James E. Williamson

Tracing the American Concept of Stewardship to English Antecedents

The contemporary American concept of stewardship has been criticized for failing to meet the needs of modern society. Critics say that the concept of stewardship is missing or dead in America. This paper proposes that before we speculate on the demise of stewardship in the not too distant future we consider its historical evolution. This paper uses a cross-national approach to trace the concept of stewardship within its socihistorical context from 13th century England to the modern American corporation. By identifying how stewardship has evolved differently in America than it did in England, the authors conclude that stewardship is alive and viable in America in its own unique form. Questions regarding whether the American concept of stewardship can survive in this form or how it might evolve in the future are left to future research. However, since accounting is stewardship driven researchers looking for a coherent legal/accounting theory of stewardship may find that evolutionary changes in the social and legal concepts of stewardship subsequently lead to changes in accounting theory and procedure.