Richard K. Fleischman

A theoretical primer for evaluating and conducting historical research in accounting

Historical research in accounting is flourishing as prestigious journals worldwide encourage authors to incorporate history into their submissions. Although a number of accounting academics are aware of these opportunities, others may be reluctant to participate because they lack an understanding of the rudiments of historical scholarship. This paper is geared to those scholars who seek to write about accountings past but are unacquainted with historical methods, unsure how to begin, and generally unfamiliar with the debates that are now taking place in the field. In this paper we discuss the formal theoretical structures of history as a discipline; differentiate history as event, story, and way of knowing; consider the problem of historical facticity and the subjectivity of the historian; examine the role historical evidence plays in the reconstruction of the past, and identify the forms of historical construction and alternate historical methods. We also distinguish between history and social science and summarise the current debate between conventional and critical accounting historians. Publication possibilities are also addressed.

Managerial accounting early in the British Industrial Revolution: The Carron Company, a case study

Abstract Traditional accounting histories date the advent of sophisticated cost accounting to the mid-1880s. Research in recent years, however, has provided evidence of purposeful cost management during the British Industrial Revolution. Given the advances in capital accumulation techniques, market structure development, and technology, it might have been expected that British entrepreneurs would have appreciated the advantages that effective costing could provide. This article is a case study of the Carron Company, the huge Scottish ironworks, whose cost accounting methods were notably innovative during the period for which plentiful archival records exist: 1759–1786. Carrons utilisation and practice of cost management is examined in the areas of expenditure control; responsibility and departmental cost management; overhead allocation; cost comparisons and transfers; costs for decision-making; budgets, forecasts, and standards; and inventory control. The positive findings in all these activity areas con...

THE ROARING NINETIES: ACCOUNTING HISTORY COMES OF AGE

The paper outlines developments in the accounting history literature during the 1990s. The introduction chronicles the immense broadening of publication opportunities in accounting history that cha...

Accounting in service to racism: monetizing slave property in the antebellum South

Abstract The contemporary scene in accounting history features a growing interest in the “suppressed voices” that have been systematically excluded from the processes of accounting. Notwithstanding, the bulk of critical studies on disenfranchised groups has focused on gender issues, suppressed economic classes, and the roadblocks encountered by ethnic minorities attempting to enter the accounting profession. The few papers that have chronicled the use of accounting on slave plantations have viewed these techniques as essentially unproblematic, neutral conveyances of information needed by decision makers. This paper adopts a more critical perspective of accounting’s past and uses plantation records to examine its particular role in the commoditization, objectification, and dehumanization of an entire class of people. Its overriding purpose is not to examine the economics (i.e., viability or profitability) of slavery, but rather to illustrate how accounting practices of measurement, valuation, and classification served slave owners and sustained slavery’s institutions. We readily acknowledge that neither accounting nor accountants constructed slavery, but we do believe that accounting practices reinforced racially based social relationships by converting slave exchanges, holdings, and outputs into monetary terms while completely ignoring the qualitative, human dimension of slavery.

Completing the triangle: Taylorism and the paradigms

Taylorism and scientific management, as significant components of productive relations in the USA during the early twentieth century, have been examined by accounting historians representing the major paradigms that hold sway in contemporary historiography – the Foucauldian, the Marxist (labour process), and the economic rationalist (Neoclassical). The great bulk of this work has assumed that the major tenets of scientific management, such as time study, incentive wage schemes, standard costing, and variance analysis, were in common usage during the first two decades of the current century. This paper intends to set the record straight by demonstrating that theory was running far ahead of practice in that the number of actual adoptions of the new methods were not concomitant with the prevalence of scientific management literature. Subsequently, the paper will endeavour to show how the three major paradigms combine to enhance our understanding of Taylorism. Much of what Taylor wrote can be interpreted within a Foucauldian framework; the negative reaction of organised labour was much in the Marxist tradition; and, finally, the lack of applications in practice reflected economically rational action on the part of entrepreneurs (thereby completing the triangle).

