Australia's divided accounting profession : the 1969 merger attempt and its legacy
- Authors: Sidhu, Jasvinder , Carnegie, Garry , West, Brian
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: British Accounting Review Vol. 53, no. 3 (2021), p.
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- Description: The Australian accounting environment is dominated by two competing brands – Chartered Accountant (CA) and Certified Practising Accountant (CPA) – which signal that the profession has been unable to achieve full unification. Focussed on 1969, this dual theory-informed, in-depth study examines the first of four unsuccessful attempts to merge the two professional accounting associations from which the two brands originate: The Australian Society of Accountants (the Society) and The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (the Institute). Primary data from public archives and oral history interviews, combined with secondary sources, are drawn upon to explain the failure of this proposed merger and to consider its legacy. The complementary theoretical perspectives of “boundary-work” and “institutional work” are applied. Amidst other challenges, corporate collapses during the 1960s precipitated a legitimacy crisis for the profession and raised the prospect of there being sufficient commonality of purpose to enable a merger. While there was overwhelming support from Society members, the merger proposal was defeated by a comprehensive “no” vote from Institute members. This pattern of voting was repeated in three subsequent merger attempts, leading to the persistence of the curious binary structure of the Australian accounting profession and associated ongoing differences and tensions. © 2021 British Accounting Association
The problematical nature of auditor independence : a historical perspective
- Authors: Edwards, John , West, Brian
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Review Vol. 31, no. 3 (2021), p. 255-285
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- Description: Much of the utility of the external audit derives from a presumption that professional auditors are independent and will therefore provide impartial opinions–premises that have often been challenged in recent decades. Focusing initially on a nineteenth-century phenomenon, the ‘continuous audit’, this study provides a historical perspective for reviewing contemporary concerns with the audit function by revealing that failings in auditor independence date from the naissance of the professional audit. It is shown that the continuous audit served primarily the needs of management. That is, in modern parlance, it was a form of management consulting carried out under the guise of an independent service for the benefit of shareholders. Eventually this deception proved unsustainable as the emergent audit profession sought to strengthen its claim to independence and company managers sought more cost-effective means for the routine monitoring of operations. Lack of independence and conflict of interest persisted, however, continuing to be masked by a rhetorical discourse that protected the occupational territory and authority of the audit profession through to the present day. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Political competition and debt : Evidence from New Zealand local governments
- Authors: Chatterjee, Bikram , Bhattacharya, Sukanto , Taylor, Grantley , West, Brian
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting Research Journal Vol. 32, no. 3 (2019), p. 344-361
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- Description: Purpose This paper aims to investigate whether the amount of local governments' debt can be predicted by the level of political competition. Design/methodology/approach The study uses the artificial neural network (ANN) to test whether ANN can "learn" from the observed data and make reliable out-of-sample predictions of the target variable value (i.e. a local government's debt level) for given values of the predictor variables. An ANN is a non-parametric prediction tool, that is, not susceptible to the common limitations of regression-based parametric forecasting models, e.g. multi-collinearity and latent non-linear relations. Findings The study finds that "political competition" is a useful predictor of a local government's debt level. Moreover, a positive relationship between political competition and debt level is indicated, i.e. increases in political competition typically leads to increases in a local government's level of debt. Originality/value The study contributes to public sector reporting literature by investigating whether public debt levels can be predicted on the basis of political competition while discounting factors such as "political ideology" and "fragmentation". The findings of the study are consistent with the expectations posited by public choice theory and have implications for public sector auditing, policy and reporting standards, particularly in terms of minimising potential political opportunism.
