Reviewed by Lamont F. Steedle Towson State University

The second volume of Relevance Rediscovered, an ongoing anthology published by the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), was eagerly anticipated. An earlier review of the initial volume termed it a success in meeting its stated goal of providing exposure to great ideas of the past as a means of solving today’s management accounting problems. [Steedle, p. 98]. After finishing Volume II, perhaps with heightened expectations resulting from satisfaction with the initial volume, this reader was a bit disappointed.

Relevance Rediscovered is published by the IMA (formerly the National Association of Accountants) to commemorate the organization’s 75th anniversary in 1994. In its early years the group, then known as the National Association of Cost Accountants (NACA), published both a semimonthly bulletin of journal articles and a yearbook of papers and presentations from the annual conference. Each volume in the anthology comprises a decade’s worth of these works; 25 are chosen to represent a sampling of the period. Therefore, the organization and content of Volume II is virtually identical to the first volume, except that these articles were written from 1929 to 1939.

The most noteworthy aspect of the volumes continues to be the introductory comments written by the series editor, Richard Vangermeersch. He provides an introduction to both topic and author and piques the reader’s interest with some attentiongetting questions. Vangermeersch also again includes in the introduction his ten reasons why the past literature should be studied, with updated examples relevant to the works included in Volume II. Reading the introduction and reviewing its pertinent parts prior to reading each of the individual articles is highly recommended.

It is in measuring the collective contribution of the 25 individual works that Volume II falls a bit short. While six of the 25 articles in Volume I met this reviewer’s subjective criterion of having practical applicability to current management accounting problems, only three such articles were found in Volume II: (30) “InterDepartmental and InterBranch Transfers of Products — At Cost or Market Price?” by B. A. Brady, V. W. Collins and J. B. Heckert, which includes three related presentations (with audience comments) on existing transfer pricing practices; (35) “A Cost Accountant Reduces Cost and Improves Quality in a Hosiery Mill” by Dwight M. Allgood, a detailed case study of a cost and quality control program; and, (47) “Practice in Applying Overhead and Calculating Normal Capacity” by the NACA Research and Technical Service Department, a survey of existing practices in the application of overhead.

Readers should not, however, pass up Volume II. The anthology continues to be a useful resource in providing a perspective of the times and the existing thoughts and concerns of leading accounting theorists and management accounting practitioners. In fact, one speculates that perhaps the economic climate and government regulatory activity of the 19291939 period influenced what was studied and published, thus making the overall contribution of the collected works a little less relevant to the problems of today than the writings of the preceding volume. Perhaps the major contribution of the complete series will be derived from comparing the individual volumes (and tenyear periods) to one another rather than from comparing the individual works to the problems of today.

REFERENCE

Steedle, Lamont F., Review of Relevance Rediscovered, The Accounting Historians Journal (June 1991): 9899.