Accounting and the examination: A genealogy of disciplinary power

Abstract

Historical elaboration of Foucault's concept of 'power-knowledge" can explain both the late-medieval developments in accounting technology and why the near-universal adoption of a discourse of accountancy is delayed until the nineteenth century. It is the disciplinary techniques of elite medieval educational institutions -the new universities and their examinations -that generate new power-knowledge relations. These techniques embody forms of textual rewriting (including the new 'alphanumeric" system) from which the accounting advances are produced and "control" is formalised. "Double-entry" is an aspect of these rewritings, linked also to the new writing and rewritings of money, especially the bill of exchange. By the eighteenth century accounting technologies are feeding back in a general way into educational practice (e.g. in the deployment of "book-keeping" on pupils) and this culminates in the introduction of the written examination and the mathematical mark. A new regime of "objective" evaluation of total populations, made up of individually "calculable" subjects, is thereby engendered and then extended -apparently tirst in the U.S. railroads -into modern comprehensive management and financial accounting systems (systems of "accountability" embodying Foucault's "reciprocal hierarchical observation" and "normalising judgement"), while written examinations become used to legitimate the newly autonomous pro. fession of accountancy.It is inadequate to attempt to explain the signif?-came of accounting in modern society by identifying any clear link between its use and the improvement of "rational economic decision taking" (Burchell et al., 1980). Yamey (e.g. 1964)has refuted "the Sombart thesis" and shown that there is no clear link to be found between the rise of Renaissance capitalism and the invention of "double-entry" bookkeeping and one can similarly refute suggestions that the lack of modern accounting techniques in itself explams the apparent lack of economic rationality in antiquity (Macve, 1985). How then is one to explain the modern significance of accounting and the ample rewards that accrue to its practitioners? This is a complex question but in this paper we propose to suggest how a history of accounting and an understanding of its power in modern society might be written in terms of Michel Foucault's theory of "power-knowledge" relations.Our main argument focuses on two separate ' We gratefully acknowledge the helpful discussion and criticism of an earlier draft of this paper provided by Simon Archer,

The ‘internationalisation’ of accounting history publishing

“…It was a leading employer on the Tyne, and the personal aspects of decision-making and control as highlighted in the case study provide an interesting foil to Macve's (1996, 1998) Foucauldian characterisation of the modern managerial organisation as dependant on accounting surveillance systems to discipline workers, who thus become amorphous 'calculable' persons rather than individualistic 'memorable' ones (Hoskin and Macve, 1986, p. 107). According to Hoskin and Macve (1986), this type of company came to prominence in the U.S. in the second half of the nineteenth century at the same time as Clarke Chapman was in its ascendancy.…”

The Rise and Fall of Comprehensive Accounting Theories: R. J. Chambers and Continuously Contemporary Accounting

“…Both Miller (1990; and Robson (1991; blended theoretical insights from ANT with the more interpretive approaches to accounting research from the 1980s, especially those drawing on Foucault (e.g., Hoskin & Macve, 1986;Loft, 1986;Miller, 1986) and institutional theory (e.g., Meyer, 1977;Willmott, 1986). Miller (1990) examined how the modern state emerged in the 1600s through the material-semiotic linkage between innovations of accounting techniques and government procedure.…”

“…As such, whereas new accounting historians are just as much "archivists" as traditional accounting historians, their conception of "the archive" is wider and their theoretical interpretations of the material more varied. The Foucauldian (e.g., Hoskin & Macve, 1986;Miller & O'Leary, 1987), Marxist (e.g., Armstrong, 1987;Bryer, 2005;Tinker, 1985), and most recently Latourian (e.g., Miller, 1990;Robson, 1991) traditions have perhaps been the most popular of these theoretical lenses. The disagreement between traditional and new accounting historians has led several authors to examine and try to mend the gap between the two approaches before it becomes too divisive and a potential hindrance to historical and scientific progress (e.g., see Carnegie & Napier, 1996;Fleischman, Mills, & Tyson, 1996;Funnell, 1996), whereas some authors contend that the gap between the two approaches is too wide to bridge (e.g., Gaffikin, 2011).…”

Knowledge mandates in the state–profession dynamic: A study of the British insolvency profession

“…Dezalay (1995, p343), using the work of Bourdieu, describes the "field of knowledge and expertise" as the site for reproducing social capital and hence power relations. Other work emphasises the technologies of accounting and how seemingly neutral practices of accounting become implicated in wider political contexts (Hoskin and Macve, 1986;Willmott, 1990;Miller and Power, 1995;Young, 1995;Ezzamel et al, 2007). Parker (1994, p512) suggests that "professional authority", which is defined in terms of technical knowledge and professional service ideals, is part of the accountant's repertoire for securing private or economic interests 8 .…”