Reviewed by Maureen Berry University of Illinois
The development of accounting thought around the world during the past century undoubtedly owes more to the endeav-ors of certain key players than, say, environmental reaction, in the transformation processes. Further, creative sparks originate with certain individuals who may or may not, working alone or collectively, build up schools of thought to develop particular paths of progress. Such rationales underlie this collection of nineteen essays which describe the achievements of leading in-dividuals who have helped, in fundamental ways, to shape the direction of accounting theory and practice in the recent past. Certain scope limitations are inevitable when putting together an anthology which attempts to grasp the essence of its subject, as the editor points out in the introduction [p. xiii]. Thus, some criticisms of editorial choices are to be expected. In this case, however, a high level of satisfaction has already been expressed in the accolades of the Academy of Accounting Historians when honoring it with the 1994 Hourglass Award.
The essays cover seventeen individuals separately, and two grouped contributions: one dealing with a number of leading French theorists and the other with three at the London School of Economics. Presentation is in alphabetical order by, and within, country: Australia (Chambers); Canada (Mattessich); Finland (Saario); France (eleven plus others); Germany (Schmalenbach and Schmidt); Italy (Zappa); Japan (Iwata, Kurosawa, and Kimura); the Netherlands (Limperg); the United Kingdom (Dicksee; de Paula; the LSE triad of Baxter, Solomons, and Edey; and Stamp); and the United States (Hatfield, Paton, Blough, and MacNeal). Tn summary, ten Anglo-American contributions, six European, and three Japanese.
The authors are, generally, compatriots with some special knowledge of their subjects. All followed a broad outline to provide a portrait of the person, dealing with family, back-ground, and education; career details; professional links; the subject’s ideas and theories; an assessment of their impact on accounting theory and practice; major influences on the ‘thinker,’ for example, from other writers; and their leading publications [p. xiv].
This approach worked well and, God being in the details, the chroniclers are to be commended for some interesting insights. For this reviewer at least, though, there were too few specifics about the pulses that drove the energies. While Chambers, Limperg, and Stamp, for example, come through as greatly en-ergetic, forceful personalities with the courage of their convic-tions, it is Yamagata who offers the most rounded, personal comments. Professor Wasaburo Kimura, we learn, was a warm person with a sharp mind [p. 204]. With his witty and informa-tive lecturing style and popular personality, he attracted over-flow crowds of students to his lectures, but he was a tough grader. He liked to play tennis, enjoyed music and Rakugo (a story ending in a joke), delighted in trying varieties of gourmet food, and drank beer. His character was sorely tested when he went blind at the age of 50 but he was sustained, as a devout Buddhist, by his faith and his wife’s assistance as he continued to research and teach for a further 13 years until retirement.
Turning to technical aspects, those of us without linguistic access to the Japanese literature may be surprised at Japanese understanding of western philosophies in original or translated versions. In the latter Taisho period (1912-26) Chiba informs [p. 184], us that German sociology dominated sociology and social thinking in Japanese imperial universities. Against the backdrop of the speed and direction with which Japan’s modernization was influenced by the global strategies of western nations, and the conflicts this engendered with Japanese traditions, Kurosawa established a sociological method of accounting drawing heavily on the work of German and French sociologists. It is evident that Iwata was stimulated by Schmalenbach, as well as the cameralists, in his development of a dual structured income determination system. He was also familiar with the writings of other German theorists, including Walb, Schmidt, and Mahlberg, and he must have been reading in the original judging from his use of German terminology. Kimura, who wrote his diary in English and German, stressed historical analysis and the importance of the prevailing social and economic background in accounting theory development. He, however, was more interested, in and critical of, some U.S. ideas, notably those of Paton and Littleton.
The survey of French accounting theorists of the period by Colasse and Durand [pp. 41-59] serve to remind us of the rela-tively late emergence of accounting in France as a legitimate academic and professional calling and the struggles it has un-dergone to attain intellectual status. Much of this delay, it would seem, may be attributed to subordination of the accounting function to the needs of economic planning, through the national charts of account, rather than serving investors as elsewhere. A French academic association was not formed until 1980 and there is still no French academic, as opposed to professional, journal. However, the French presence is now much more evident at professional, international conferences, and one may assume that French accounting is on the move forward, as evidenced by its growing influence in the transitional economies.
Remaining studies of the German, Dutch, and most of the U.K. and U.S. thinkers deal with approaches to income determi-nation. With so much argument raised against historical cost accounting, in so many places, by so many rational minds, with such persuasion, one wonders that the traditional still prevails. The adamancy of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in this regard is well brought out in the Blough study which is also particularly useful in tracing the working relationship between the SEC and the public accounting profession.
This international survey of accounting theorists was brought out as part of the Pacioli celebrations, sponsored by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. One of its main benefits is to illustrate the advantages to both aca-demics and practitioners of understanding the processes of theory building and application in particular environments and the extent to which accounting thoughts may be transferred and take root. It lends itself very well to use in the classroom as a supplementary text in several accounting classes, such as intermediate accounting, accounting theory, and, in particular, international accounting. Assigning a particular chapter as required reading before studying accounting in a certain country, such as, for example, Limperg and accounting in the Netherlands, provides the understanding necessary for students to grasp why accounting functions in that country as it does. It is also, one must add, well worth reading whatever its utilitarian function.
