources available for scholarly work in accounting history. The project, of which this book is the end product, has the full endorsement and backing of the Academy of Accounting Historians. Chapters on resources include the finding and utilization of archival materials (including ancient forms); the growing importance of the Internet in historical research and the Accounting Research Database as a vital, contemporary finding aid; the possibilities for joint venturing with accounting practitioners and their organizations; and the pivotal influence and immediacy of oral history. Methodological chapters explore the advantages and pitfalls of archival research; the synergistic relationships that exist between accounting and economic history, including business history and capital-markets research; the techniques for doing biography; and the issues involved in writing to historical paradigms.

This volume, originally published in 1997, reports the findings of extensive archival and contextual research into the surviving accounting and business records of some 200 British Industrial Revolution enterprises. This study presents an overview of cost accounting and cost management practices, whilst investigating these methods in the three dominant industries of the period – iron, textiles, and mining. In addition, it provides two organisational case studies – the Carron Company and Boulton & Watt. Finally, it explores two issues central to Industrial Revolution costing – the relationship between technological change and cost management, and the paradigmatic approaches that have predominated in costing historiography.

This volume, originally published in 1997, reports the findings of extensive archival and contextual research into the surviving accounting and business records of some 200 British Industrial Revolution enterprises. This study presents an overview of cost accounting and cost management practices, whilst investigating these methods in the three dominant industries of the period – iron, textiles, and mining. In addition, it provides two organisational case studies – the Carron Company and Boulton & Watt. Finally, it explores two issues central to Industrial Revolution costing – the relationship between technological change and cost management, and the paradigmatic approaches that have predominated in costing historiography.