Stephen P. Walker

The genesis of professional organization in scotland: a contextual analysis

Abstract The early organization of accountants in Scotland has been explained as a consequence of the separate Scottish legal system, the rise of industrial society and as an attempt to achieve social closure and collective mobility. This paper reports on an historical investigation conducted within a critical-conflict paradigm which examined occupational organization in its contemporary socioeconomic and political contexts. It is shown that professional formation in Edinburgh and Glasgow in 1853 was an organizational response to the activities of a powerful group of London merchants whose demands for law reform were founded on the dominant economic philosophy of mid-Victorian Britain and whose proposals threatened the interests of accountants in Scotland. Further, a linkage between the dynamics of professional organization in Scotland and subsequent developments in England is provided.

The defence of professional monopoly: Scottish chartered accountants and “satellites in the accountancy firmament” 1854–1914

Abstract From 1854 to 1880 Scottish chartered accountants achieved a monopoly of practice founded on the unique acquisition of the credentials “CA”. After 1880 their economic domination was formally challenged by two organizations of aspirant professionals. This paper reveals that the chartered monopoly was challenged as being contrary to prevailing social and political philosophy and by employing a “critical” analysis of professional privilege. It is shown that the CA monopoly was publicly defended by assuming a “functionalist” interpretation of the role of professions in society and was protected with the assistance of superior resources, linkages with the legal profession and contemporary political circumstances.

How to secure your husband's esteem. Accounting and private patriarchy in the British middle class household during the nineteenth century

Abstract Accounting featured prominently in the everyday life and culture of the middle class family in Britain during the nineteenth century. The increasing implementation of accounting techniques in the bourgeois home is considered here in the context of the rationalisation of the household, the threat of insolvency, the prevailing ideology of domesticity, the employment of domestic labour and contemporary systems of household purchasing. It is shown that domestic accounting systems were founded on stewardship and hierarchical accountability and thereby contributed to the operation of masculine domination in the middle class family. Accounting was an instrument for restraining female consumption and containing women in domestic roles. Although women were prescribed accounting functions in the “invisible” private domain they were excluded from the “public” occupation of accountant in Victorian Britain.

The genesis of professional organisation in English accountancy

Abstract The organisation of accountants in Liverpool, London, Manchester and Sheffield during the 1870s has not been subject to exhaustive historical investigation. This paper analyses the first organisations of accountants in England in the context of theories of jurisdictional boundaries, occupational conflict, the creation of labour market shelters and social closure. It is shown that the Bankruptcy Act, 1869 disturbed the division of labour between accountants and lawyers and threatened the status of established accountants by encouraging competition from lesser practitioners. The study illustrates that the organisation of accountants in Liverpool was instigated by lawyers anxious to establish a medium for negotiating the boundaries of bankruptcy work with local accountants. In London, Manchester and Sheffield (and partly in Liverpool) organisation concerned the protection of established accountants from interlopers and was actualised by erecting market shelters and the imposition of exclusionary closure. Organisation was a device for the institutionalisation of occupational difference and protecting market advantage. During the 1870s the occupation of accountant was bifurcated into professional practitioners, marked by the badge of organisational membership, and less reputable individuals who were denied it. It is also contended that inter and intra professional conflict are pervasive themes in professional organisation and that individual actors were significant to engineering formation processes.

Corporatism and structural change in the British accountancy profession, 1930-1957

During the period of total war and its aftermath, profound changes occurred in the socio-economic and political fabric of Britain. In the face of fundamental change and national crisis the multi-organized accountancy profession was perceived as being archaic and demands emerged for the reform of its institutions. The paper discusses the attempt to co-ordinate the profession during the 1940s in the context of the wartime discourse on reconstruction. The analysis is conducted within a paradigm appropriate to the period and locale of the subject: British corporatism. It is revealed that a peak organization to represent the profession before central government was successfully instituted in the form of a Co-ordinating Committee. However, an attempt by the Committee to unify the profession behind legislation to secure a legal monopoly of public practice failed due to: the inappropriateness of the constitutional structures of the participant organizations; their inability to subsume particularist agendas; and, a failure to comprehend the enhanced power of government and mandarin civil servants in the corporatist state. Despite its inability to achieve its principal objective of registration, the coordination movement resulted in structural changes to the British accountancy profession which have endured since the 1950s.