Theoretical perspectives on accounting for labor on slave plantations of the USA and British West Indies

The paper focuses on accounting for slave workers during one of the most morally culpable periods in Western civilization and is concerned with issues central to labor – modes of production, labor control, and labor productivity. It incorporates secondary sources and examination of records from over 150 different US and BWI plantations to identify contextual factors that motivated planters to organize their workforce in a particular way. The paper specifically describes the ganging and tasking methods of extracting surplus value and indicates how these methods fit within three common paradigmatic interpretations of accounting history – labor process, power/knowledge/discipline, and economic rationalism. In summary, ganging exemplified a pre‐modern approach to organizing labor in which planters relied primarily on physical power to compel work effort and increase output. Tasking incorporated individual work rates and included more sophisticated practices of surveillance, measurement, normalization, and socialization. Tasking became economically rational by responding to changing market conditions and by incorporating procedures and incentives to spur greater productivity. Therefore, tasking may be perceived as a thematic precursor to accounting‐based disciplinary controls like standard costing and a transitionary element from pre‐modern to modern control systems.

The cost-accounting environment in the British Industrial Revolution iron industry

Costing activity found, in recent years, in the surviving records of Industrial Revolution business firms has legitimized the claim that the period was a significant precursor of the scientific management movement. This paper reviews the costing practices of a number of British Industrial Revolution iron firms with particular focus on four dominant enterprises (Carron, Cyfarthfa, Darby and Dowlais) for which an extensive volume of business records survives. Evidence of certain mature costing methods, not thought to have pre-dated the 1880s, is detailed and a perspective on iron-industry cost-management practices is provided. These methods are also considered collectively with respect to the general socio-economic environment of the period.

The Evolution of Standard Costing in the U.K. and U.S.: From Decision Making to Control

Decision making and control are two fundamental components of industrial management that are aided by accounting information. This article traces the evolution of standard costing in the U.K. and U.S. and describes how it has served these two purposes over time. At the start of the industrial revolution, standard costing, in the form of past actual costs, aided managers in make-or-buy, pricing, outsourcing and other routine and special decisions. In the late nineteenth century, as the mass production of homogeneous products became more common, predetermined, norm-based standard costs were promoted as the means to control operations and reduce waste. The use of predetermined costs was recommended by both academic and professional branches well into the twentieth century. Since the mid-1980s, norm-based standards have come under fire for not providing appropriate strategic signals in an era of global competition, continuous improvement and perpetual cost reduction. This article compares the nature of standard costing practices in the British Industrial Revolution with those that evolved in the U.S. under scientific management. The enquiry is not limited to double-entry systems and, like Miller and Napier (1993), the domain is broadened to include other forms of cost-keeping practices. We utilize primary and secondary sources to argue that the environment and rationales for standard costs have changed fundamentally over time. It is speculated that in the future standard costing will be used far less for individual accountability or operational control, but will return to its decision-making roots in the form of long-run cost targets that benchmark the success of continuous cost-reduction efforts.

Monetising human life: slave valuations on US and British West Indian plantations

This paper examines specifically a frequently employed purpose of accounting on slave plantations in the antebellum US and the pre-emancipation British West Indies (BWI) -the evaluation of slaves as assets. We attempt to explain why this exercise was undertaken and the processes involved. Slaves were paraded past plantation managers and overseers, often in the company of appraisers and bookkeepers, where narrow distinctions were made on the basis of qualitative information such as physical characteristics and productive efficiency. The paper considers certain comparative features between the two slave environments, such as the greater concern in the BWI with linking valuations to the skill sets of slaves and a valuation premium on male slaves in the US which did not exist in the Caribbean. The paper concludes with a consideration of certain moral issues of slavery, such as the potential implication of accounting and accountants in a repressive regime and the attribution of contemporary morality to an historical epoch long past.

The History of Management Accounting in the U.S.

Abstract This chapter chronicles the history of management accounting in the U.S. from 1800 to 1970. A major theme of the first century covered was the search for the origins of purposeful cost accounting in venues such as the New England textile industry, the Springfield Armory, the railroads, and the metal-working firms where the scientific management movement was born. The rise of the mega-corporation and the genesis of managerialism are key events of the early twentieth century. Standard costing and budgeting were essential developments. The chapter concludes with our analysis of certain components of management accountings conventional wisdom as of 1970, accompanied by a view of the disciplines future directions.