DOCTORAL RESEARCH
Maureen H. Berry, Editor
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
Two themes have been selected for this review of recent disser-tations: the issue of financial accountability, mainly discussed in the context of the public sector, and the conjoint development of technological, organizational, and labor structures in industrial settings.
Humma’s study of Eric Kohler provides the lead, reminding us of the high priority he accorded the accountability function and the high moral standards it imposes. While we can but speculate as to how he would assess, and respond to, the recent triumph of user needs over stewardship as accounting’s main preoccupation, his written records suggests that he would search for ways to bring these two concepts together in some fair combination.
What can happen to accountability when public management is contracted out to private interests is illustrated in Hoyt’s study of the abuse of public power in New York City during the mid-nineteenth century. The New Yorkers took to the courts, forging the system of legal restraints in the public interest which is the hallmark of accounting in government today. In Lille, on the other hand, the French bourgeoisie took to the streets when faced with taxation inequities, forcing the town council out and looking for their own special interest protection. Still, as Bossenga points out, those were revolutionary times and the merchants and manufacturers ultimately gained their social advantages through public service rather than legal rights.
Taxation problems are taken up for the third time in Smith’s study of experiments in Chinese public entrepreneurship during the Sung dynasty. Faced with an escalating defense budget and a drastic need for cavalry horse, the state hit on the successful notion of trading tea for equine imports. This approach raised prosperity all around and was only abandoned when the enemy blocked the export trade routes. So, the state was forced to return to the traditional approach of making cash purchases financed through taxation, with ruinous effects on the tea growers and taxpayers.
A much more favorable view of public financial administration is provided in Moders’s examination of royal largesse by Henry the First, the youngest son of William the Conqueror, who reigned from 1100 to 1135. Using the oldest extant royal accounts, Moders noted and analyzed the various favors which the king granted as he strengthened and expanded royal justice.
Volk’s study of minerals mining in Chile moves us out of the public sector towards the general issue of industrial development and financing during the period immediately before and after the movement towards independence which began in 1810. Exploitation of natural resources, and its financing, was left to the merchant financiers. They may well have met with more success had they kept to their traditional role of creditor, rather than acquiring equity interests and operating obligations.
The last two dissertations examine labor force structure during the industrial development of the late nineteenth century. Using available payroll records, Berglund traced the shaping of Sweden’s industrial work force, noting the synergy with which structures of labor, management, and corporate organization interact as technol-ogy becomes more sophisticated. Lubar makes this same point in his research into talented personnel and textile technology in Lowell, Massachusetts. From this dissertation, we learn to appreciate the social and cultural contents of technological change.
An Examination of the Role of Eric Louis Kohler in the Development of the Accounting Profession (Georgia State University, 1983; Vol. 44/08, p.2504-A)1 by Nancy Kay Adams Humma. Eric Kohler, as Humma acknowledges, was well recognized as “one of the accounting giants of this century”. This professional respect sprang from a number of reasons: many of which were linked to the character of the man and the social concern which was part of him. Basing her research mainly on Kohler’s writings, the author tells us about what Kohler did and what he thought, linking up her narrative to his varied influences on the evolution of accounting theory and practice.
Eric Kohler’s record of public service extended beyond academe and his efforts on behalf of the American Accounting Association. He also held positions in government, including the controllership of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which involved him in the design of accounting-information systems to meet special needs. His constant concern, in both the public and private sectors, was that the accountability function be recognized by both academics and prac-titioners. Educators and researchers, he urged, should be sensitive to the needs of the profession, breaking paths and leading the way for practice. Accounting principles developed from research studies should be conceptually based and clearly and unamgiguously enunciated. Otherwise, he posited, lack of precision or uniformity of terminology could provide a shield to protect the practitioner from the responsibility which he or she should stand ready to assume.
Awareness of the deep social obligations of accountants should be built into professional training and development. This was the conviction underlying Kohler’s steady campaign for accounting practices which reflected concepts of social responsibility. Kohler’s high principles and forthrightness shine through his writings, with their emphasis on simplicity of language, as well as transparency and comparability in the preparation and presentation of financial information.
