This book deals with current discussion of the classic works by two prominent authors on accounting, R. Mattessich and Y. Ijiri. Their antecedents, and the way in which each author came to construct his work, make up the central subject of this study.

For more than 70 years, William Paton contributed his considerable energy and knowledge to the development of accounting thought. He was one of the early accounting educators to express the high purpose of accounting and its importance in the university, and he was among the early theorists in accounting to argue that accounting needed a coherent, theoretical structure that would guide the accountant in preparing financial statements. Yet a full account of his life, career, and ideas has not yet appeared.  Kelly L. Williams and Howard J. Lawrence address this gap, painting an intimate and...

Harold Cecil Edey (1913–2007) and his colleagues David Solomons (1912–1995) and William T. Baxter (1907–2006) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) were instrumental in the development of British accounting thought in the mid-1900s. These three influential scholars influenced a generation of students who came to populate the British accounting profession and academia to the point where, in the early 1970s, half of all full-time accounting professors in the United Kingdom were LSE alumni. Edey’s role in these developments, however, remains relatively...

Persistence and Vigilance: A View of Ford Motor Company's Accounting Over Its First Fifty Years is an exploration of the financial leadership that guided the company through periods of phenomenal growth amidst the economic and political upheaval of the early 20th century. Since its inception in 1903, the Ford Motor Company has implemented traditional accounting methods, as well as innovative financial reporting and business policies, to navigate industry competition, two world wars, and labor issues such as the famous $5 day. While much has been written on the presumption of Henry Ford's...

This latest volume of Studies in the Development of Accounting Thought, edited by Martin E. Persson, contains ten manuscripts, seven being previously unpublished, authored by C. Richard Baker during an academic career that spans four decades. Historical Developments in the Accountancy Profession, Financial Reporting, and Accounting Theory is divided into two thematic sections. The first covers developments in accounting thought on financial reporting and the accountancy profession, whereas the second section covers developments related to accounting measurements and theory. The historical...