Alan J. Richardson

The Myth of the Marketing Revolution

This study used content analysis of source material from the 1890s to examine the enduring historical theory of a marketing revolution first proposed in 1960 by Robert Keith and still popular in introductory marketing textbooks today. The results are consistent with earlier studies. Strong evidence exists of sales and marketing orientations during the period known as the production era. We conclude that there was no marketing revolution.

Identity, appropriateness and the construction of regulatory space: the formation of the Public Accountant's Council of Ontario

Practice rights legislation in Canada continues to be contested 50 years after its first enactment. In Ontario, one of the earliest provinces to enact restrictive legislation, the challenges have focused on how the legislation has been implemented rather than on whether or not public accounting should be regulated. To better understand the contested issues in this field, we examine the process undertaken by the Public Accountants Council of Ontario to implement the Public Accountancy Act of 1950. Our analysis is based on the first 15 years of the minutes of the meetings of the Public Accountants Council for Ontario, augmented by other archival sources such as court cases, newspaper clippings, correspondence and reports. Our intent is to document the process and “logic of appropriateness” used by the Council to construct its identity and stake out its “regulatory space” in the face of the ambiguity of the law and pressure from interest groups. We also identify the contradictions that were institutionalized in this field resulting in repeated challenges to the Council. We conclude by relating the historical insights from this analysis to the continuing challenges to practice rights legislation in Ontario.

Justification and accounting: applying sociology of worth to accounting research

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to introduce and illustrate the insights of the sociology of worth as advanced by sociologist Luc Boltanski and his collaborator economist/statistician Laurent Thevenot in their works, including their path-breaking book Design/methodology/approach - The paper explores the basic tenets of this “new sociology” and draws on it to render a reinterpretation of Ansari and Euskes study of cost accounting in a military depot. Findings - The sociology of worth complements extant sociological approaches to accounting by providing a language and a conceptual tool-box for understanding the multiple rationalities in which accounting is implicated. In addition, given its pragmatic micro level approach to accounting, it has the potential to act as a bridge between institutional theory and practice theory. Originality/value - This paper is the first known to render an extensive discussion of Boltanski and Thevenots work in the accounting literature and to apply insights from this work to accounting research.

Strategies in the development of accounting history as an academic discipline

Accounting history has emerged as an academic discipline over the last 40 years within English speaking countries. There is now a critical mass of researchers, dedicated journals and conferences, and a significant body of literature that is increasing in scope and depth. This article examines the strategies that, ex post , can be seen as important in developing accounting history as a discipline. Three strategies are identified: (1) making accounting history relevant (to education, standard-setting, and organizational memory/identity), (2) making accounting history controversial (by identifying positive and negative exemplars, providing historical critiques of mainstream research, and encouraging methodological/ theoretical pluralism within accounting history), and (3) institutionalizing accounting history (by developing academic associations, journals and conferences, and embedding accounting history within a network of supporting organizations including universities, professional associations, libraries, research centers and publishers). The article concludes by identifying the weak points in the disciplinary project.

Regulatory competition in accounting. A history of the Accounting Standards Authority of Canada

This article examines a unique period (1981–1998) in Canadian accounting standard-setting history when, nominally, two competing standard-setting bodies existed: the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and the nascent Accounting Standards Authority of Canada. Sunder (2002a, 2002b) advocates competing accounting standard-setting regimes within a single jurisdiction to allow firms to voluntarily select standards that reflect their business model and provide the lowest cost-of-capital. This situation, however, is rare and has not been examined empirically. The existence of competing standards assumes the existence of competing standard-setters, but the entry of a new standard-setter into the domain of an existing standard-setter faces numerous obstacles. The analysis of this case suggests some factors missing from Sunders model.