Abuse of Power: New York City and the Formation of Municipal Law, 1846-1866 (University of Virginia, 1983; Vol. 44/11, p.3466-A) by Jeffrey Wood Hoyt. In New York City, an important phase in the evolution of governance and municipal law occurred during the two decades separating the 1846 constitutional reforms and the 1866 Metropolitan Health Act. This is because the fundamental changes which took place during this period in city politics, the perceived objectives of city government, and the nature of services provided to the public, shaped new local government legislation which was almost exclusively sparked by actions brought over public improvements.
The one factor which drove all these forces in combination was the city government’s traditional policy of entrusting the management of public services to the private sector. As New York City government became more sophisticated and specialized, and with the growth of special-interest politics, the practice of farming out was not only preserved but intensified. As a result, there was an escalation of public works, with costs greatly exceeding benefits, which the taxpayers were required to pay for. The citizens, however, did not stand idly by. Although they lacked political clout, they could apply for redress to the courts. Consequently, there were widespread demands for legal enforcement of basic restraints on inordinate outlays through some system of procedural surveillance. This approach, however, turned out to be largely ineffective because of the facility with which checks could be circumvented, plus the fact that strict enforcement entailed acute management problems. Despite these obvious flaws, it was, nevertheless, common-place for municipal judges to insist on strict observance of procedures: which brought about an unintended and important effect on municipal law. In short, the city government’s prerogatives were eroded because of the fact that all parties to public improvements disputes; taxpayers, contractors, and city administrators, sought relief in the State courts.
The inability of the courts to find a solution to fairness in the efficiency and economy of local government administration led to an innovative arrangement. This took the form of the Metropolitan Health Board which was established in 1866 as an autonomous and impartial agency to take the place of the procedural curbs on the power of government. Thus, infrastructural change was as much due to irresolute judicial policy as to political considerations.
Corporate Institutions, Revolution, and the State: Lille from Louis XIV to Napoleon. (Volumes I and II). (The University of Michigan, 1983; Vol. 44/10, p.3138-A) by Gail Margaret Bossenga. This thesis traces the causal factors of the revolution which took place in Lille in 1789 when the town council, which was largely composed of nobles and property owners (rentiers), was taken over by merchants and manufacturers. What makes this event of historical research interest is the fact that it does not fit the classical model of a bourgeois revolution because in Lille, political liberalism was, at the same time, joined with economic conservatism. To understand this anomaly, Bossenga argues, one has to look at the relationship which existed between the state and certain privileged groups.
The dissertation contains nine chapters, beginning with a description of the environmental setting. The roots of the problem are exposed in the next chapter which looks into the effects of the council’s policy of exempting certain privileged groups from taxes, although the municipal finances were being squeezed by increases in both royal tax levies and municipal debt.
The author then goes on to develop the thesis that the political liberalism of Lille’s nobility can be attributed to their exclusion from political power which the bourgeoisie, on the other hand, were applying pressure to obtain. In the author’s view, the revolution was brought on by the state’s fiscal pressure upon a structure in which political power was closed. The financial basis was established for a consolidated state when the National Assembly assumed respon-sibility for municipal and corporate obligations.
The fifth chapter shows how the links between office holders in the Bureaux des Finances and the crown were adversely affected by the crown’s fiscal policies. The town council was forced to use protectionist economic measures in order to protect its tax base, while the guilds, which regulated much of economic life, grew more inflexible as the crown’s fiscal policies affected their operations. With the eventual suppression of the guilds, their regulatory activities were replaced by bureaucratic national regulation.
During the Napoleonic era, Lille’s bourgeoisie still pursued economic protectionism but their social advantages were gained through public service rather than the legal title system of the ancien régime. Lille’s example demonstrates that in the highly centralized state which the revolution created, local special interest groups sought to preserve their old privileges through the state’s regulatory powers.
