This paper explores the issue of accounting and accountability in the spirituality and practices of an ecumenical Christian group -the Iona Community. Fundamental to the existence and operation of the Iona Community is their Rule, which requires all full-members to account to each other for their use of money and time. This paper explores the development of that Rule and how it is actualised. It examines the accounting practices of individuals in the Community and the distinction between individualising and socialising accountabilities. Findings reported challenge the assumption that accounting has no role in a religious or sacred setting. The study also serves to illustrate that the distinction between individualising and socialising accountability is not clear. In the Iona Community structures of individualising accountability were subject to resistance. Structures of socialising accountability, while perceived as positive and empowering, had the potential to function as forms of internalised surveillance and domination.

Purpose-The paper seeks to review the accounting history content of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ) over the last 20 years and to identify distinctive research themes therein. Observations and suggestions are offered in relation to future accounting history research. Design/methodology/approach-The study comprises an analysis of the content of AAAJ and related literature. Findings-Histories appearing in AAAJ have focussed on technical issues, accounting in business organisations, cost and management accounting, accounting historiography, professionalisation, and socio-cultural studies of accounting. The journal has been an important medium for the pursuit of interdisciplinarity, the promotion and practical application of new research methods, methodological pluralism, and searches for convergence in historical debates. Research limitations/implications-The paper discusses the potential for advancing established research agendas in accounting history and identifies some new subjects for investigation by accounting historians. Originality/value-It is suggested that while methodological innovation and plurality are to be applauded the sustained application of new approaches should also receive greater encouragement. Searches for rapprochement in accounting history debate run the risk of stultifying historical controversy. It is argued that histories of management accounting, gender, class, professionalisation are far from 'complete' and should be reignited through the adoption of broader theoretical, temporal and spatial parameters. An emphasis on the performative aspects of accounting in socio-cultural histories is encouraged as is clearer recognition of significance of contemporary understandings of the boundaries of accounting. Also emphasised is the desirability of more indigenously sensitised histories of the profession, greater engagement with the 'literary turn', and a renewed commitment to interdisciplinarity.

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In order to facilitate the development of new research agendas, pioneering authors in AOS embarked on difficult journeys in search of the interconnections between accounting and the social. Contributions such as Burchell et al (1980) located a number of roles of accounting in society and inspired agenda-shifting historical investigations. However, as Hopwood (1985) recognised, the participation of historians in this project requires reinvestments in theoretical and epistemological thinking. This paper encourages renewed explorations of the concepts that might guide accounting history research seeking to probe the social. Such investments are especially pressing given that notions of 'society' and the 'social' have shifted since the early years of AOS. The study charts the problems of connecting accounting and the social, indicates how social historians have addressed similar issues, and reveals the scope for drawing on other notions of the 'social' that have the potential to extend historical understandings of the roles of accounting in society. The latter is illustrated through a discussion of the interactions between accounting and social control.