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The purpose of this paper is to extend the work of Carnegie and Walker and report the results of Part 2 of their study on household accounting in Australia during the period from the 1820s to the 1960s.

The study adopts a microhistorical approach involving a detailed examination of actual accounting practices in the Australian home based on 18 sets of surviving household records identified as exemplars and supplemented by other sources which permit their contextualisation and interpretation.

The findings point to considerable variety in the accounting practices pursued by individuals and families. Household accounting in Australia was undertaken by both women and men of the middle and landed classes whose surviving household accounts were generally found to comprise one element of diverse and comprehensive personal record keeping systems. The findings indicate points of convergence and divergence in relation to the contemporary prescriptive literature and practice.

The paper reflects on the implications of the findings for the notion of the household as a unit of consumption as opposed to production, gender differences in accounting practice and financial responsibility, the relationship between changes in the life course and the commencement and cessation of household accounting, and the relationship between domestic accounting practice and social class.

Investigates the dimensions of accounting information prepared for use in managing non‐corporate pastoral entities in pre‐Federation Western Victoria and the local, time‐specific environmental factors which shaped these dimensions. Based on examinations of 23 sets of surviving business records prepared during 1836‐1900, provides evidence of the structure and usage of pastoral accounting information in an unregulated financial reporting environment. Draws conclusions about the likely impact of cultural, legal and political, professional, educational, economic and other factors as key explanatory variables. Also argues a case for lost relevance based on the evidence of accounting change in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.

This paper explores the historical roots of accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting by analysing the 18th-century Naturalist's Journals of Gilbert White and interpreting them as biodiversity accounts produced by an interested party. The authors aim to contribute to the accounting history literature by extending the form of accounting studied to include nature diaries as well as by exploring historical ecological accounts, as well as contributing to the burgeoning literature on accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting.

The authors’ method involves analysing the content of Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals by producing an 18th-century biodiversity account of species of flora and fauna and then interpretively drawing out themes from the Journals. The authors then provide a Whitean extinction account by comparing current species' status with White's biodiversity account from 250 years ago.

This paper uses Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals as a basis for comparing biodiversity and natural capital 250 years ago with current species' status according to extinction threat and conservation status. Further the paper shows how early nature diary recording represents early (and probably the only) forms of accounting for biodiversity and extinction. The authors also highlight themes within White's accounts including social emancipation, problematisation, aesthetic elements and an example of an early audit of biodiversity accounting.

There are limitations to analysing Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals given that the only available source is an edited version. The authors therefore interpret their data as accounts which are indicative of biodiversity and species abundance rather than an exactly accurate account.

From the authors’ analysis and reflections, the authors suggest that contemporary biodiversity accounting needs to incorporate a combination of narrative, data accounting and pictorial/aesthetic representation if it is to provide a rich and accurate report of biodiversity and nature. The authors also suggest that extinction accounting should draw on historical data in order to demonstrate change in natural capital over time.

Social implications include the understanding gleaned from the authors’ analysis of the role of Gilbert White as a nature diarist in society and the contribution made over time by his Journals and other writings to the development of nature accounting and recording, as well as to one’s understanding and knowledge of species of flora and fauna.

To the authors’ knowledge this is the first attempt to analyse and interpret nature diaries as accounts of biodiversity and extinction.

Beyond the public world of work, the home provides an arena for examining accounting and gender in everyday life. This study aims to examine household accounting in Australia from the early nineteenth to around the mid‐twentieth century.

The study comprises two parts. The first part, as reported in this paper, presents evidence on household accounting as prescribed in the didactic literature in Australia, and evidence of actual accounting practices based on the examination of 76 sets of surviving Australian household records available in public repositories. The second part adopts a microhistorical approach involving the detailed scrutiny of 18 sets of accounting records and relevant biographical and family data on the household accountants involved.

The study indicates that household accounting was an instrument for restraining female consumption, particularly during times of crises, and that accounting in Australian homes focussed on maintaining records of routine transactions as opposed to the preparation of budgets and financial statements. Household accounting in Australia was performed by women and men. The surviving records examined suggest that while areas of financial responsibility were defined by gender there was little evidence of formalised hierarchical accountability between spouses as has been found to be the case in Britain.

