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The purpose of this paper is to examine the historiographic writings for accounting concerned with the craft of researching and writing history, published in the English-language, across a period of 30 years from 1983 to 2012. The study's aim is three-fold: first, to review the literature pertaining to the writing of accounting history and to identify key developments and trends; second, to identify the contributors to this literature and their publication outlets and third, to analyze citations to identify individuals or groups who have gained traction in accounting historiography.

An essay focusing on developments in the accounting historiography literature as well as a review of some key thoughts or issues in present-day accounting historiography.

The study shows that a key development in the accounting historiography literature during this period has been the advent of new accounting history, which has contributed much theoretical and topical diversity in historical accounting research and an acceptance of the role of oral history as a means of expanding the archive.

The present study, with its focus on contributions on the craft of researching and writing history, does not itself examine actual research studies which have been undertaken on accounting's past across the same period of time.

The study may assist in making the contributions examined more generally assessable and comprehensible to researchers to both explore and re-explore and may even contribute to the development of further contributions on accounting historiography to guide the approaches to, and direction of, historical accounting research in future.

The purpose of this paper is to revisit the special issue of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal published in 1996 on the theme “Accounting history into the twenty‐first century”, in order to identify and assess the impact of the special issue in shaping developments in the accounting history literature, and to consider issues for future historical research in accounting.

A retrospective and prospective essay focusing on developments in the historical accounting literature.

The special issue's advocacy of critical and interpretive histories of accounting's past has influenced subsequent research, particularly within the various research themes identified in the issue. The most significant aspect of this influence has been the engagement of increasing numbers of accounting historians with theoretical perspectives and analytical frameworks.

The present study examines the content and impact of a single journal issue. It explores future research possibilities, which inevitably involves speculation.

In addressing recent developments in the literature through the lens of the special issue, the paper emphasises the unifying power of history and offers ideas, insights and reflections that may assist in stimulating originality in future studies of accounting's past.

Recognition, measurement and disclosure of public sector assets constitute relevant matters for national and international public sector accounting standard-setting. This chapter develops a theoretical analysis drawing upon a dualistic approach contrasting current value and historical cost accounting models. Accordingly, the latter should be adapted and then preferred to cope with public sector specificities, with a view to providing information for and enforcing accountability to citizens and their political representatives. Drawing upon this theoretical setting, our analysis develops a consistent design for the overarching conceptual framework for assets in general, providing illustrative examples for specific categories such as financial, heritage, natural and military assets.

This paper aims to examine whether traditional accounting information has lost its relevance in the context of sub-Sahara Africa. Specifically, the study examines whether historical cost and inflation-adjusted data are related to the market value of equity and stock returns on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).

The authors collect firm-specific data from annual reports of 20 listed firms from the GSE over the period 2007-2012. The authors use ordinary least squares and two stage least square (2SLS) to examine the value relevance of historical and inflation-adjusted income and equity.

The results suggest that the market equity is related to both historical-cost and inflation-adjusted earnings. Market return is also associated with both historical-cost and inflation-adjusted earnings and book value. Overall, the authors conclude that inflation-adjusted information content is more value relevant than the traditional cost accounting information.

The findings are a wake-up call to policymakers and practitioners in formulating financial reporting policies. This study, however, focuses on only non-financial listed firms on the GSE. Thus, the results may not be valid for all companies in Ghana.

The finding has an implication on the choice of valuation used in the preparation and reporting of financial statements. Accordingly, the authors offer policy directions to financial reporting regulatory authorities to enhance the value relevance of accounting information.

Regulators, especially the GSE may improve life of investors if the recommendations are transformed into directives that will help enhance the quality of financial reporting.

The findings suggest that inflation-adjusted data are more relevant in countries with extreme inflationary trend and lax International Financial Reporting Standards compliance enforcement. The results also lend support for the current cost accounting theory.

Considers what role history plays in the US accounting standard‐setting process and how this role may be constrained by an emphasis on objectivity and an adherence to a positivistic view of bureaucratic decision making. Explores the role history could play in the development and review of accounting standards and, in particular, how history might contribute to pluralizing the past, problematizing the present and revisioning the future.

