Critical and Historical Studies in Accounting

Critical and Historical Studies in Accounting celebrates the many and varied contributions to the critical imperative in accounting, with a special focus on Michael Gaffikin’s enduring legacy.

The papers collected in this volume recognise the leadership and vision of Michael Gaffikin as a critical accounting scholar from the early 1980s, a time when critical research began to establish a substantial presence in the discipline of accounting.

“Critical study of accounting attempts to comprehend the social contexts within which accounting issues exist while history provides an understanding of the origins of these issues. To study ‘the social’ requires recognition of the questions of power, ideology, history and language. This will require interpretation and understanding of a broad range of a community’s beliefs and cultural contexts. Thus, it is futile to believe in the unattainable quantitative research ideals of objective knowledge, a common rationality and value neutral language. Pure quantitative research will never produce the fruitful results its exponents claim. If accounting is to serve a useful social purpose and its practice to be continually improved then accounting scholars will need to engage in research that is essentially qualitative. The essays in this volume are examples of this form of research activity produced within one academic institution by researchers with a common commitment to improve the understanding and practice of the discipline of accounting”
Michael Gaffikin, Professor of Accounting, UOW

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Preface
Introduction: the idea of accounting
1. Legacy of the golden age: recent developments in the methodology of accounting Michael J. R. Gaffikin
2. Pathological responses to accounting controls: the British commissariat in the Crimea 1854-1856 Warrick N. Funnell
3. The genesis of accounting in Indonesia: the Dutch colonialism in the early 17th Century Eko G. Sukoharsono and Michael J. R. Gaffikin
4. The early growth of corporations leading to the empowerment of the accounting profession, 1600-1855 Janet Moore and Michael Gaffikin
5. The consolidation of a profession: 1880-1906 Janet F. Moore and Kay A. Cooper
6. Ethics of teaching critical: feminisms on the wings of desire Mary M. Day
7. Preserving history in accounting: seeking common ground between “new” and “old” Accounting history Warwick Funnell
8. Critical studies in accounting research, rationality and habermas: a methodological reflection Sudhir C. Lodh and Michael J. R. Gaffikin
9. Inscribing the workers: an experiment in factory discipline or the inculcation of manners? A case in context Robert Williams
10. Accounting in the service of the Holocaust Warwick Funnell
11. History is dead, long live history Michael Gaffikin
12. The narrative and its place in the new accounting history: the rise of the counternarrative Warwick Funnell
13. Deconstructing the principal-agent model: a view from the bottom Michele Chwastiak
14. Lifting stones: a place for microhistory in accounting research? Robert B. Williams
15. The accounting craft and the environmental crisis: reconsidering environmental ethics Jane Andrew
16. Distortions of history, accounting and the paradox of Werner Sombart Warwick Funnell
17. The legitimizing power of financial Statements in the salvation army in England, 1865-1892 Helen Irvine
18. The empire strikes back? An exploration of centre- periphery interaction between the ICAEW and accounting associations in the self-governing colonies of Australia, Canada and South Africa, 1880-1907 Wai Fong Chua and Chris Poullaos
19. Investing for good – the cost of ethical investment Ann O’Connell
20. Reflexivity in learning critical accounting: implications for teaching and its research nexus Mary M. Day, Mary A. Kaidonis and Ronald W. Perrin
21. Imperialism without empire: silence in contemporary accounting research on race/ethnicity Soon Nam Kim

Warwick Funnell is a professor at the School of Accounting and Finance, University of Wollongong. Prior to his present appointment, he held the position of Associate Professor in the Department.
Warwick has taught at other universities in England and operated his own business. His teaching has been primarily in management accounting, introductory accounting, public sector accounting and the history of accounting thought.
In 1998 Warwick was awarded the Mary Follett Parker Prize for the best paper published by the journal Accounting, Auditing and Accountability.

Robert Williams is an Associate Professor at the School of Accounting and Finance, University of Wollongong.