When originally published in 1994 this volume was the first international review of accounting theory to focus on the contributions of its leading thinkers. Very few attempts had been made, in the accounting literature, to assess the contribution of the theorists who have had such an important influence on the direction of research and practice. Written by experts the studies in this volume provide a unique guide to the development of accounting theory and practice in regions as diverse as the USA, Japan and Europe.

In a pioneering work, Jeffrey Fear overturns the dominant understanding of German management as “backward” relative to the U.S. and uncovers an autonomous and sophisticated German managerial tradition. Beginning with founder August Thyssen—the Andrew Carnegie of Germany—Fear traces the evolution of management inside the Thyssen-Konzern and the Vereinigte Stahlwerke (United Steel Works) between 1871 and 1934. Fear focuses on the organization and internal dynamics of the company. He demonstrates that initiatives often flowed from middle managers, rather than from the top down. Shattering stereotypes of the overly bureaucratic and rigid German firm, Fear portrays a decentralized and flexible system that underscores the dynamic and entrepreneurial nature of German business. He fundamentally revises the scholarship on Alexander Gerschenkron and Germany’s Sonderweg, and critiques Max Weber’s concept of the corporation and capital accounting. He develops a loosely coupled relationship among enterprise strategy, organization, the structure of responsibility, and its accounting system, which links information, knowledge, and power inside the firm. This method of organizing control is central to understanding corporate governance. Original and provocative, this work will generate much debate among historians, organizational theorists, and management and accounting scholars.

This volume features fourteen essays that examine the works of key figures within the phenomenological movement in a clear and accessible way. It presents the fertile, groundbreaking, and unique aspects of phenomenological theorizing against the background of contemporary debate about social ontology and collective intentionality. The expert contributors explore the insights of such thinkers as Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Adolf Reinach, and Max Scheler. Readers will also learn about other sources that, although almost wholly neglected by historians of philosophy, testify to the vitality of the phenomenological tradition. In addition, the contributions highlight the systematic relevance of phenomenological research by pinpointing its position on social ontology and collective intentionality within the history of philosophy. By presenting phenomenological contributions in a scholarly yet accessible way, this volume introduces an interesting and important perspective into contemporary debate insofar as it bridges the gap between the analytical and the continental traditions in social philosophy. The volume provides readers with a deep understanding into such questions as: What does it mean to share experiences with others? What does it mean to share emotions with friends or to share intentions with partners in a joint endeavor? What are groups? What are institutional facts like money, universities, and cocktail parties? What are values and what role do values play in social reality?

The Confessing Church was one of the rare German organizations that opposed Nazism from the very beginning, and in For the Soul of the People, Victoria Barnett delves into the story of the Church's resistance to Hitler. For this remarkable story, Barnett interviewed more than sixty Germans who were active in the Confessing Church, asking them to reflect on their personal experiences under Hitler and how they see themselves, morally and politically, today. She provides a haunting glimpse of the German experience under Hitler, but also gives a provocative look into what it has meant to be a German in the twentieth century.

Global in scope, accounting has had its share of great thinkers and practitioners, from Luca Pacioloi, the father of accounting, to R. J. Chambers, W. W. Cooper, Yuji Ijiri, Stephen A. Zeff and other figures. This encyclopedia presents more than 400 entries that focus on such subjects as publications in the field, institutional bodies, accounting and economic concepts, accounting issues, authors in accounting, records, leaders in the profession, accounting in various countries, financial court cases, accounting exams and historical researchers.