Does academic management accounting lag practice? A cliometric study

The schism between accounting practice and the accounting academy has been a lament of accountants for many decades. This schism has two aspects – the schism between research and practice and the schism between education and practice. This article focuses on the later schism and uses a statistical approach to compare the dates of introduction of new management accounting concepts into accounting education and the professional body of knowledge over the period 1967 to 1997. The results indicate that, on average, accounting education lags practice and the length of the lag has increased since the early 1980s. The study contributes to the growing use of cliometrics (quantitative analysis) in accounting history, provides new empirical data on the accounting schism and offers insights for the profession and academy on the pattern of knowledge transfer. The use of new sources and a different research method offer additional insights on the established themes of “relevance lost” and the “accounting lag” in the management accounting and accounting history literatures.

Applied Research in Accounting: A Commentary*

The mission of Canadian Accounting Perspectives is to provide a forum for “applied research” in accounting, but this key term is not defined. I identify three forms of applied research: (1) the use of existing knowledge to find solutions to current problems; (2) the use of positivist research methods to conduct critical tests between current alternative accounting methods and to identify empirical regularities that contribute to the development of technologies of practice; and (3) the use of disciplined inquiry and action research to develop mid-range theory and generate empirical results that advance the interests or increase the capabilities of an identified community. This third form of applied research may provide the best approach to bridging the schism between academe and practice.

The development of the accounting profession in the Holy Land since 1920: cultural memory and accounting institutions

This study provides a history of the Israel accounting profession using a periodization strategy that identifies major shifts in the legal and economic environment of Israel and traces the effect of these changes on the institutional structure of accountancy. Specifically, four periods are identified, each with distinct accounting institutions: British influence (1920–1948), state building (1948–1977), market model (1977–1994), and globalization (1994–present). The focus is on various effects of culture on the development of the profession and how cultural tendencies, reflected in cultural memory and collective identity, interact with the imposition of institutional structures by a foreign power and by integration into a global economy.

Governance and control in networks: a case study of the Universal Postal Union

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to adopt “whole network” perspective and analyzes the governance and control mechanisms in the Universal Postal Union (UPU), one of the oldest and largest inter-governmental networks, through the lens of institutional entrepreneurship theory. The purpose is to introduce a typology of network governance forms to the accounting literature and to analyze the governance and management control mechanisms within the UPU, a “participatory federation” (Provan, 1983) type of network that has managed the challenges of collective collaboration since 1875. Design/methodology/approach – The study benefits from unlimited access to all archival materials of the UPU such as minutes of Congress and committee meetings since 1875 as well as secondary documents and market studies related to the postal sector. The data reported in this study are derived from the archives of the UPU in Berne, Switzerland and interviews conducted with senior officials. Findings – Drawing on the work of Pro...

The discovery of cumulative knowledge: Strategies for designing and communicating qualitative research.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance for designing and generating cumulative knowledge based on qualitative research. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on the philosophy of science and specific examples of qualitative studies in accounting that have claimed a cumulative contribution to knowledge to develop a taxonomy of theoretically justified approaches to generating cumulative knowledge from qualitative research. Findings The paper argues for a definition of cumulative knowledge that is inclusive of anti-realist research, i.e. knowledge is cumulative if it increases the extent and density of intertextual linkages in a field. It identifies the possibility of cumulative qualitative research based on extensions to the scope of the knowledge and the depth of the knowledge. Extensions to the scope of the knowledge may include expanding the time periods, context, and/or theoretical perspective used to explore a phenomenon. Extensions to the depth of the knowledge may include new empirical knowledge, methodological pluralism, theory elaboration, or analytic generalization. Individual studies can demonstrate their contribution to cumulative knowledge by locating their research within a typology/taxonomy that makes explicit the relationship of current research to past, and potential, research. Research limitations/implications The taxonomy may be useful to qualitative researchers designing and reporting research that will have impact on the literature. Social implications The increased use of research impact as an evaluation metric has the potential to handicap the development qualitative research which is often thought of as generating non-cumulative knowledge. The taxonomy and the strategies for establishing cumulative impact may provide a means for this approach to research to establish its importance as a contribution to knowledge. Originality/value The concept of cumulative knowledge has not been systematically applied to research based on qualitative methods.