Taxing Heaven’s Storehouse: The Szechwan Tea Monopoly and the Tsinghai Horse Trade, 1074-1224 (University of Pennsylvania, 1983; Vol. 44/12, p.. 3776-A) by Paul J. Smith. Chinese trade and industry experienced enormous expansion following the transition from the T’ang to the Sung dynasty. This period was also marked by the emergence of an active and sophisticated bureaucratic state as well as consolidated and powerful steppe empires. These two factors converged together with state entrepreneurship in Wang An Shih’s new policies of 1068-1085 when the state’s taxing power was drastically expanded to finance increased defense spending. One of these policies, which is the subject of this dissertation, brought taxation for the first time to the Szechwan tea industry in order to fund the importation of critically needed Tibetan war horses for the cavalry.
The first three chapters set the stage by examining the major elements of the drama: the political economy of Szechwan, its tea industry, and the acquisition of the horses. The economic development of Szechwan is surveyed for several centuries, culminating with the eleventh century establishment of a centralized taxation system, which was facilitated by political understandings with elite groups. Smith’s analysis looks at the expansion of tea growing and its consumption beyond the boundaries of the Szechwan area out to the coast and to the north, as well as the rise in importance of the southeast which led to the degeneration of the industry locally.
The three final chapters explore both the operations and effects of the tea and horse trading. The new heights to which tea production was raised not only provided adequately for supplies of horses but also generated profits for the state. Consequently, the state policy of making the Szechwan tea industry a monopoly for the benefits of horse imports through state exports was successful. However, disaster struck in 1127 with the Jurchen conquest of northern China which cut off access to the horse suppliers and wiped out the tea export market. As a result, the entrepreneurship policy had to be abandoned and there was a return to the traditional policy of taxation. This proved ruinous to the taxpayer: nor did it ensure supplies of the vitally needed horses.
Patronage and Justice in the Pipe Roll of 1130 (University of California, Santa Barbara, 1983; Vol. 44/12, p. 3773-A) by Stephanie Lleueen Moders. The only comprehensive account of royal income and expenses to have survived the Anglo-Norman period is the Pipe Roll of 31 Henry I2 and Moder’s examination of it throws light on Henry’s policies with respect to favors and justice.
Henry the First appears to have been a generous monarch, judging from the almost 1,700 gifts, writ payments, tax exemptions, and pardons which are recorded for this year alone. About 20 percent of the income inscribed went for the benefit of some 700 persons, many of them Henry’s closest friends and relatives. Also, favors were granted: about 50 percent of them more or less equally divided between seventy religious houses and 54 nuclear families. The religious patronage was most strongly motivated by tradition, whereas appeasement and rewards, rather than custom, prompted family gifts. Because of their vested interest in maintaining good relationships, it is hardly surprising that families were rarely hostile to their benefactor: at least overtly. The patronage network also gained strength through marriage and property ties.
While the roll does not contain the proceedings of the court of the Exchequer, it does include details of financial verdicts. In an-alyzing the patterns of fines imposed, pardoned, paid, and left owing, Moders concluded that Henry was a more liberal monarch than he is given credit for elsewhere in the literature.
The number of writs which undertenants and tenants-in-chief pur-chased in this particular year discloses a hitherto unrecognized amount of royal mediation in property disputes. In summary, both royal justice and royal patronage was extended widely but with the degree of centralization to be expected when no difference was recognized between the person of the king and his status as the monarch.
Merchants, Miners, Moneylenders: The Habilitación System in the Norte Chico, Chile: 1780-1850 (Columbia University, 1983; Vol. 44/08, p.2552-A) by Steven Saul Volk. The significant growth in minerals production which occurred in Chile over the turn of the nineteenth century provides the setting for Volk’s study of the general issue of development and underdevelopment. In addition, he was interested in how the commodity and credit markets were developed before they were institutionalized by the state.
The first three chapters of the dissertation provide a general review of selected topics related to mining and development, describe the growth of the Norte Chico; the desert area of the far north with its rich deposits of sodium nitrate and copper, and a look at industry structure. The following three chapters describe how industrial growth was financed, being largely based on the habilitación system. The habilitador, or enabler, played a key financing role at the beginning of the nineteenth century because no support from the state was made available and without credit producers could not start up operations. Consequently, it was through private initiative that Chile was linked to the world demand for minerals. Credit extension became widespread and an informal network was created by the various creditors. In time, creditors began to adopt the role of mine owner and, by 1850, Chile’s most productive mines were controlled by the merchant financiers.
