Identifying the Founding Fathers of Public Accountancy: The Formation of The Society of Accountants in Edinburgh

Lee, Thomas A.

doi:10.4324/9780203821480-7

Cited by 8 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…'Professionalisation' has been defined as a process, whereby 'an occupational group might establish its difference and superiority from a related occupational group' (Kirkham and Loft, 1993, p. 508). In this vein, professional associations are regarded basically as political bodies organised to defend their members' economic interests against other occupational groups (Willmott, 1986;Lee, 1996;Caramanis, 1999;Richardson, 2000). British professional accounting bodies originated in the struggle between accountants and lawyers over lucrative insolvency work for failed joint stock companies in the late 19 th century (Abbott, 1988;Walker, 2004aWalker, , 2004bEdwards et al, 2007).…”

Section: Closure and Opennessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the accounting profession

Ahn

Jacobs

2018

AAAJ

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how an accounting association and its key members define, control, and claim their knowledge; adopt a closure and/or openness policy to enhance their status/influence; and respond to structural/institutional forces from international organisations and/or the state in a particular historical context, such as a globalised/neo-liberalised setting. Design/methodology/approach The authors draw on Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical tools (field, capital, habitus, and doxa) to understand how public sector accrual accounting was defined, and how the Korean Association for Government Accounting was formed and represented as a group with public sector accounting expertise. The research context was the implementation of accrual accounting in South Korea between 1997/1998, when the Asian financial crisis broke out, and 2006/2007, when accrual accounting was enforced by legislation. The authors interviewed social actors recognised as public sector accounting experts, in addition to examining related documents such as articles in academic journals, newsletters, invitations, membership forms, newspaper articles, and curricula vitae. Findings The authors found that the key founders of KAGA included some public administration professors, who advocated public sector accrual accounting via civil society groups immediately after Korea applied to the International Monetary Fund for bailout loans and a new government was formed in 1997/1998. In conjunction with public servants, they defined and designed public sector accrual accounting as a measure of public sector reform and as a part of the broader government budget process, rather than as an accounting initiative. They also co-opted accounting professors and CPA-qualified accountants through their personal connections, based on shared educational backgrounds, to represent the association as a public sector accounting experts’ group. Originality/value These findings suggest that the study of the accounting profession cannot be restricted to a focus on professional accounting associations and that accounting knowledge can be acquired by non-accountants. Therefore, the authors argue that the relationship between accounting knowledge, institutional forms, and key actors’ strategies is rich and multifaceted.

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Section: Closure and Opennessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the accounting profession

Ahn

Jacobs

2018

AAAJ

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“…Little is known of the detail of JSO's career in Edinburgh but it is evident that he was a sole practitioner and that he was not a leader in the formation of the SAE (Lee, 1996). He was not prominent in insolvency work and is one of the few persons involved in the formation of the SAE whose name is not listed in The Alphabetical Compendium of Scotch Mercantile Sequestrations, 1851 (Kedslie, 1990a: 60).…”

Section: Jso In Edinburghmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…JSO was invited to, and attended, the second and third formation meetings of the SAE on 22 January and 4 February 1853 and was one of the petitioners for the royal charter (Lee, 1996). He remained a member of the SAE all his life.…”

Section: Jso In Edinburghmentioning

confidence: 99%

The life and career of John Spence Ogilvy (1805–71), the first chartered accountant to emigrate to Australia

Carnegie¹,

Parker²,

Wigg³

2000

Accounting, Business & Financial History

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So far as the available evidence allows, this paper examines the life and career of John Spence Ogilvy, foundation member of the Society of Accountants in Edinburgh in 1854, who emigrated to Melbourne in 1856, but did not play a part in the development of an organized accounting profession in Australia. The paper also attempts to explain the gap of thirty-two years between the formation of the rst accounting bodies in Edinburgh and Melbourne.

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“…Greater access to substantial archives, particularly where such records are able to demonstrate and substantiate important relationships between key individuals and/or groups, is likely to provide a strong explanation of how institutional public accountancy developed (Lee, , p. 316) and how its practice has subsequently been determined and shaped. This phenomenon is admirably demonstrated in work that addresses the creation of institutionalized accountancy in Scotland, where the presence and influence of social and business networks has been firmly established.…”

Section: Informing Contemporary Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Within this body of literature, the later work of Lee (, , ) makes the major contribution. His 1996 paper revisits much of the earlier ground covered, although it is focused singularly on Edinburgh.…”

Section: Informing Contemporary Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing the Accessibility of Accounting and Business Archives: The Role of Technology in Informing Research in Accounting and Business

Cobbin

Dean

Esslemont³

et al. 2013

Abacus

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The application of advanced digitization technologies to accounting and business archives has created new opportunities for accounting and business historians. The joint American Accounting Association and European Accounting Association Task Force (2006–2010) that examined digitization confirmed this. This paper explores these opportunities, along with some attendant challenges and cautions, with reference to the digitization of two significant archives located in Australia. The first is the archive of CPA Australia, a professional accounting association that has its beginnings in 1886 and which today has over 132,000 members. The second is the archive accumulated by the pre‐eminent accounting scholar Raymond Chambers during his long and extraordinarily productive tenure at the University of Sydney. Studies of surviving business records, biography and institutional history provide examples of scholarship that is enabled by digitization technology and which has the capacity to inform contemporary issues and debates.

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Identifying the Founding Fathers of Public Accountancy: The Formation of The Society of Accountants in Edinburgh

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Beyond the accounting profession

Beyond the accounting profession

The life and career of John Spence Ogilvy (1805–71), the first chartered accountant to emigrate to Australia

Enhancing the Accessibility of Accounting and Business Archives: The Role of Technology in Informing Research in Accounting and Business

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