Hans Johnson, Editor
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO
The Effect of Scientific Management on the Development of the Standard Cost System (U. of Oregon, 1973, 206 pp.; 34/12, p. 7385-A)1 by Marc Epstein. In search of “all relevant facts,” Epstein reviewed primary source materials on file at the F. W. Taylor Collection of the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, as well as conducting an exhaustive library search. His study concludes that “the scientific management movement had an important and direct effect on the development of the standard cost system” and “this effect was due to the requirements of scientific management in its application in industry.” The bibliography of this dissertation has been published by The Academy as Working Paper No. 9 and an annotated version appears in the December, 1974 issue of Abacus.
The Origination and Evolution of Double Entry Bookkeeping To 1440 (North Texas State U., 1974, 968 pp.; 35/7, p. 3941-A) by Alvaro Martinelli establishes the development of double entry bookkeeping as occurring during the latter thirteenth century. The first part of the dissertation is a refutation of the Sombart thesis followed by a study of how bookkeeping evolved over a period of three centuries. Direct examination of documentary evidence located in the State Archives of Genoa, Florence, Milan, and Venice serves as the basis to study and criticize “economic, political and religious conditions that most likely had a considerable influence on the creation and evolution of bookkeeping techniques and methods.”
The Archive of Laches: Prosperous Farmers of the Fayum in the Second Century (Duke U., 1974, 219 pp.; 35/8, 5270-A) by Whitney S. Bagnall utilizes as a source of study, a group of papyri discovered in a 1934 excavation, and published in P.MiI. Vogliano., to “discuss certain social and economic facets” of a Greek family living in Egypt under Roman rule. Chapters II and Ill will be of interest to researchers of ancient times. Chapter Ill, for example, discusses the
1Volume/Number and page in Dissertation Abstracts International.
agricultural products and farming practices based on an examination of “several accounts and overseer’s daybooks” which “show the number of day laborers hired and the different wages paid according to individual work assignments.”
A Comparative Study of Selected Areas of the Accounting Thought of William Andrew Paton and Prevailing Accounting Thought: 1915 to 1970 (The George Washington University, 1974, 435 pp.; 3519, 5583-A) by James G. Fox relies on the “comparative method of quantitative analysis” to analyze Paton’s literary contributions. Fox concludes that a “Patonian School of Accounting Thought” does exist and it has a continuing influence in the area of current value accounting. One may wish to study this dissertation in combination with William A. Paton: Pioneer Accounting Theorist (U. of Mississippi, 1972, 300 pp.; 33/11, p. 5886-A) by Howard J. Lawrence.
(Vol. 3, No. 1, p. 11, 1976)
Lukens, 1850-1870: A Case Study in the Mid-Nineteenth Century American Iron Industry (U. of Delaware, 1975, 222 pp.; 3615, p. 3051-A) by Julian C. Skaggs is a study “of a small family-owned boiler plate manufacturing firm” located in Pennsylvania. By analyzing the “financial books and correspondence” of the firm, the author is able to trace the firm’s activities over a twenty-year period. Lukens marketed its product in a geographical area extending from Boston to New Orleans and during the Civil War, when its Quaker management abandoned a pacifistic stance, the firm’s output doubled and profits sextupled. Technological problems were to beset the firm in the latter years as it continued to use “antique methods” despite creation of the more modern metallurgical techniques which were adopted by its competitors. According to Skaggs, Lukens’ “history demonstrates the frailty of any reconstruction of American Business History that stresses bigness, innovations and profit maximization for any period before the 1870’s.’’
Those accounting historians interested in case studies of business firms will also want to review Gail K. Renner’s The Hudson Years: A History of an American Automobile Manufacturer (U. of Missouri, 1973, 867 pp.; 35/2, p. 987-A). “This work traces how the company rose from very humble origins in 1909 to become in effect the fourth largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world and then under-went a long decline, starting with the Great Depression, that finally resulted in its extinction as an individual company.” Renner’s thesis is that “Hudson eventually failed, not so much due to bad entrepre-neurial decisions, as because of the industry’s long-range dynamics that increasingly favored the large, full-line manufacturers” who could “better withstand the terrific competitive pressures arising from the increased cost of labor, materials, sales, and new model development.”
Historical Development of Human Resources as a Value in Financial Accounting (Mississippi State U., 1974, 177 pp.; 35/8, p. 4756-A) by Joseph E. Krebs tests the hypothesis “that the concept of human resource valuation, contrary to some opinions, has developed over a long period of time and that this historical evolution indicates precisely the direction in which the accounting theory should be developed.” The evolution of human resource concepts is studied from two perspectives: “an economic profile” which reveals that “significant contributions” have been made “intermittently over a period exceeding several centuries,” and, secondly, a discussion of the topic relative to the development of financial accounting theory. Krebs concludes that his hypothesis is valid.
An Economic Survey of the Early Byzantine Church (Rutgers U., 1975, 371 pp.; 36/5, p. 3029-A) by William N. Zeisel, Jr., uses “various ancient sources and modern studies” to analyze “the financial condition and administration of Christian churches in general during the period from St. Matthew to the Edict of Milan, and of the churches and monasteries of the Eastern Roman Empire in particular during the next three centuries.” The first five chapters discuss organizational administration, sources, investment and disposition of wealth and the “ultimate, ostensible ends for wealth accumulation and administration.” Zeisel states that “monks, like clerics, became wealthy, deeply tinged by secular social values, ultimately conventional.” He concludes, “for both diocesan and monastic churches, therefore, wealth accumulation and administration were parts of the process of change which led from personal to institutionalized Christianity.”
(Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 5, 1976)
The Professionalization of Public Accounting in America: A Com-parative Anlysis of the Contributions of Selected Practitioners 1900-1925 (U. of Alabama, 1975, 434 pp.; 36/12, p. 8134-A) by Barbara D. Merino. This dissertation utilizes the concept of the paradigm (dominant explanation) to examine the progressive writings of W. Sanders Davies, Edward L. Suffern, J. Porter Joplin, John A. Cooper, Elijah W. Sells, Joseph E. Sterrett, and Robert H. Montgomery to “determine if the subjects shared common beliefs by which they could be identified as a specific school of accounting thought.” Initially the “environmental constraints” existing at that time are reviewed followed by personal profiles and an assessment of the practitioners’ contribution “to the professionalism of accountancy.” The remaining chapters provide a “comparative analysis of the ideas of each man in respect to education and training, professional ethics, and auditing theory and practice.” According to Merino, the major contribution of this study is that her “analysis of the ideas extant in this period among leading practitioners will permit a more comprehensive investigation of subsequent events.”
The Cuneiform Tablets in St. Louis (Columbia U., 1975, 227 pp.; 36/6, p. 3823-A) by Robert D. Freedman catalogues the contents of 262 documents from ancient Babylonia. The tablets are located “in public and private collections in St. Louis, Missouri. Of possible interest to accounting historians are “ten texts dealing with laborers, and twenty-four miscellaneous receipts and expenditures.” Eight other documents “refer to land sales, rentals, and inheritances.”
Those historians hungry for information about their European an-cestors may want to review Feasting in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: A Comparison of Manuscript Illuminations to Contemporary Written Sources (Saint Louis U., 1975, 275 pp.; 36/7, p. 4665-A) by Patricia D. Labahn. Labahn uses evidence obtained from fourteenth and fifteenth century wills, domestic accounts and inventory listings to test the accuracy of “visual portrayals” pertaining to the “preparation, service, and consumption of meals in the households of the upper classes.” The placement and use of dining furniture and decorations in the great hall, the scene of meals, affirmed the “status and affluence of a medieval lord.”
Boards of Directors’ Audit Committees: An Exploratory Study (Harvard U., 1975, 337 pp.; 36/10, p. 6793-A) by Michael L. Lovdal. Although first conceived during the 1930’s, the audit committee has only recently become a common control feature of the large corporation. The basic objective of Lovdal’s study “is to gain an understanding of how audit committees work in hope of suggesting how their functioning might be improved.” A clinical methodology was used to conduct in-depth interviews and review “key documents” of thirteen audit committees. Findings and recommendations are arranged according to committee procedures, participants, and “the roles that these committees play as a corporate institution.”
(Vol. 3, No. 3, p. 3, 1976)
A Study of the Evolution of the Legal Liability of Accountants with Implications for the Future of the Profession (Tulane U., 1976, 209 pp.; 37/3, p. 1648-A) by Hubert Hooper relies on “inductive reasoning” and “historical and analytical approaches to review past court cases, pronouncements of the accounting profession, SEC rulings, and the professional literature.
According to Hooper, “this research shows that accountants’ legal liability has increased dramatically in intensity and size as well as scope.” His conclusions relate to the “factors, events, and attitudes responsible for these changes.”
Introduction to the Uyghur Civil Documents of East Turkestan 3th-14th cc.) (1 (Indiana U., 1975, 503 pp.; 36/8, p. 5461-A) by Larry Clark examines various manuscripts “exhumed or otherwise obtained from ruined sites around the present oases of Turfan and Kucha in Northwest China.” The manuscripts “constitute a primary source of information on all aspects of the social, economic, and daily life of East Turkestan during the period of Mongol rule.”
In Chapter 3, “the chronology of the documents is resolved” by “historical identification, linguistic features, and the inter-relationships that exist between persons mentioned in the texts.” A total of 141 documents are examined. Accounting historians may be interested in 93 contracts dealing with such things as loans, land rental, sales of land and slaves, and inheritances. Also 14 “personal and official registers” may be of interest since they “record the outlay and receipt of goods and taxes.”
Chapter 5 presents a “detailed analysis of the features of validation, which consist of a date, a statement of attesting witnesses, an identification of seals and personal signs of parties to the deed, and the certification of a scribe.” The final chapter provides a “complete physical and bibliographical description, along with a summary of contents, of each of the 141 documents.”
The Image of the American Businessman in the Popular Press, 1928-1947 (Ball State U., 1975, 440 pp., 37/2, p. 1175-A) by Kenneth Meeks tests the conventional notion of historians that businessmen were heroes prior to 1929, became the “devils” during the thirties, and then, “as recovery began and foreign war materials orders were filled, the image rose but never reached the level of the pre-Crash period.”
Although businessmen “are an integral part of American soci-ety . . . historical writing has tended to favor political and military exploits.” Meek suggests that the “businessman’s ability to influence societal decisions and his role as a major functioning and determining element within society require in-depth study.” The dis-sertation does not broach this subject.
Businessmen are classified into nine different categories. The “popular press” is defined as those “periodicals with a circulation greater than 0.1 percent” of the U.S. populaton during that period. Statistical analysis of the data selected indicates “that the popular press did not reflect the variations in image suggested by historians.’’
(Vol. 3, No. 4, p. 6, 1976)
