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Division of Economic Studies, University of Sheffield andTED O’LEARY Department ofAccounting,https://www.51lunwen.org
University College, Cork Abstract The concern of the paper is historical. It addresses one familiar event within the literature of the history of accounting-the construction of theories of standard costing and budgeting in the first three decades of the twentieth century. A different interpretation of this event is offered from that commonly found. This is seen to have significant implications for the relevance of historical investigation to the understanding of contemporary accounting practices. Instead of an interpretation of standard costing and budgeting as one stage in the advance in accuracy and refinement of accounting concepts and techniques, it is viewed as an important calculative practice which is part of a much wider modern apparatus of power which emerges conspicuously in the early years of this century. The concern of this form of power is seen to be the constructionof the individual person as a more manageable and efficient entity. This argument is explored through an examination of the connections of standard costing and budgeting with scientitic management and industrial psychology. These knowledges are then related to others which, more or less simultaneously, were emerging beyond the contines of the firm to address questions of the efficiency and manageability of the Individual. The more general aim of the paper is to suggest some elements of a theoretical understanding of accounting which would locate it in its interrelation with other projects for the social and organisationalmanagement of individual lives. Accounting has remained remarkably insulatedfrom important theoretical and historical debates which have traversed the social sciences.Accounting history, for example, is a context in which one can begin to substantiate thislack of a problematisation of the roles of accounting. A standard concept which guidesaccounting history is one that sees accounting as essentially having functional roles in society,albeit ones which can change (American Accounting Association, 1970). Little or no suspicionseems to surface that different methodological starting points could be entertained,which could lead to rather different understandings of accounting’s history.There are ripples, however. Recently there l Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at the Symposium of the Roles of Accounting in Organizationsand Society, Universityof Wisconsin-Madison, U.S.A., July 1984, and at the Accounting Workshop of the European Institute for AdvancedStudies in Management, Brussels, Belgium, December 1984. We are obliged to the participants at both gatherings for very helpful comments. We express our thanks especially to Anthony Hopwood for ideas and encouragement, and for suggesting this collaboration. Ted O’Leary Is grateful for the financial support of the Management Fund and the Development Fund, University College, Cork We are both grateful to the Symposium Organizers, University of Wisconsin-Madison, for their financial contributions towards travel costs. have been attempts to indicate the directions
which a fully social interpretation of accountingmight follow (Burchell et aL, 1979, 1980).These seem to us to be very useful first steps.
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