Salvador Carmona

Control and cost accounting practices in the Spanish Royal Tobacco Factory

The aim of this paper is to analyse the cost accounting system implemented in 1773 by a large Spanish tobacco company which operated as a monopolist. Drawing on data extracted from original archives, the paper examines the characteristics of the cost system within the broader context of a strict control system. The paper argues that there was a connection between the two systems. One of the main roles of the cost accounting system was to buttress a set of structural measures instituted in the RTF with the aim of minimising the scope for tobacco theft. Another aim was to impart visibility upon the various activities undertaken in the RTF. The paper also examines the role of the cost accounting practices as a disciplinary regime. A combination of physical measures, reflecting the rates and mixes of resource utilisation and monetary measures were developed to facilitate monitoring and surveillance of the activities of the factory employees. These measures were used to establish a powerful regime of calculability which rendered human accountability visible. Such calculability created an environment at the RTF in which management could compare, differentiate, hierarchaise, homogenise, and even exclude individuals.

The relationship between accounting and spatial practices in the factory

Abstract During the eighteenth century, tobacco production in the Royal Tobacco Factory (RTF) of Spain moved from the San Pedro Factory located in downtown Seville to the purpose built New Factories outside the city walls. This paper examines the relationship between accounting practices and spatial practices in these two radically different factory premises. The paper explores how the intervention of detailed accounting calculations into spatial configurations and the intertwining of accounting and spatial practices provide discipline in the factory by yielding calculable spaces and accountable subjects. The spaces produced by architects in the New Factories were subsequently mediated through administrative arrangements that rendered enclosure and partitioning more disciplinary. Moreover, accounting practices were developed as a coding system to reconfigure factory space by classifying it into cost centres, quantifying activities carried out in these cost centres, and rendering spaces visible and subjects accountable. In this context, we argue that accounting practices have the capacity to function as time–space ordering devices, and, through networking with spatial practices, provide the scope for managers/administrators to enhance employee surveillance and overall factory discipline.

A profile of European accounting research: evidence from leading research journals

This paper attempts both to advance understanding about the research profile of accounting in Europe and to evaluate the role of The European Accounting Review in the dissemination of Europe-based accounting research. Empirical evidence supporting this investigation was gathered from all the papers published in thirteen top accounting journals during the period 1992 to 1997. Our results show that (i) a vast majority of European contributions to well-regarded journals are authored by scholars affiliated to British higher education organizations. Therefore, the overwhelming dominance of British accounting academics over Europe-based accounting research posits considerable doubts on the extent to which it is correct to form the notion of European accounting research. Our results suggest that such a notion is strongly shaped by one constituency of the European setting, that is, by researchers affiliated to British higher education institutions. (ii) The European Accounting Review has played a significant role in the diffusion of Europe-based accounting research. The journal constitutes the sole venue providing international visibility to scholars of eleven continental European countries. Moreover, The European Accounting Review has published a significant proportion of contributions from scholars of the other fifteen European countries. (iii) There exists limited mobility of non-English written accounting research across European countries. Lastly, the paper posits some suggestions for further work in this area.

TOWARDS AN INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS OF ACCOUNTING CHANGE IN THE ROYAL TOBACCO FACTORY OF SEVILLE

This paper is initially informed by an institutional sociological framework to analyze changes in accounting practices that took place in the Royal Tobacco Factory (RTF) of Seville during the period 1760–1790. We argue that the significantly greater development and use of accounting practices during that period can be linked to the move to the much larger and more purposefully built new factories, the decline in total tobacco consumption, and the pressure to increase revenue for the Spanish Crown while reducing production cost and maintaining high product quality to deter entry. These new accounting practices were developed in part with the intent of improving factory efficiency, but importantly, they enhanced the external legitimacy of the RTF in the face of the events mentioned above and contributed to the long survival of the RTF as a monopolist.

Institutional Pressures, Monopolistic Conditions and the Implementation of Early Cost Management Practices: The Case of the Royal Tobacco Factory of Seville (1820-1887)

In spite of our increasing understanding of the underpinnings of early cost management systems, little is still known about the reasons for the implementation of such systems in firms operating under monopolistic conditions. This article studies the enforcement by law of cost and budgeting systems in the Royal Tobacco Factory of Seville (Spain), a manufactory of the state‐owned monopoly. By doing this, we seek both to enhance understanding of the state’s motivation to enact institutional pressures aiming at the implementation of early cost management practices as well as to study different organizational responses to simultaneous pressures arising from a single institutional source. It is suggested that the state’s motivation to legally enforce the implementation of early cost and budgeting systems may be attributed to (a) the seeking of legitimacy by the state regulatory body, (b) the active agency of senior employees of the state regulatory body to keep their jobs and compensation packages on the eve of the privatization of the industry, and (c) the interest of the regulatory agency to instil the basis of mimetic isomorphism within the monopoly. Different responses by the RTF to pressures for reporting cost and budgeting information were explained by (a) the expected diffusion of firm’s non‐conformity within the institutional area, (b) the expected impact of institutional rules and norms on organizational goals, and (c) the extent to which the institutional source is consistent in its demands.

