Some reflections on the orientations and volume of accounting history research in the 21st century

Abstract

Taking as starting point the 8^th World Congress of Accounting Historians this paper attempts to identify the orientations followed by accounting history research in the first years of the 21^st century, that is, from 2000 up to 2007. The main purpose of the attempt is to find out whether there have been significant novelties in the directions of research or, on the contrary, its development has run in the foreseeable course. We shall try to associate this purpose to the study of the amount of related research published in the main accounting journals. After having examined and described the developments of accounting history research in the first years of present century, the paper presents some considerations on the directions in which research should move in the next future.

To do this I have taken into account the main papers on the state of the art published in the period studied and above all examined carefully papers published in journals specifically or mainly devoted to accounting history, that is, Accounting Historians Journal, Accounting, Business and Financial History, Accounting History, Contabilità e Cultura Aziendale and De Computis. With the same purpose, I have gone through the, in this sense, most relevant accounting journals. Among all of them the ones that according to the number of papers published on this discipline in the years under study have shown more interest in accounting history have been Accounting, Organizations and Society, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, European Accounting Review, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Revista Espanola de Financiacion y Contabilidad, Abacus, Revista de Contabilidad, Accounting and Business Research, and Accounting Forum. Apart from these, we have found papers on accounting history in about fifty further journals among the ones examined. In all we have found papers on our discipline in 62 journals. The papers in these journals that have been taken into consideration amount in total to 683.

Even though they often represent indeed the most recent and advanced research, we have not taken into account the unpublished papers presented at the main congresses and meetings on accounting history. In many cases they are not complete papers but working ones. In other cases repeated amended versions of them are presented in subsequent congresses. Therefore their consideration would unjustifiably enlarge the volume of research done. Moreover the most significant of them are certainly published.