The study extends knowledge of household accounting and gender. Most historical investigations on this subject draw on instructional literature. The current investigation also examines accounting practice in the home.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 and its amendment – the Trade and Competitive Act of 1988 – are unique not only in the history of the accounting and auditing profession, but also in international law. The Acts raised awareness of the need for efficient and adequate internal control systems to prevent illegal acts such as the bribery of foreign officials, political parties and governments to secure or maintain contracts overseas. Its uniqueness is also due to the fact that the USA is the first country to pioneer such a legislation that impacted foreign trade, international law and codes of ethics. The research traces the history of the FCPA before and after its enactment, the role played by the various branches of the United States Government – Congress, Department of Justice, Securities Exchange commission (SEC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); the contributions made by professional associations such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICFA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the American Bar Association (ABA); and, finally, the role played by various international organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). A cultural, ethical and legalistic background will give a better understanding of the FCPA as wll as the rationale for its controversy.

This paper considers how archival accounting records may support truth-telling about past atrocities during Australia's frontier wars.

The study examines two colonial accounting records – military muster payrolls and the ledger statements of a local tax fund – used during the British's punitive expeditions against the Aboriginal peoples of Sydney in 1816.

The accounting records reveal new information about the full scale of the campaign, the degree to which the violence was formally endorsed and acts of Aboriginal resistance. However, much of the human toll of the campaign remains obscured by the highly structured, monetary lens of financial records authored and archived by the British colonial regime.

Australia's First Nations have called for greater truth-telling about the frontier wars to enable meaningful reconciliation and political recognition of Indigenous sovereignty. This study highlights the potential role of accounting records as a resource for contemporary truth-telling processes.

The study contributes to the literature about the dark history of accounting by explicating genre features in the content, form and context of archival accounting records, which can both render past atrocities more visible as well as perpetrate invisibilities, ambiguities and silences.

The data expected from the governmental accounting, in which all the budget operations are recorded, and the reports based on these data couldn’t be achieved until recently. To meet the necessities of society, the most important instrument of the modern state aiming to maximize the level of welfare is the taxes collected from the citizens, and the state has responsibilities in front of the society playing a funding source role. Moreover, in order to successfully manage the public administrations, which nowadays have more duties and authorities, it is a necessity to make use of the management information and methods. Thus, the development of public accounting, which refers to the determining, recording, and reporting all the financial operations performed by the state, has become inevitable. Many international regulations, modern accounting systems, and modern approaches have been developed for the public sector. In the present study, it was aimed to emphasize the development and importance of public accounting for the management and administration of the state.

This paper aims to draw on a family business perspective to explore the historic accounting records of an Italian liquorice juice business. The applicability of the three-circle model of family business systems to such an historic context is examined.

Using archival records, the Cassa accounting book of the business is studied. Its transactions are examined to distinguish family and business items over the period from 1875 to 1920.

Through an analysis of the accounting records, the family, ownership and business systems are shown to overlap more than typically expected in a contemporary setting.

Contemporary literature suggests the three-circle model of a family business is relatively static, but it has not been applied to an historic context. This study suggests that the model can be applied in historic studies, but it is not static over time with its elements needing refinement.

The aim of this paper is to focus on the transition from slavery to wage workers in the American South and British West Indies, and the corresponding nature of the reporting and control procedures that were established in both venues, in order to create a disciplined workforce, and establish regular relations between employees and employers. It seeks to explain the differences in labour control practices between the two regions and to discuss the impact on these practices of accounting and other quantitative techniques c.1760-1870. In particular, it aims to consider the central role played by government in the process.

The study forms part of an archival research project, in which the authors have consulted archives in four Southern States (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Carolina), three Caribbean island nations, formerly British colonies (Antigua, Barbados, and Jamaica), and record repositories the length and breadth of Great Britain. The records of the Freedmen ' s Bureau (FB), located in the National Archives, Washington, DC, have been likewise visited. These primary sources have been supported by the extensive secondary literature on slavery and its aftermath.

In the USA, accounting for labour in the transition from slavery was typically ad hoc and inconsistent, whereas in the BWI it was more organised, detailed, and displayed greater uniformity – both within and across colonies. The role of the British Colonial Office (BCO) was crucial here. A range of economic and political factors are advanced to explain the differences between the two locations. The paper highlights the limitations of accounting controls and economic incentives in disciplining labour without the presence of physical coercion in situations where there is a refusal on the part of the workers to cooperate.

There is a relatively small volume of secondary literature comparing US and BWI slavery and its legacy. Likewise, the accounting implications of labour-control practices, during the transition from slavery to freedom, are largely understudied. The research also points to a need to assess the decision-influencing capabilities of management accounting systems in other transitional labour settings.

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.