Accounting in History

Recent studies of publication patterns in accounting history portray a myopic and introspective discipline. Analyses reveal the production and dissemination of accounting history knowledge which focus predominantly on Anglo-American settings and the age of modernity. Limited opportunities exist for contributions from scholars working in languages other than English. Many of the practitioners of accounting history are also shown to be substantially disconnected from the wider community of historians. It is argued in the current paper that interdisciplinary history has the potential to enhance theoretical and methodological creativity and greater inclusivity in the accounting history academy. A practical requirement for this venture is the identification of points of connectedness between accounting and other historians. An analysis of publications with accounting content in Historical Abstracts reveals increasing interest among historians in the history of accounting. This substantial literature incorporat...

A ring fence for the profession: advancing the closure of British accountancy 1957‐1970

Explores the genesis of a plan to erect a statutory “ring fence” around the accountancy profession in Britain during the 1960s. Focuses on two elemental problems in actualising a closure strategy: defining a basis for inclusion and exclusion; and, gaining the sanction of the state. Reveals that the complexities of devising an exclusionary code permitted opportunities for “inclusionary usurpation” by “outside” practitioner groups. Examines the quest by accountants to elicit government support for monopolisation during a period in which restrictive practices were outlawed and the professions were “under fire”. The achievement of de jure closure is shown to be dependent on the predilections of senior bureaucrats and the capacity of the profession to negotiate an “informal contract” with the state. Contends that the profession‐state interface primarily engages the apex of the organisational elite and mandrinate Civil Servants.

Professionalisation or incarceration? Household engineering, accounting and the domestic ideal

Abstract Social constructionist theories of gender are utilised to explore the relationship between household accounting and patriarchy during the early twentieth century in the USA and Britain. This period witnessed a reformulation of the ideology of domesticity founded on precepts derived from modish scientific management. It is argued that the suite of calculative techniques prescribed by ‘household engineers’ merely attempted to occupy middle class women in the domestic sphere. Rather than offering a source of professionalisation and liberation, the practice of financial management, costing, record keeping and time and motion study, contributed to a reassertion of private patriarchy, confirmed the gendered nature of spatiality, reinforced the role of woman as a consumer and diverted attention from career building outside the home.

More sherry and sandwiches? Incrementalism and the regulation of late Victorian bank auditing:

The Companies Act 1879 has traditionally been perceived as an important measure in the history of audit regulation in Britain. The Act provided for the external audit of banks and did so several years in advance of a similar requirement for general companies. It is contended here that the circumstances attending the framing and implementation of the auditing provisions contained in the 1879 Act are suggestive of an incrementalist approach to policy making. The character of the discussion of auditor independence and the scope of the bank audit after 1879 indicate that the regulations contained in the Act instituted changes which appear to have been marginal in their practical effects.

Propaganda, Attitude Change and Uniform Costing in the British Printing Industry, 1913-1939

Analyses the attempt by a trade association (the British Federation of Master Printers) to secure the universal adoption by its members of a uniform costing system. It was envisaged that the industry‐wide application of a prescribed costing solution would secure the socio‐economic advancement of employer printers and ensure an improvement in their power relative to unionized labour and unorganized customers. Universal adherence to the uniform costing system depended on the trade association changing the prevailing negative attitudes of employers towards the twin ideals of scientific costing and organization. In order to achieve this a concerted campaign of persuasive communication was undertaken. Reveals that propaganda was conducted by utilizing a variety of distribution media and by employing a range of propagandist devices. The limited success achieved in converting employers to the costing cause is considered to have been the result of message, audience and contextual effects. The persistence of traditional attitudes among printers, the effects of war and adverse macro‐economic conditions were particularly important factors which induced resistance to attitudinal and behavioural change. Concludes that the uniform costing movement and the history of costing in artisan‐craft‐based industries merit deeper investigation.