Accounting and the history of the everyday life of captains, sailors and common seamen in eighteenth-century Portuguese slave trading
- Authors: Pinto, Ofelia , West, Brian
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 22, no. 3 (2017), p. 320-347
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- Description: This archive-based case study uses accounting and related records to uncover details of the everyday life of the captains, sailors and seamen who manned the ships that allowed Portuguese slave trading to flourish during the eighteenth century. By elaborating the lives of the crews of the ships of the Companhia Geral do Grão Pará e Maranhão, a Portuguese chartered company created in 1755 for the express purpose of slave trading, the study contributes to a growing body of literature that uses accounting documents as a source of social history and enables previously silent voices to be heard. Furthermore, the study brings together two notions which have previously remained separated in the accounting history literature: the everyday lives of participants within the setting of a ‘dark’ episode of human history. © 2017, © The Author(s) 2017.
Accounting, slavery and social history : The legacy of an eighteenth-century Portuguese chartered company
- Authors: Pinto, Ofelia , West, Brian
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 22, no. 2 (2017), p. 141-166
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- Description: Based on extensive archival research, this study documents and analyses the accounting techniques that the Companhia Geral do Grão Pará e Maranhão applied to its slave trading operations during the second half of the eighteenth century. The surviving accounting records of this Portuguese chartered company reveal – in meticulous detail – the integral role that accounting technology played in enabling the slave trade to flourish. However, and paradoxically, while evidencing this culpability the same accounting records also document the essential humanity of the slaves and preserve details of the bleak circumstances of their existence. Slaves are typically lamented as a lost people consigned to a tragic and an eternal anonymity, but it is from accounting records that many aspects of their lives can be reconstructed. In this way, the accounting records studied are also shown to provide a latent source of social history that constitutes a profound mea culpa. © 2017, © The Author(s) 2017.
Digitising archival records : Benefits and challenges for a large professional accounting association
- Authors: Keneley, Monica , Potter, Brad , West, Brian , Cobbin, Phillip , Chang, Steven
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Archivaria Vol. 2016, no. 81 (2016), p. 75-100
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- Description: With antecedents extending to 1886, CPA Australia is one of the world’s most significant professional accounting associations. Reflective of its long history and widespread influence, the organization holds an extensive and diverse archive that evidences both its own development and the general evolution of accounting and business practices. This article presents a case study of a project to digitize selected aspects of this archive. Informed by perspectives on managing archives in the digital era, the benefits and challenges of digitization are presented. A key benefit was enabling access to digital images while preserving rare and fragile original records and documents. However, challenges arose in prioritizing the items for digitization, and this necessitated the development of a model, taking the form of a decision matrix. The CPA Australia case study will be informative for other organizations seeking to use digitization as a means to overcome the dilemma associated with providing access to archival materials while also ensuring their preservation. © 2016, Association of Canadian Archivists. All rights reserved.
One hundred years of annual reporting by the Australian Red Cross : Building public trust and approbation through emotive disclosures
- Authors: Langton, Jonathan , West, Brian
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 21, no. 2-3 (2016), p. 185-207
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- Description: Marking the centenary of the Australian Red Cross, this interpretive and historical case study spans the organization’s beginning in 1914 through to the present day. The overarching purpose is to reveal how one of Australia’s oldest and most important humanitarian organizations used accounting and related information in the discharge of accountability. More specifically, this longitudinal study examines the organization’s annual reporting practices over the course of a century, with particular focus on the emotive disclosures contained in the reports. A political economy of accounting theoretical framework guides the content analysis and the interpretation of the findings. The annual reports were found to be responsive to the changing institutional, social, economic and political environment and evidence the organization’s reliance upon emotive disclosures to discharge a broad scope accountability and build public trust and approbation. © The Author(s) 2016.
