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Accounting For Steam: The Accounts Of The Soho Factory, R. Williams
Accounting For Steam: The Accounts Of The Soho Factory, R. Williams
Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers
The accounting records of the Soho Foundry, an organisation set up in the late eighteenth century display a close similarity to modem accounting processes. This paper discusses the organisation of the foundry and its ledger, as a reflection of that organisation, during the early years of operation. The Soho Foundry was unique in as much as it was the first factory built to solely manufacture steam engines and as may be expected the organisation of the foundry reflected the innovation of the design of its product. The accounting system employed also reflected a high degree of sophistication.
A Negotiation Approach To Financial Decisions Involving Accounting Information Use, M. Mccrae
A Negotiation Approach To Financial Decisions Involving Accounting Information Use, M. Mccrae
Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers
The issue of how parties with diverse preferences make decisions under information asymmetry has been at the core of contemporary accounting research (Murnighan and Bazerman 1990). But surprisingly little research addresses the actual process by which such decisions are made. The process of choice negotiation for alternative accounting methods in both financial and management accounting has been explored in several areas of accounting information application such as transfer pricing (see Grabski 1985 for a review), management negotiation (Kolb 1983, Kolb and Sheppard 1983, collective bargaining (Cascio 1982, Foley and Maunders 1979, Amernic 1985, Elias 1990, Liberty and Zimmerman 1986).
Accountancy As An Autopoietic System: An Explanation Of Recurring Regulatory Failure, K. Cooper
Accountancy As An Autopoietic System: An Explanation Of Recurring Regulatory Failure, K. Cooper
Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers
A recurring feature of the Australian corporate scene has been a cycle of booms and collapses. This, in turn, has been accompanied by a recurring cycle of regulatory failure, regulatory reform. In the wake of regulatory failure, it has not been uncommon for criticism to be directed towards accounting and the accountancy profession for the unexpectedness of some corporate failures. This criticism, in general, arises because the audited financial statements of the companies concerned have indicated the companies were profitable and well-managed. Subsequent investigation invariably has shown that the companies were, in fact, incurring losses and often faced severe liquidity …
Some Professionalisation Strategies Of Australian Accountancy, K. Cooper
Some Professionalisation Strategies Of Australian Accountancy, K. Cooper
Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers
It is one thing for an occupational group to designate itself a profession but quite another to attain public recognition of this status. Accomplishing publicly recognised professional status was a prime task of Australian accountancy during the course of this century. This task was, perhaps, more difficult for Australian accountancy than, for example, their United Kingdom counterparts. One factor contributing to the difficulty of the task was that many of the unexpected corporate failures in the wake of the Victorian land boom of the late eighteenth century cast many members of the early Australian accountancy associations in the role of …
The Engendering Of A Chimera: Sources Of Independence For Australian Commonwealth State Audit, W. N. Funnell
The Engendering Of A Chimera: Sources Of Independence For Australian Commonwealth State Audit, W. N. Funnell
Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers
Through a well managed discourse of independence successive Commonwealth Governments have been able to have very extensive Executive intrusions in state audit accepted as benign and untainted by political interests, thereby maintaining an illusion of an unfettered, autonomous state audit function. This discourse of state audit independence has been successful in embedding an interpretation of independence at odds with the operational reality. A conditional form of independence has been promoted as substantive independence and has thereby created multiple and often conflicting beliefs about what is and what ought to be the nature of independence in state audit. The discourse has …
Preserving History In Accounting: Seeking Common Ground Between ‘New’ And ‘Old’ History, W. N. Funnell
Preserving History In Accounting: Seeking Common Ground Between ‘New’ And ‘Old’ History, W. N. Funnell
Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers
Traditional conceptions of accounting history and its achievements are being challenged by new accounting historians who are informed by radical philosophies and approaches to history. This is a belated reflection of movements within the wider discipline of history which can be traced to the Annalists in the 1930's and more recently to the influence of postmodernism. At issue between the traditional and new history are the importance of facts and the pursuit of truth by traditional historians. New accounting historians have decried the reactionary effects of traditional history, which they propose to overcome by substituting accounting as an interested discourse …
A Processual Analysis Of The Responses Of The Australian Commonwealth Audit Office To The Dilemmas Of Efficiency Auditing 1978-84, W. N. Funnell
A Processual Analysis Of The Responses Of The Australian Commonwealth Audit Office To The Dilemmas Of Efficiency Auditing 1978-84, W. N. Funnell
Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers
There had been little essential change in Australia's form of governance and accompanying conventions of accountability by the 1970's from the form inherited from 19th century Britain. As a consequence, Australian Commonwealth state audit experienced few major difficulties and was largely immune from challenge. This changed when the attention of state audit turned to the management performance of public service administrators. State audit came to experience a level of stress and threat never previously encountered. Using insights from processual analysis as developed by Turner, to demonstrate the pressures on state audit, the paper focuses on the principal events constituting the …
Management Accounting Practice And Price Calculation: Soho Foundry, R. Williams
Management Accounting Practice And Price Calculation: Soho Foundry, R. Williams
Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers
When deciding upon the price to charge for one of their products the managers of the Soho Foundry in Birmingham placed great reliance upon the data stored in their accounting system. By the last decade of the eighteenth century the nature of the steam engine business was changing rapidly and reputation alone was insufficient to attract customers. Also as more industrialists decided upon steam as a source of power and competition to supply their needs more attention had to be paid to price structures. As well, increasing standardisation of product meant that a price list could be determined. This paper …
The Cost Of Power: Costing Procedures At The Soho Foundry, R. Williams
The Cost Of Power: Costing Procedures At The Soho Foundry, R. Williams
Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers
The Soho Foundry, managed by James Watt jnr was an innovative manufacturer of steam engines, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This paper discusses the establishment of the foundry and the costs accumulated and recorded to assist in the management of the organisation. The costing records were very comprehensive and served to set prices as well as to determine profit on each order.