Josephine Maltby

Taxation in West Africa: transforming the colonial subject into the ¿governable person¿

Little attention has hitherto been paid to the role of accounting and taxation in colonial/imperial contexts. The objective of this paper is to explore taxation in British West Africa from the late nineteenth to the mid-20th centuries. Taxation represents the use of accounting to regulate behaviour, and as such offers a new perspective on the claims made for accounting as a successful mode of making individuals governable. We examine the taxation system initiated by Lord Lugard and followed elsewhere in British West Africa and consider what its imposition has to tell us about the relationship between colonialists and Africans, and about its potential for moulding the behaviour of colonial subjects. The vigorous resistance of West Africans to colonial taxation casts doubts on some of the claims made for accounting controls as a means of “forming subjectivity” [Acc. Organ. Society 23 (7) (1998) 685].

Accounting and the soul of the middle class: Gustav Freytag's Soll und Haben☆

Abstract The power of accounting has been explained in terms of its technical efficacity in depicting economic reality. This paper examines the significance of accounting for the nineteenth-century middle class as it was portrayed in Freytags best-selling novel Soll und Haben. It considers the connections between accounting and middle-class values, in particular orderliness and rational conduct. It concludes that accounting derives persuasiveness not from its facticity, but from its simultaneous embodiment and confirmation of middle-class values.

Environmental audit: theory and practices

Environmental audit is a growth area which has received little attention in the auditing literature. There is currently no mandatory requirement for companies to undergo environmental audit, although pressures on them to do so are growing, and there are no generally accepted standards regulating the nature of audit work. In the absence of standards, the views of individual practitioners will have a decisive effect on the form of the audit. Summarizes the results of a questionnaire survey of environmental consultants aimed at ascertaining what kind of audit work they do and what their views are about the nature of the audit. In particular, examines the contention that there are two competing and incompatible views of environmental audit – audit as managerial aid and audit as an independent critique of environmental performance. Environmental consultants come from differing professional backgrounds – engineers, environmental scientists, accountants and management consultants are all involved in environmenta...

Who comprised the nation of shareholders? Gender and investment in Great Britain, c. 1870–1935

This article explores the widening ownership of stocks and shares in Great Britain between 1870 and 1935. It demonstrates the extent of that growth and the increasing number of small investors. Women became more important in terms of the number of shareholders and value of holdings. Factors that encouraged this trend included the issue of less risky types of investments, and legal changes relating to married womens property. We examine the ‘deepening’ importance of stocks and shares for wealth holders, arguing that the growing significance of these kinds of financial assets was as important as the growth in the investor population.

Setting its own standards and meeting those standards: voluntarism versus regulation in environmental reporting

It is often asserted that a voluntary approach to environmental issues is preferable to regulation. Supporters of voluntary environmental reporting claim that businesses will produce reports that meet the requirements of their stakeholders without the need for government intervention. This argument is currently being deployed in the UK to oppose the setting of mandatory reporting requirements. This present paper considers the use of ‘stakeholder theory’ in support of the voluntary approach and evaluates the claim that businesses will choose to make adequate environmental disclosures. Alternatives to a voluntary regime are discussed.© 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

‘She possessed her own fortune’: Women investors from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century

There is a growing literature on the history of investment in Britain. However, the role played by women as investors has been almost wholly ignored. This paper argues that women were an important class of stock market investors and produces empirical evidence, most notably share registers, to show that women engaged in a number of different types of investment, and were important in both public and private companies as long-term holders of securities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The article concludes by suggesting the impact of these findings on our understanding of womens financial position and of their role in corporate governance.

“The nesting instinct”: women and investment risk in a historical context

The objective of this article is to place the debate about womens investment behaviour — in particular their attitude to risk — in a historical context. We examine a number of case studies of investments made by English women between the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries and compare the results with the findings of recent surveys of womens attitudes to investment. Modern research consistently finds evidence of a gender effect, with women taking less investment risk than men. However, this research is primarily US-focused, restricted to pensions planning and based on questionnaire surveys. Using surveys of womens wills, share registers, and correspondence archives, we also find a gender effect, but one which is significantly reduced once education, knowledge and access, marital status and wealth are taken into account. We argue that such case studies are a valuable way forward for assessing the extent to which women were risk seekers or risk avoiders.

Was the Companies Act 1947 a response to a national crisis

It has been asserted that the British Companies Act 1947 was part of the postwar response to a national emergency which created an ethos of greater social responsibility. The paper examines the validity of this contention. The 1947 Act is placed in the context of the debate which began in the 1920s about the role of accounting disclosure in corporate governance. From the 1920s onwards, there were calls for reform to improve accountability to investors, as well as a tenacious opposition to any reduction in the discretionary powers of directors. The British Labour Party made wider-ranging proposals for reform but these were dropped from its agenda in the 1930s. The paper concludes that the 1947 Act was not a product of Labours programme of social legislation. Instead, it was a victory for the proponents of shareholder interests.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Control: The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, 1933-1951

A new conceptualization of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is presented as a means of asserting and maintaining corporate control in the face of political, economic, and social challenges. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) applied different strategies to maintain control of its Iranian assets in the face nationalist demands—political and covert mechanisms, market based, resource access controls, and CSR programs. This paper investigates the third, and least explored, strand of their strategy. It identifies managerial strategies for CSR engagement with respect to three corresponding interest groups: politicians and diplomats, shareholders, and local employees, drawing on a variety of previously unused archival sources. From prior studies it is unclear whether the AIOCs CSR programs, for example, in employment and housing, were motivated by social improvement, its business agenda, or responses to legislative pressures from the Iranian government. A detailed examination of CSR policy and private correspondence between AIOCs senior executives about their negotiations with the Iranian government shows that they engaged in and reported voluntary CSR activities to strengthen their reputation and negotiating position but refused to compromise on aspects of CSR that threatened the existing managerial hierarchy of control. This interpretation is supported by a content analysis of the companys annual reports in the years before and after nationalization, revealing a choice of topics and language intended to support its self-presentation as a socially concerned employer. The results of this study have wider implications for understanding CSR reporting as a corporate strategy to enhance negotiating and bargaining positions.

UK joint stock companies legislation 1844-1900: accounting publicity and "mercantile caution"

It is frequently asserted that the 1856 Companies Act, in removing the mandatory accounting and auditing requirements of the 1844 Companies Act, reflects laissez-faire principles. This paper examines the effects of unlimited and limited liability on investors, and the extent to which accounting publicity benefited different types of investors. It concludes that the “permissiveness” of the 1856 legislation was not neutral, but favoured large investors. It was only when mandatory accounting disclosure was perceived as serving the interests of this group that it began to be viewed more favourably by legislators.