All for Nothing? Accounting for Land under Roads by Australian Local Governments
- Authors: Elhawary, Hassan , West, Brian
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Accounting Review Vol. 25, no. 1 (2015), p. 38-44
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- Description: Accounting for land under roads by local governments has been one of the most controversial and protracted episodes in the setting of Australian accounting standards. However, after more than two decades of exposure drafts, regulation, transitional provisions and re-regulation, most land under roads has not been recognised in local government balance sheets. Australian Accounting Standard AAS 27 Financial Reporting by Local Governments was first issued in 1991 and, among other significant reforms, proposed that local governments report land under roads as an asset in their financial reports. However, persistent opposition to this requirement and practical difficulties associated with its implementation gave rise to a succession of transitional provisions deferring its mandatory application. Finally, in 2007 - 16 years after AAS 27 was first promulgated - the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) sought to bring closure to this issue with the release of AASB 1051 Land Under Roads. However, in the interim some state governments had pursued their own resolutions, forbidding the recognition of land under roads. This research reports the results of a survey of the impact of land under roads on local government financial reports. After two decades of debate and regulation, diversity is found to persist in the extent and manner of recognition of this 'asset'. However, recognition remains the exception rather than the norm and is typically confined to recent acquisitions that comprise only a very small portion of total assets. These circumstances are suggestive of an episode of regulatory failure. © 2015 CPA Australia.
Promoting CSR to foster sustainable development: Attitudes and perceptions of managers in a developing country
- Authors: Moyeen, Abdul , West, Brian
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration. Vol. 6, no. 2 (2014), p. 97-115
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- Description: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the attitudes and perceptions of senior managers in Bangladesh with regard to corporate social responsibility (CSR), focusing on the impact of CSR promotional programmes in fostering an affirmative view of sustainable development. This issue has special significance in a country that is one of the fastest growing economies in south Asia and also particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of 32 managers of large enterprises operating in a variety of industries. Findings – The positive attitudes observed suggest that various programmes adopted to promote CSR have had some effect. However, sustainable development and environmental issues tend to remain on the periphery of managers’ understandings and perceptions of CSR. Research limitations/implications – This study aids understanding of how business managers may respond to CSR promotional campaigns. Further studies in other comparable countries, and in other settings where CSR is poorly established, are encouraged in order to provide more comprehensive insights and overcome the limited sample size of the current study. Practical implications – While insights to how the managers of local enterprises can be persuaded to become more effectively engaged in CSR are provided, a need to foster a more comprehensive notion of CSR is also identified. Originality/value – As well as contributing to redressing the strong bias towards developed country settings in CSR research, this research is novel in exploring how CSR promotional efforts may influence the attitudes and perceptions of managers.
The emergent Institute of Chartered Accountants of India: An upper-caste profession
- Authors: Sidhu, Jasvinder , West, Brian
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 19, no. 2 (2014), p.115-132
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- Description: The distinctive Indian caste system divides Hindu society into a hierarchy of four varnas, each of which also has a traditional association with particular categories of occupations. This exploratory study examines the interplay between varna and the emergent organised accounting profession in India. Using the earliest available membership list of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) – being 1953, just four years after the organisation’s formation – a comprehensive classification of the caste status of the Hindu membership was undertaken. Among other findings, this revealed a significant over-representation of the Brahman upper caste relative to this caste’s presence in the general population. This Brahman presence is posited as having endowed a status to the accounting occupation that aided the replication in India of the British model of professional organisation. However, it also meant that the formation of the ICAI would predominantly benefit an already privileged social stratum and contribute to perpetuating traditional caste hierarchies within the modern occupation of professional accounting.
A Chaotic field of practice: Financial reporting of the Library collections of Australia's public Universities, 2007-2011
- Authors: Carnegie, Garry , Sidaway, Shannon , West, Brian
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Academic and Research Libraries Vol. 44, no. 4 (2013), p. 195-216
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- Description: The accounting practices adopted by Australia's 36 public universities in accounting for their library collections - including heritage and special collections - are identified and analysed. The data is collected from a survey of these institutions' annual reports over the period 2007 to 2011 and the analysis is guided by theoretical perspectives drawn from new institutional sociology (NIS). Consistent with prior research by West and Carnegie (2010), accounting for university library collections is depicted as a chaotic field of practice. Inconsistent and idiosyncratic policies that compromise the overall reliability, comparability and usefulness of university financial reports are observed, along with instances of dramatic valuation adjustments. However, the beginnings of some amelioration of the chaos are also detected, as regulatory activity and a voluntary homogenisation of accounting policies begin to take effect. In particular, a general trend towards more conservative accounting practices is evident as universities perhaps seek to guard against accounting debacles - most notably massive valuation write-downs - of the kind that have been suffered by several institutions over the last decade. Assigning financial values to the library collections and other non-financial resources of not-for-profit public institutions remains a problematic issue. © 2013 Australian Library & Information Association.