Measures vs actions: the balanced scorecard in Swedish Law Enforcement

Studies of organizational performance have overwhelmingly relied on evidence gathered from private sector firms. Nevertheless, the past several years have witnessed increasing interest in enhancing effectiveness and efficiency in the public sector, in turn generating considerable investment in the deployment of performance metrics in such settings. Though extant evidence provides many perceptive insights into the specifics of performance frameworks in public sector organizations, little is known about the measurement of organizational performance in police work. Our investigation drew upon the deployment of the balanced scorecard in Swedish Law Enforcement, an organization that long ago implemented the new paradigm of policing, which consisted in enhancing the quality of urban life on the mere making of arrests. Results from this investigation concur with other studies indicating that public sector organizations tend to assume a stakeholder perspective on performance measurement. In particular, Swedish Law Enforcement developed aset of measures of external success and internal performance that addressed present, past, and future time dimensions. Implementation of the balanced scorecard in police work, though, raised some problems. Our study details concerns about the aggregation of non-financial performance measures. More importantly, some crucial areas in the new concept of policing (such as community policing) were neglected by the system. Conversely, the system focused on monitoring some easy-to-measure indicators that provided a traditional view of police work while some crucial areas of policing were not measured. This focus ultimately lessened the operational potential of the balanced scorecard system. Our study also puts forward some suggestions for future research in this area.

Accounting and religion: a historical perspective

Research on the relationship between accounting and religion or religious institutions is remarkably sparse. The lack of academic interest in studying accounting in religious institutions is rather perplexing, given the prominence of such institutions in most historical and contemporary societies, both spiritually and economically. In this introductory article, we first address research with a historical focus and then move on to study research on accounting and contemporary religious institutions. Our review of the literature indicates that research in this area remains at an embryonic state and that studies included in this special issue may contribute to the literature on the sacred–profane divide as well as on forms of accounting and accountability. We conclude by identifying a number of research areas that may attract the attention of scholars in the fields of accounting and accounting history.

Special Section: Mapping variety in the history of accounting and management practices

Research in accounting history is overwhelmingly dominated by studies addressing Anglo-Saxon settings of the period 1850–1940. In spite of the many perceptive insights arising from those investigations, such a tiny time-space intersection overlooks other historiographies that are equally important to advance understanding in accounting history. This article calls for mapping variety in the history of accounting and management practices by expanding the dimensions of time (i.e., history of the present but also of proto-industrial settings and ancient history) and space (i.e., Africa, Continental Europe, Islam, Latin-America, etc) that characterize present focus of accounting history research.

Gender, the state and the audit profession: evidence from Spain (1942-88)

Extant knowledge on gender and auditing overwhelmingly relies on evidence gathered from a limited group of Anglo-Saxon countries. It is widely admitted, however, that gender issues are affected by the institutional contexts of the investigation. The Anglo-Saxon settings, we contend, embrace a number of idiosyncratic, institutional characteristics that advise caution in the generalizability of results. Our study addresses the role of gender in Spanish audit practice during the period 1942 to 1988. The environment of the Spanish audit profession witnessed the peaceful transition from a dictatorship to a full-fledged democracy as well as the emergence of a free market economy from a system characterized by stiff economic autarchy and an overriding intervention of the state in the economy. We found that the dominant role of the state in Spanish society affected the structure of the audit profession and made impossible the emergence of an autonomous project. In particular, our findings reveal that the audit profession did not have an independent strategy about the role of women at work, but mimicked the attitudes deployed by the state during our observation period.

Performance Reviews, the Impact of Accounting Research, and the Role of Publication Forms

Abstract Universities and national assessment bodies of higher learning perform research assessment exercises that constitute crucial events for the careers of scholars and for the funding of institutions. Nonetheless, there are debates about the weightings that should be assigned to different forms of research output such as books, research monographs, journal articles, or research projects. In this study, I draw on citation analysis to measure the impact of accounting research. The data shown in this paper indicate the superiority of generalist over specialist journals in the diffusion of accounting research; question the use of journal rankings, and suggest that books and research monographs exert a considerable impact on the diffusion of accounting research. Such findings have policy implications for national assessment bodies, universities, and the accounting academia.