Peter W. Wolnizer

The R.J. Chambers Collection: An "Archivist's" Revelations of 20th Century Accounting Thought and Practice

A major, unique accounting archival source, the R.J. Chambers Collection comprises both hard copy and, utilizing cutting-edge search technology, internet accessible materials. From his academic beginnings, Chambers was an orderly person, an archivist of the extensive and varied evidence that underpinned his proposals for accounting reform. Opening research areas for accounting biography, the development of accounting thought, the history of accounting institutions, prosopography, public sector accounting history, and comparative international accounting history are foremost amongst the myriad justifications for seeking to unravel the accounting history “lodes” in archives such as the Goldberg, Chambers, and Briloff Collections [Potter, 2003]. The archiving of the meticulously kept Chambers papers from 1947–1999 provides an opportunity for unfolding the background to events previously withheld from accounting history scholars. Professional episodes in relation to inflation accounting, standard setting, pro...

Chambers as Educator and Mentor

Adopting a personal tone, this article explores Ray Chambers’ impact on accounting and management education and through that his impact on accounting thought and practice. As mentor and colleague for over a quarter of a century, Chambers left many wonderful impressions, some of which are described here. The article describes some of the influences on the innovations and approaches of a great teacher. Familial and early working life experiences are shown to have greatly influenced his views on accounting, finance and management, and hence his innovations in accounting and management education at both the Sydney Technical College and the University of Sydney. His research, writings and teachings continually stressed the need to apply common sense to common experience. The article concludes by noting Chambers’ perennial pursuit of seeking evidence to test his ideal solution to eradicate the follies and infelicities that plagued then (and still plague today) accounting thought and practice. Chambers regarded having such an ideal as the essence of being a researcher.

Professor R. J. Chambers: A biographical note

Raymond John Chambers (1917–1999) has been described by his 20 century peers as an ‘accounting pioneer’ (Maurice Moonitz, Abacus 1982) and ‘intellectual giant of the 20 century’ (George Staubus, Accounting Horizons, 2003)—truly a ‘Renaissance man’ (Guiseppe Galassi, private correspondence with one of the authors, 1999). He was selected by Dick Edwards (1994) as one of the ‘Twentieth Century Accounting Thinkers’; is currently the only non-American to be inducted into the Ohio Accounting Hall of Fame; and has achieved many other awards and recognitions as listed in Chambers’ Aide Memoire, which appeared in Vol. 6 of his collected works reproduced in Chambers and Dean’s Chambers on Accounting: Logic Law and Ethics (2000a). Chambers is known for his proposed system of accounting, Continuously Contemporary Accounting (CoCoA). What is not so well known, especially by younger accounting academics, is the role he played in lifting the status of accounting to being an equal in the learned halls of the university (Wolnizer and Dean, 2000). He fought for this for half a century. Chambers described his struggle as being a ‘life on the fringe’ (2000b) and he had published posthumously a piece titled, Early Beginnings: Introduction to Wisdom of Accounting (2000c) which recounts his early struggles in gaining an economics degree and an understanding of business, finance and accounting. There are many sources detailing various aspects of Chambers’ life, including two Festschrift issues of Abacus (December, 1982 and October, 2000). Chambers provided useful summaries in An Accounting Apprenticeship (1991) and in the introductory preface to the re-release of Accounting, Evaluation and Economic Behavior in 1984. Those aspects were augmented when the Chambers’ full correspondence files (1947– 1999)—to be known as the R. J. Chambers Collection—were officially made available to the public in mid-November, 2004. Chambers described the period to which those files relate as ‘perhaps the most eventful period in the history of accounting up to the terminal date (1985). It was a period of substantial growth, of conglomeration on a large scale by mergers and takeovers, of intense multinational corporate development, of increasing use of modes of organization and methods of financing that were novel at the beginning of the interval (1946)’ (General Preface, Chambers and Dean, 1986).

Research Report Summaries from Round 2 of the IAAER/ACCA Awards Grants for Research to Inform the International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB)

A Framework of Best Practice of Continuing Professional Development for the Accounting Profession Paul de Lange, RMIT University, Australia, Beverley Jackling, Victoria University, Australia, Susan Ravenscroft, Iowa State University, USA, Themin Suwardy, Singapore Management University, Singapore, Ilias Basioudis, University of Aston, UK, and Abdel Halabi, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.