Accounting history has a long tradition, but in recent years it has expanded its interests and approaches. Early literature of accounting history that sought to glorify the practice of accounting and the status of accountants has been supplemented first by a more utilitarian approach viewing the past as a “database” for enhancing understanding of contemporary practice and for identifying past accounting solutions that might be relevant to current problems, and then by a more critical approach, which seeks to understand accounting’s past through the perspective of a range of social and political theories. A tension has developed between those historians whose first loyalty is to the archive and those who look primarily to theory to inform their historical investigations. As accounting history matures, open debate between practitioners of different modes of history making can only be beneficial, not only to the development of the discipline, but also towards our own self‐understandings as accountants, including the impact we have on organizational and social functioning. Suggests that accounting history without a firm archival base is likely to lose direction, but that our notion of what constitutes the archive, and our ways of communicating, explicating and interpreting the archive, should not be taken as fixed. To illustrate this, examines a number of approaches to the writing of accounting history where recent research has begun to demonstrate a critical and interpretive tendency, and suggests directions in which this research might develop as accounting and its history enters the twenty‐first century.

This 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.

The study comprises an analysis of the content of AAAJ and related literature.

Histories appearing in AAAJ have focused 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.

The paper discusses the potential for advancing established research agendas in accounting history and identifies some new subjects for investigation by accounting historians.

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 the 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.

The purpose of this paper is to report about the presence of misconceptions in the historical thinking of fifth-grade children with learning disabilities (LD) and their normally achieving (NA) peers. We also sought to determine the effects of implementing an integrated instructional unit about 19th century U.S. Westward Expansion on children's historical misconceptions. This unit was taught over an eight-week period by a special education teacher (subsequently referred to as Ms. M) who had approximately two years of prior professional teaching experience. In addition to quantitative information about changes in children's content knowledge, we report interview data about children's understanding of historical content and historical reasoning. Furthermore, we captured on videotape approximately 12h of classroom instruction. Ms. M and the first author of this paper independently reviewed and then discussed these videotapes for the purpose of assessing the effects of her teaching practices on the development of children's historical understanding. The implications of our findings are discussed.

This paper seeks to broaden the agenda for environmental and ecological accounting research across several dimensions, extending the form of accounting in this field by encouraging research into its historical roots and developing a definition of accounting that can address the severe environmental and ecological challenges of the 21st century.

The authors explored environmental and ecological accounts from the dawn of human consciousness across a wide variety of media and in a broad range of forms. This theoretical approach reacts to the cold capitalist commodification of nature inherent in much environmental accounting practice, which documents, values and records usage of natural capital with little attempt to address depletion and loss.

By analysing the earliest ecological and environmental “accounts” recorded by humans at the dawn of human consciousness, and considering a wide array of subsequent accounts, the authors demonstrate that rather than being a secondary, relatively recent development emerging from financial accounting and reporting, environmental and ecological accounting predated financial accounting by tens of thousands of years. This research also provides a wealth of perspectives on diversity, not only in forms of account but also in the diversity of accountants, as well as the broadness of the stakeholders to whom and to which the accounts are rendered.

The paper can be placed at the intersection of accounting history, the alternative, interdisciplinary and critical accounts literature, and environmental and ecological accounting research.

Practically, the authors can draw ideas and inspiration from the historical forms and content of ecological and environmental account that can inform new forms of and approaches to accounting.

There are social implications including the diversity of accounts and accountants derived from studying historical ecological and environmental accounts from the dawn of human consciousness especially in the broadening out of the authors' understanding of the origins and cultural roots of accounting.

This study concludes with a new definition of accounting, fit for purpose in the 21st century, that integrates ecological, environmental concerns and is emancipatory, aiming to restore nature, revive biodiversity, conserve species and enhance ecosystems.

Points out that traditional conceptions of accounting history and its achievements are being challenged by new accounting historians who are informed by radical philosophies and approaches to history. Suggests that this is a belated reflection of movements within the wider discipline of history which can be traced to the annalists in the 1930s and more recently to the influence of postmodernism. Observes that at issue between the traditional and new history are the importance of facts and the pursuit of truth by traditional historians, noting that new accounting historians have decried the reactionary effects of traditional history, which they propose to overcome by substituting accounting as an interested discourse for accounting as a neutral, socially sterile technique. Explains that, as the conventional form of historical writing, the narrative form also has been disparaged. Concludes by arguing that accounting historians should be tolerant of different approaches to accounting history.