The purpose of this study is to examine three electric utilities, two publicly owned and one privately owned. The basis of this examination is legitimacy theory employing a small sample case‐type approach. In particular we are interested in social and environmental disclosures found in annual reports and how these disclosures differentiate between publicly owned and privately owned enterprises. In our examination we use some traditional efficiency measures but we also employ effectiveness measures relying on the proprietary costs and information costs views in our analysis. Our major findings are that ownership status and size, which are likely to affect legitimacy, influence the amount of social and environmental disclosure. Finally, while environmental disclosures seem to be related to information costs and benefits, this relationship does not seem to hold for social disclosures.

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Using a sample of 160 sole proprietors and controlling for other determinants of performance, we hypothesize and find support for the view that gender is not a significant direct explanation of financial performance differences among small accounting practices. The control variables we employ are practice characteristics, motivations, and individual owner characteristics. Our results indicate that although financial performance appears to be significantly different for females' and males' sole proprietorships, these performance differences are explained by several variables other than gender directly. At the same time we find that gender moderates the effects of other practice and personal characteristics on financial performance. One of the more interesting results is that women with a stronger motivation to establish a public practice to balance work and family experienced more positive financial outcomes, while for men the same motivation reduced financial performance.

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Abstract. One theoretical approach recently emphasized in the accounting literattire is positive accounting theory. Synonymous with this theoretical view are the 1978 and 1979 articles published by Ross Watts and Jerold Zimmerman. These two articles prompted criticism from three different perspectives. There are critiques that refer to technical research methods problems, critiques concerned with philosophy of science issues, and critiques centered on the limitations of economics-based accounting research. In their 1990 article. Watts and Zimmerman responded to most of the published critiques. They specifically claimed that methodological criticisms have failed to have any influence on accounting research. This paper provides a critical examination and assessment of these alleged failures by examining two types of critiques, economics-based critiques and those based on issues of the philosophy of science. The critiques discussed include those to which Watts and Zimmerman responded as well as several other critiques that either Watts and Zimmerman failed to discuss or that were not published until after their 1990 article appeared. Positive accounting theory is shown to be applied economic positivism. Tracing the historical background of positive accounting research through its economic roots shows that the "positive" aspect of the Watts and Zimmerman approach is more rhetoric than methodology. It is argued that positive accounting theory does represent a problem shift toward a domain of research that is appropriate for Chicago School economics. A review of the published critiques of positive accounting theory shows that althougji critiques based on philosophy of science may not be very effective, economicsbased critiques that emphasize the limitations of equilibrium-based economic analysis offer a promising avenue for methodological critiques of positive accounting theory.Resumi. Parmi les publications relatives a la comptabilite, celles qui touchent la « theorie de la comptabilite positive » attiraient recemment l'attcntion. Ross Watts et * We wish to thank Haim Falk, James Gaa, Richard Mattessich, William Scott, Robert Sterling, Daniel Thornton, Tony Tinker, an anonymous referee, and our colleagues George Blazenko, Peter Clarkson, Moustafa Magid, Zelma Rebmann-Huber, and Chris Wright for their helpful criticisms and comments on earlier drafts.Contemporary Accounting Research, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Fall 1992) pp. 142-170 ®CAAA Criticizing Positive Accounting Theory 143Jerold Zimmerman, dans leurs articles publics en 1978 et 1979, adoptaient l'equivalent de ce point de vue th6orique. Ces deux articles ont souleve les critiques, dans trois perspectives differentes. Certaines critiques portent sur le probfeme des methodes techniques de recherche, d'autres ont trait aux questions relatives a la philosophie de la science et d'autres encore sont centr6es stir les limites de la recherche comptable qui s'appuie sur l'economique. Dans leur article de 1990, Watts et Zimmerman refutaient la plupart des critiques qui avaient 6te p...