This book introduces accountants and managers to an historical perspective of corporate financial reporting to employees. It presents a resource for research and practice based upon a literature that for its pre-1970 decades has been largely unfamiliar to contemporary educators, researchers and practitioners alike. In addition the pieces not only provide an historical view of issues and arguments, but of actual reporting practice and audience responses. For the students and researcher, these readings offer a first-hand glimpse into the intentions of employee report producers, the critiques of observers at the time, and the requirements of employees in some instances. For report producers, managers and accountants, it reveals some of the reporting traditions that we have inherited today as well as reporting practices that have already been recommended, tried and tested in the past. The readings selected cover a sixty year period from the 1920s through to the close of the 1970s, with the exception of the first contribution by Lewis, Parker and Sutcliffe (1984) that serves as the historical overview and analysis for the whole text.

Written by a well-known author, this book makes a major contribution to the history of financial reporting, exploring the current and international aspects of standard setting. Compiled through consultation of a considerable amount of relevant literature and interviews with a large number of key players of the ASC, it analyzes the big ‘set battles’ between standard setters and preparers of financial statements, over topics such as price change accounting, goodwill, and leasing and foreign currency translation, the stand-offs which delayed development in specific areas and the smaller skirmishes which impeded the work of improving financial reporting. It covers a range of topics, including: the formulation of standards on specific topics the evolution of the institutional machinery of standard-setting the politics of standard-setting the theory of accounting standardization the emergence of a conceptual framework for financial reporting. A fine account of the period following the 1960s, charting the history of the Accounting Standards Committee, this book is an essential resource for business and finance students.

The Routledge Companion to Accounting History shows how the seemingly innocuous practice of accounting has pervaded human existence in fascinating ways at numerous times and places; from ancient civilisations to the modern day, and from the personal to the political. Placing the history of accounting in context with other fields of study, the collection gives invaluable insights to subjects such as the rise of capitalism, the control of labour, gender and family relationships, racial exploitation, the functioning of the state, and the pursuit of military conflict. An engaging and comprehensive overview also examining geographical differences, this Companion is split into key sections, which explore: changing technologies used to represent financial and other data historical development of accounting theory and practice accounting institutions and those who perform accounting accountancy and the economy accounting, society, and culture the role of accounting in the government, protection and financing of states including chapters on the important role played by accountancy in religious organizations, a review of how the discipline is portrayed in fine art and popular culture, and analysis of sharp practice and corporate scandals. The Routledge Companion to Accounting History has a breadth of coverage that is unmatched in this growing area of study. Bringing together leading writers in the field, this is an essential reference work for any student of accounting, business and management, and history.

First published in 1996. This book summarises the Seminar held in Edinburgh in 1994 in the five hundredth year since the publication of Luca Pacioli's Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita. Its purpose is simple but relevant to every accountant. It revisits some fundamentals that lay behind Pacioli's decision to write his Summa, and examines whether the accounting framework in which we work today has overlooked basic issues because of its continued focus on development of the existing financial accounting model. It analyses Pacioli's legacy from several different perspectives, deliberately choosing to do so in ways that addressed considerations that his work reflected, examining the nature and characteristics of the bridge between academic analysis and insight on the one hand and practical application on the other. It also looks at the dominant influences in the evolution of accountancy for managing stewardship and for reporting of that stewardship. By doing so, it attempts to identify influences that had been less pressing and so had been ignored or overlooked, and also considers how changing technology has affected the way we manage the accountancy process.