- Description: The accounting practices adopted by Australia's 36 public universities in accounting for their library collections - including heritage and special collections - are identified and analysed. The data is collected from a survey of these institutions' annual reports over the period 2007 to 2011 and the analysis is guided by theoretical perspectives drawn from new institutional sociology (NIS). Consistent with prior research by West and Carnegie (2010), accounting for university library collections is depicted as a chaotic field of practice. Inconsistent and idiosyncratic policies that compromise the overall reliability, comparability and usefulness of university financial reports are observed, along with instances of dramatic valuation adjustments. However, the beginnings of some amelioration of the chaos are also detected, as regulatory activity and a voluntary homogenisation of accounting policies begin to take effect. In particular, a general trend towards more conservative accounting practices is evident as universities perhaps seek to guard against accounting debacles - most notably massive valuation write-downs - of the kind that have been suffered by several institutions over the last decade. Assigning financial values to the library collections and other non-financial resources of not-for-profit public institutions remains a problematic issue. © 2013 © 2013 Australian Library & Information Association.
Enhancing the accessibility of accounting and business archives: The role of technology in informing research in accounting and business
- Authors: Cobbin, Phillip , Dean, Graeme , Esslemont, Cameron , Ferguson, Patrick , Keneley, Monica , Potter, Brad , West, Brian
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Abacus-a Journal of Accounting Finance and Business Studies Vol. 49, no. 3 (September 2013), p. 396-422
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- Description: 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.
- Description: C1
Humans as cost objects: 18th century Portuguese slave trading
- Authors: West, Brian , Pinto, Ofelia
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: 13th World Congress of Accounting Historians. Newcastle Upon Tyne. 17-19 July, 2012
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- Description: Based on extensive archival research, the cost accounting techniques that were developed and applied by the Companhia Geral do Grão Pará e Maranhão for the purpose of trading in human beings (slaves) in the second half of the 18th century are documented and analysed. It is shown that the company developed a sophisticated costing system that has parallels to many of the techniques of costing in use today: the distinction between direct and indirect costs, the allocation of overhead costs and the reallocation of costs associated with “normal spoilage”. Located within a growing literature that documents accounting’s “dark side”, and informed by the theoretical concept of “action at a distance”, this research demonstrates how accounting techniques were fundamental to enabling the reprehensible episode of human misery that slave trading constituted.
Financial reporting of the library collections of Australia's public universities, 2007-2010: The chaos continues
- Authors: Cornegie, Garry , Sidaway, Shannon , West, Brian
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: AFAANZ 2012 Confrence Proceedings
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- Description: E1
Governance and accountability in Australian charitable organisations: Perceptions from CFOs
- Authors: Dellaportas, Steven , Langton, Jonathan , West, Brian
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Accounting and Information Management Vol. 20, no. 3 (2012), p. 238-254
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- Description: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of senior accounting officers on governance, performance and accountability issues in the charity sector. Design/methodology/approach - The empirical data presented in this paper were collected via a mail-out survey to Chief Financial Officers (CFO) of large charity organisations in Australia. Findings - The executives surveyed agreed that the public is entitled to receive high quality financial disclosures from charities, favouring "programme accountability", "fiscal accountability" and "profit" as relevant performance indicators rather than cash surplus/deficit. The respondents also considered that charities warrant a dedicated accounting standard but were less enthusiastic about an independent regulator with stronger control functions. Research limitations/implications - The data in this study report the opinions of financial executives which may not represent the view of all managing executives. Originality/value - While governance in charities has been examined previously from an organisational or management perspective, this is one of the few papers that emphasises how members of the accounting profession view this important topic.
