This book explores certain contemporary problems of accounting through the eyes and pens of historians. Many accounting problems are not new ones and it is therefore important to understand their history and development through the ages. This book places twentieth century studies in context and provides clues to possible solutions. The focus of this book is on companies and their financial reports and will be of use to students of economic and business history who wish to provide themselves with an accounting background in relation to the financial reports of companies they may be...

This volume illustrates the research not only of French accountants (Colasse, Durand, Jouanique, Lemarchand, Nikitin, Richard, Tessier) but also the work of Belgian authors writing in French (Stevelinck, Haulotte) and of French non-accountants (de Swarte, Durdilly, Sauvy). The work of British and North American academics, writing in English on French accounting history is also illustrated from the 1930s (Howard, Edwards), through to the 1960s (Parker) and the more recent research of Standish, Fortin and Bhimani. The contributions to this volume have been arranged both chronologically and...

C. Rufus Rorem, (1894-1988) was a pioneer in the development of group medical insurance and pre-paid health care. At the time the concepts were radical, but in 1937 he became head of the American Hospital Association's committee on hospital services, which fostered the first prepaid hospitalization plans in New York and other cities, followed in the 1940's by doctors' group practice.

This collection includes out of print and difficult to access primary and secondary sources on Rorem s work, including his 1929 dissertation which presents his major, and still relevant writings on...

This book contains a collection of papers dealing with a range of controversial issues which exercised the minds of local authority officials from 1884-1908. The 28 items reproduced cover a wide range of matters. They are presented chronologically because many of the papers deal with more than one topic but also because it provides a clearer guide to the development of views on numerous inter-related issues. These issues are still of interest and relevant today: most of the papers deal with the need to improve the level of accountability to local electors something which has been the main...

This anthology comprises a selection of articles which demonstrates the explanatory potential of company records as source material for the accounting historian. They were published in the UK and the USA between 1954 and 1984. The articles reproduced are based on the records of what is the modern business enterprise and they identify and explain the development of external financial reporting procedures.

Discussing various aspects of accounting theory by collecting diverse pieces originally published between 1978 and 1994, this volume asks and answers the following questions:

• What do the figures from a company s report actually mean?
• To what uses can they properly be put?
• Could they be improved?
• What effect have they on the outside world?

Willard J. Graham (1897-1966) was an important contributor to both accounting thought and education and he pioneered life-long education for executive business that is still emulated today. This volume collects 25 of his key writings which shed light on his contributions to management accounting and business education as well as the accounting profession.

The fourteen papers in this volume, both unpublished and originally published between 1981 and 1990 offer a comprehensive selection of G. H. Lawson s work and discuss the following:

• assessing economic performance
• ownership value creation
• pricing of non-competitive government contracts
• valuation of a business
• measurement of corporate performance according to cash flow.

This collection explores Kuhn s 1970 perception of a scientific revolution in the form of a cyclical sequence of anomaly recognition; insecurity, alternative ideas, schools of thought and dominating practices. Cash flow reporting has become a dominant accounting practice which emerged from a developmental process of Kuhnian form. The text is constructed around the various stages identified by Kuhn and selected readings are categorised accordingly.

The emergence of an accountancy profession in Scotland is described in the context of three leading Chartered Accountants, whose careers spanned the second half of the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth century: George Auldjo Jamieson (21828-1900), Alexander Sloan (1843-1927) and Richard Brown (1856-1918). Each biography reveals the man involved in the professionalisation events, and is described within a broader personal context associated with Victorian Scotland.