John Malcolm Ludlow, Victorian Christian Socialism and the Friendly Society Act of 1875 (2024)

Accounting, Organizations and Society, 1987

Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 2015

Argues for accounting as not 'calculation' nor 'inscription' but as a form of making 'naming and counting statements' which therefore embody quantified valuing from 8000 BC in its first form of token accounting. Challenges the assumption of a 'great divide' in human thinking and acting implicit in Schmandt-Besserat's book title of 'Before Writing'. The piece argues we should think in terms of what ensues 'after accounting' to reevaluate what changes in human thinking and acting before writing and how accounting functions as discourse and practice in that era and subsequent ones. Locates itself as an 'archaeological and genealogical' study, following on what it argues was Foucault's consistent mode of analysis.

Accounting Forum, 2003

Accounting History

Foucault Studies, 2012

This paper investigates the practices whereby the subject, in an organisational context, carries out systematic practices of self-discipline and becomes a calculative self. In particular, we explore the techniques of conduct developed by management accountants in a French carmaker, which adheres to a neoliberal environment. We show how these management accountants become calculative selves by building the very measurement of their own performance. The organisation thereby emerges as the cauldron in which a Homo liberalis is forged. Homo liberalis is the individual capable of constructing for him/her the political self-discipline establishing his/her relationship with the social world on the basis of measurable performance. The management accountants studied in this article prefigure the Homo liberalis in the self-discipline they develop to act in compliance with the organisation’s goals.

Accounting, Organizations and Society, 1998

The Accounting Historians Journal, 2005

Accounting, Organizations and Society, 1993

Abacus, 1996

Eleventh World Congress …, 2006

Abacus-a Journal of Accounting Finance and Business Studies, 1994

This article presents a reassessment of the development of regulated financial disclosure in nineteenth-century British companies legislation. Most accounting historians have emphasized the importance of the balance sheet under the disclosure requirements of various Acts. The relative importance of the profit and loss account has been largely neglected by historians. This paper contends that the profit and loss account was a considerably more important document in the financial regulation of companies than previously contemplated. In fact, the profit and loss account was required in the disclosure regulations of numerous Acts, including the Joint Stock Banks Act (1844), the Regulation of Railways Act (1868), the Life Assurance Companies Act (1870) and the Building and Friendly Societies Act (1874).

Purpose – To revisit the special issue of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal published in 1996 on the theme “Accounting history into the twenty-first century”, in order to identify and assess the impact of the special issue in shaping developments in the accounting history literature, and to consider issues for future historical research in accounting. Design/methodology/approach – A retrospective and prospective essay focusing on developments in the historical accounting literature.Findings – The special issue’s advocacy of critical and interpretive histories of accounting’s past has influenced subsequent research, particularly within the various research themes identified in the issue. The most significant aspect of this influence has been the engagement of increasing numbers of accounting historians with theoretical perspectives and analytical frameworks. Research limitations/implications – The present study examines the content and impact of a single journal issue. It explores future research possibilities, which inevitably involves speculation.Originality/value – In addressing recent developments in the literature through the lens of the special issue, the paper emphasises the unifying power of history and offers ideas, insights and reflections that may assist in stimulating originality in future studies of accounting’s past.

Faculty of Commerce Papers, 2008

Revista Contabilidade & Finanças, 2014

Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 2015

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010