The emergence of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India: An upper-caste profession
- Authors: Sidhu, Jasvinder , West, Brian
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: 13th World Congress of Accounting Historians Conference
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- Description: E1
A Commentary on 'Contextualising the Intermediate Financial Accounting Courses in the Global Financial Crisis'
- Authors: Carnegie, Garry , West, Brian
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting Education Vol. 20, no. 5 (2011), p. 499-503
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- Description: Accounting is a practical discipline, existing to satisfy particular human needs which are usually depicted in terms of decision-making processes and accountability evaluations. Proposals for how accounting education may be infused with learning from the ‘realworld’ contexts in which it operates are always welcome. However, as the recent global financial crisis (GFC) and other phenomenal episodes have repeatedly revealed, accounting practice is itself neither perfect nor uncontroversial. Examining the ‘real world’ contexts of accounting offers not just the prospect of learning more about what accounting is and how it is currently practised, but also the limitations and deficiencies of that practice.
Does accounting history matter?
- Authors: Gomes, Delfina , Carnegie, Garry , Napier, Christopher , Parker, Lee , West, Brian
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 16, no. 4 (2011), p. 389-402
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- Description: Building upon panel discussion held at the sixth Accounting History International Conference, a resounding "yes" is offered in response to the question of whether accounting history matters. However, reflecting the viewpoint that accounting history can and should matter more, various suggestions are presented for advancing the quality, relevance and significance of historical research in accounting, commencing with the need to redress persistent misconceptions about the discipline. Practical strategies for enhancing the impact of accounting history scholarship are then developed around the themes of promoting its contemporary relevance and implications, fostering engagement with diverse groups of scholars, writing accounting history in informative and engaging ways, and articulating and developing appropriate methodologies. Finally, the role of accounting historians as "change agents" is explored and advocated. © The Author(s) 2011.
Price setting practices in Australian Local Government
- Authors: Carnegie, Garry , Tuck, Jacqueline , West, Brian
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Accounting Review Vol. 21, no. 2 (2011), p. 193-201
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- Description: Revenues generated on a 'fee-for-service' or 'user-pays' basis are a significant source of income for Australian local governments. However, how local governments set prices and charges remains under-explicated. This article reports empirical evidence obtained on the pricing policies and practices of Australian local governments. The responses to a national survey reveal considerable diversity - and often an apparent lack of 'rationality'- in setting specific prices. Instead, general 'across the board' adjustments to historical prices are typically made to assist in balancing budgets. The cost of service delivery is neither a prominent nor standardised input to pricing decisions. © 2011 CPA Australia.
The interplay between caste and the emergent accounting profession in India
- Authors: Sidhu, Jasvinder , West, Brian
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: 2011 Afaanz Conference Melbourne 2nd-5th July, 2011 p. 1-23
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- Description: This paper examines the interplay between caste and the organised accounting profession in India following the formation of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAl) in 1949. The distinctive Indian caste system divides Hindu society into a hierarchy of four "varnas". As well as being traditional markers of social status, these "varnas" have also been identified with particular occupational categories. Using the earliest available membership list of the ICAl (being 1953, just four years after formation), a comprehensive classification of the caste status of the Hindu members of the ICAI was undertaken. This revealed that, relative to the general population, the Brahman upper caste was significantly over-represented in the membership of the ICAl. In this way, the formation of the ICAl predominantly benefitted an already privileged social stratum and contributed to perpetuating traditional caste hierarchies within the context of the modern occupation of professional accounting.
- Description: 2003009025