This shift to equity ownership does not automatically signal profit-ability in mining ventures. Although mining was a growth industry, it operated under archaic conditions and the habilitador owner was caught between the conflicting demands of mining operations in the north and the large mercantile activities in Valparaiso in the center.
To provide additional understanding and perspective, the final chapter examines the general picture of Chile’s underdevelopment. Volk feels that the one most important causal factor was the class structure of production. This system was kept in place by the dependent status of Chile’s relationships with more developed economies.
Industriarbetarklassens formering. Arbete och teknisk forandring vid tre svenska fabriker under 1800-talet (The Formation of the Industrial Working Class. Late 19th Century Labour and Technical Change at Three Swedish Factories) (Goteborgs Universitet, 1982; Vol. 45/01, p.31-C) by B. A. Berglund. This study was undertaken to track the development and structuring of the Swedish industrial work force during the nineteenth century. Using extant payroll records as the main data base, Berglund examined the labor history of about 4,000 employees from three companies: each in a different branch of industry. Because of the heterogeneity of production organization in these different enterprises, richer profiles of the separate labor groups, from the standpoint of structure and composition, were achieved than, say, limiting the sample to a particular industry.
Berglund’s basic assumption was that objective change in working conditions through production reorganization was the primary determinant in the forming of the industrial working class. The main research objective was to learn whether the process of industrialization in manufacturing industries also brings about innovation in the make up of the work force. So, the dissertation starts with a study of technical development at each of the three work sites in order to identify the factors motivating their mechanization, before going on to look at the process of work reorganization.
The introduction of mechanization into a plant has its initial dis-advantages. First of all, skilled labor is immediately required to handle the equipment as well as repair it if need be. This latter ability is critically important because breakdowns during the shakedown period are a particular cause of bottlenecks in production. The early pool of skilled workers constitutes the labor force’s aristocratic base. Given experience in the use of machinery, the aristocrats can become trainers and a semi-skilled labor force starts to take shape. From the sample, it was found that the three sets of workers at the different plants increased in homogeneity as the semi-skilled base grew. The perceived benefits for the owners from this structural change were increased independence from the craftsmen together with increased control over work and production. This, in turn, affected enterprise management structures which gradually became hierarchically organized.
In the final chapter, Berglund takes a more global view of the qualitative changes which took place at the work sites in the second half of the last century. Factors contributing to these changes include the use of female and child labor, the number of working hours, and work intensity and discipline. These same elements also help to explain the development of the trade union movement.
Corporate and Urban Contexts of Textile Technology in Nineteenth-century Lowell, Massachusetts: A Study of the Social Nature of Technological Knowledge (The University of Chicago, 1983; Vol. 44/11, p. 3467-A) by Steven David Lubar. The New England textile industry provided the initial setting for corporate control of technology in the United States, and innovative technological and corporate approaches first found expression in the city of Lowell which was founded to take advantage of them.
Lubar’s dissertation is divided into two parts, the first studying the large Lowell mills and the second expanding the scope to the city in general. The balance of power between the owners and managers is analyzed by looking into the backgrounds of these two groups, the nature of their activities, and how the mills were managed. The nature and role of the overseer is then assessed because it is at this management level that labor is linked with mill technology. The third chapter is devoted to mill accounting. Lubar found that accounting practices directly influenced mill decisions and this linkage spilled over into the plant technology.
Part II starts with a review of Lowell’s pool of innovative talent. Some 130 inventors of textile machinery were available in the city and chapter four concerns itself with how they were trained and employed and how their 266 patents were used. Innovation is dealt with as a separate topic in chapter 5 which focuses on the city and its location, why it was founded, and why so many small textile machinery companies were successful there. The research is synthesized in the concluding chapter which examines the nature of technology itself. Typically, modern technology is a product of corporate control and urban conditions. Through examining its social and cultural contents by drawing on Lowell’s experience, Lubar has learned to appreciate technology as “a type of social knowledge” fixed in its environmental setting.
