During the 1960s and 1970s a remarkable series of books was produced by academic staff in the field of accounting at the University of Sydney. It was a period when academic research was largely analytical rather than empirically-based. For the most part, the interests of academics at Sydney were largely directed at questioning the status quo - either in the way accounting or auditing was practiced, or in the conventional wisdom expressed in text books of the time. The Sydney Accounting Classics series reflects the diversity of interests of the 'Sydney school' at that time. It also recognises the tremendous impact of the foundation professor of accounting, R.J. Chambers. This reprint series ensures that the ideas developed during this period remain available to new generations of scholars and researchers. The Sydney Accounting Classics series is an intiative of the Accounting Foundation, in association with Sydney University Press. Securities and Obscurities: In this book Chambers presents examples of financial practices in the UK, US, Canada and Australia and exposes the deficiencies in reported financial information. Chambers intended the work to be controversial. It continued his contention that precise definitions of accounting terms needed to be agreed upon, to ensure that investors, company directors, auditors and accountants were talking about the same things.

This volume is dedicated to the life work of Ray Chambers, who was continually seeking ways to stimulate and advance the development of a demonstrably rigorous and serviceable system of accounting. This search for an ideal led Chambers into myriad environments, an aspect of his life exhaustively illustrated in his "Aide Memoire," which forms part of this memorial volume.

This revised edition of Clarke, Dean and Oliver's provocative book tells why accounting has failed to deliver the truth about a company's state of affairs or to give warning of its drift towards failure. A number of well-known cases of corporate collapse from the 1960s to the 1990s and beyond are studied and the recent HIH and One.Tel collapses are examined. Corporate Collapse is essential reading for professional accountants and auditors, company directors and managers, regulators, corporate lawyers, investors and everyone aspiring to join their ranks.

Raymond John Chambers was born just over a century ago on 16 November 1917. It is more than fifty years since his first classic, Accounting, Evaluation and Economic Behavior, was published, more than forty since Securities and Obscurities: Reform of the Law of Company Accounts (republished in 1980 as Accounting in Disarray) and over twenty since the unique An Accounting Thesaurus: Five Hundred Years of Accounting. They are drawn upon extensively in this biography of Chambers’ intellectual contributions, as are other of his published works. Importantly, we also analyze archival correspondence not previously examined. While Chambers provided several bibliographical summaries of his work, without the benefits of reviewing and interspersing the text with correspondence materials from the Chambers Archive this study would lack an appreciation of the impact of his early childhood, and nuances related to his practical (including numerous consultancies) and academic experiences. The ‘semi-biographical narrative’ codifies article and editorial length exercises by the authors drawing on parts of the archive related to theory development, measurement and communication. Other parts are also examined. This allows us to respond to those critics who claim his reforms were naive. They further reveal a man of theory and practice, whose theoretical ideas were solidly grounded on observations from his myriad interests and experiences. Many of his practical experiences have not been examined previously. This approach and the first book-length biography differentiates this work from earlier analyses of Chambers’ contribution to the accounting literature. American Accounting Association’s 2021 Thomas J. Burns Biographical Research Award winner, this book provides evidence to support the continued push for the reforms he proposed to accepted accounting thought and practice to ensure accounting is the serviceable technology so admired by Pacioli, Da Vinci and many other Renaissance pioneers. It will be of interest to researchers, educators, practitioners and regulators alike.

This study traces the development of methodology in philosophy and economics with particular focus on the work of Raymond Chambers. As well as analysing the reception on methodological lines, afforded his work by both academic and professional communities, the volume discusses some significant contributions by French and German scholars to the debate about why scientific communities have accepted some theories and rejected others.

The Corporation is a major vehicle of business activity worldwide. It incurs social costs and generates benefits that continually change - hence, whether it still provides a net benefit to society is contestable. Evidence-based observations of the last decade of corporate sagas and the role of accounting and auditing, suggests a serious rethink is needed about how commerce is pursued and, in particular, whether the current corporate form has passed its use-by-date. The authors of this new book - including internationally renowned accounting scholars - argue that the two major governance tools of accounting and auditing require major makeovers. Beginning by analyzing the global sweep of deregulation that corporations experienced since 2000, the authors go on to discuss the various scandals and crises that characterized the subsequent period, culminating in yet more calls for further deregulation. Having thoroughly assessed the status quo, they provide a series of urgent recommendations for reforms designed to bring the corporation back to the real world and restore its purpose. This book will be of great interest to students and academics across accounting, business, law and finance, especially more advanced students at undergraduate and postgraduate level.