Abstract
The May issue contains five articles covering a diversity of accounting phenomenon in different geographical and temporal spaces. These range from the eighteenth century until the present day and explore accounting’s past in Brazil, France, Italy, Portugal and Scotland, and issues on the international front.
The first article in this issue by Pinto and West explores accounting records relating to slavery within the context of an eighteenth century Portuguese chartered company – the Companhia Geral do Grão Pará e Maranhão. The narrative begins in Africa with the acquisition of slaves, followed by their crossing of the Atlantic to their sale in Brazil and, in some instances, the retention and recording of these people as financial assets. The authors demonstrate how paradoxically accounting technology enabled this company and its slavery trade to flourish but, at the same time, also recorded the humanity of these slaves and the conditions of their existence, thereby making people visible who were effectively invisible or lost.
Johnson, a long standing accounting historian, reflects in the second article on how current business practices, which predominantly utilise accounting as their language, are hastening the planet’s decline. He argues that modern growth-oriented economies consume resources at a rate faster than the Earth’s ecosystems can presently regenerate, threatening the sustainability of all life. The author elucidates how fundamentally new thinking is required to change business practices in ways that protect the Earth. As a solution, he proposes that the tangible ecological principles that underpin Earth’s life-restorative natural ecosystems provide a more suitable language for materialising a sustainable human economy than the abstract language drawn from accounting and finance. The publication of this article in Accounting History marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Johnson’s first refereed journal article, ‘Cathedral building and the medieval economy’ that appeared in Explorations in Entrepreneurial History (now Explorations in Economic History), Spring 1967. It is also 15 years since the publication of his first article in Accounting History entitled ‘A former management accountant reflects on his journey through the world of cost management’, May 2002.
Ethics and etiquette in the Society of Accountants in Edinburgh from 1853 to 1951 is the focus of the third article by Chandler. Based on the Society’s archives, the author presents a review of the professional ethical questions which challenged the leaders of this Scottish accounting body during the first 100 years of its existence. Using individual cases, a range of issues are explored, including members engaging in criminal activities, problems with delineating the professional space, the advertising of firms and services, and the quality of training provided to apprentice accountants. Some of these ethical issues have lost their importance 150 years later, but others still pose significant challenges to the current day accounting profession.
In the fourth article, Dattin studies the emergence of statutory auditing in France. She argues that independence and competence have been recurring points from the creation of statutory auditing in 1867 and its subsequent development until 1966, and sets out to understand how the debate about the independence and competence of auditors evolved. Using a variety of sources including the archives of two major industrial French companies, she separates the debate into two periods: 1867–1935 and 1936–1966. In the first period, the problem was how to guarantee the independence of auditors in relation to directors and their competence. In the later period, the demand for the reform of statutory auditing was linked to economic growth and the growing disconnection between the management and ownership of limited companies.
Coronella, Antonelli and Lombrano, in the final paper to appear, evaluate the contributions to the accounting history literature made by Italian scholars in the second half of the nineteenth century, some of whose works were diffused internationally. After identifying and analysing 56 books and pamphlets and 95 articles, the authors discovered that the studies mainly consisted of three types. The first type is general histories which investigate the evolution of accounting practice from the Roman Empire until the late nineteenth century. The second type examines Pacioli and the origins of double-entry bookkeeping, while the last type consists of research that specifically focuses on the evolution of accounting practices.
This issue also includes the announcement of the recipient of ‘The Robert W. Gibson Manuscript Award, 2016’, which up to 31 December 2015 was known as the Accounting History Special Interest Group (AHSIG) Manuscript Award. The Robert W. Gibson Manuscript Award, 2016 is sponsored by the School of Business, UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy. We are pleased to extend our gratitude to the award sponsor. It is pleasing to advise that the Newcastle Business School, The University of Newcastle, has kindly agreed to sponsor The Robert W. Gibson Manuscript Award, 2017.
It is also with much sadness that we remember Emeritus Professor Michael Gaffikin who recently passed away. Michael was an Emeritus Professor at the University of Wollongong. He had a long association with the AHSIG of the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand. He was a valued member of the Editorial Board of Accounting History from the inception of the New Series in 1996 until 2007 before becoming a member of the journal’s Editorial Advisory Panel and remaining in this role until his passing. His active and loyal support of accounting history scholars, the journal and of its editor/joint editors throughout this period of over 21 years is acknowledged with deep appreciation.