Abstract
The February/May double issue, apart from already featuring seven articles on the theme ‘Histories of accounting education’, also contains three further articles on other topics in accounting history. Such non-thematic contributions would normally appear in a dedicated regular issue of the journal. The first article of these three is an analysis of all articles published in the New Series of the journal during its first two decades, while the latter two are industry studies, respectively, set in a brewery in the United Kingdom and in colonial railways in Australia.
Lusiani, Pareschi and Ferri explore the content of all articles published in Accounting History during the first 20 years of its publication (1996–2015) as an international, refereed journal. The study’s objectives were achieved using a ‘topic modeling’ approach to investigate the main themes of accounting history and to advance our knowledge of the dynamics of those themes. The findings reinforce and refine prior categorisation research and demonstrate that ‘topic modeling’ is a valuable and useful technique if researchers need to make sense of a large volume of literature. One of the most notable findings is that the topic ‘Technical core of accounting’ decreased in importance over time in favour of more varied and disjointed objects of research.
Internal accounting at the British brewery, Whitbread & Company, at the turn of the twentieth century (1890–1925) is the focus of the article by Quinn and Kristandl. Using archival records and the Burns and Scapens theoretical framework, they explore accounting practices and their institutionalisation and present a general overview of the internal workings of accounting in a brewery. Quinn and Kristandl conclude that the set of accounting practices employed at the brewery remained fairly stable over the 35-year time frame of the study. This suggests that internal accounting practices were highly institutionalised and somewhat resistant to external environmental forces.
Stevenson-Clarke and Bowden compare the usage of railway accounts in Victoria and Queensland in the latter decades of the nineteenth century between 1880 and 1900, because, as they argue, the way Australian railway accounts were used has continued to be, to some extent, a mystery. The study draws on annual reports, minutes and parliamentary debate to conclude that accountants in the Victorian and Queensland railways constantly found themselves consigned to a subsidiary role. The strategic decisions were made by politicians and the engineers dominated internal management and railway operations. Furthermore, it is pointed out that railway accountants were not active in any professional accounting society.
It is sad to record in this issue the passing of Josephine Maltby on 21 November 2017 in Sheffield in the United Kingdom. Josephine became a member of the Editorial Board of Accounting History on 1 January 2005 and continued in the role as a dedicated member of the Board until the date of her passing. Josephine will indeed be missed.