Robert Henry Parker, 1932–2016

Bob Parker was a Grand Old Man of academic accounting. He held posts in four countries, helped to resuscitate what is now the British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA) and turned Accounting and Business Research (ABR) into an internationally respected journal. Bob wrote learned papers on a wide range of issues over a very long period, and he influenced many young researchers.

Robert Henry Parker was born in September 1932 in North Walsham, Norfolk. In that small market town, which has a very large ‘wool’ church, he attended the same grammar school as had Horatio Nelson. Perhaps the school fostered a spirit of adventurous travel. In the case of Bob, the first stop was the distant great metropolis to read for an economics degree at University College, then to be articled in a London firm of auditors. He qualified as a chartered accountant in 1958. This was the classic route into UK accounting academe for at least another 20 years, and before qualifying, Bob had already become a part-time teacher at the London School of Economics (LSE).

Not only did Bob escape rural Norfolk but, immediately after qualifying, he took a job in Nigeria with Cassleton Elliott (a legacy firm of KPMG). Less than two years later, he was lecturing at the University of Adelaide. Then, in bewildering succession, he was at the University of Western Australia (UWA), LSE, Manchester Business School, INSEAD in Fontainebleau and the University of Dundee. The pace of change then slowed: Dundee lasted for six years and then Bob sat in the inaugural chair of accounting at the University of Exeter from 1976 until retirement in the 1990s.

Before Exeter, Bob’s posts had sported a wide range of titles, each less plausible than the last: lecturer in commerce (Adelaide), sub-dean of economics and commerce (UWA), reader in management accounting (Manchester), associate professor of finance (INSEAD), and dean of law (Dundee).

In the decades after his full-time posts in Australia, Bob was a frequent visitor to that demi-paradise, especially on lengthy research visits to the University of New South Wales in the 1980s and 1990s. He collaborated with many staff in Australian universities, from Geoff Harcourt in the 1960s, Ronald Ma in the 1980s, through to Garry Carnegie and Richard Morris later. Bob leaves another legacy in Australia: a daughter (Theresa) and granddaughter (Carina), who flew back to Exeter in time to be with him, his ailing wife (Agnelle) and his son (Michael) for his last few weeks.

Bob’s influence on British academe was great. He was one of a small band who, in the 1960s, resuscitated the Association of University Teachers of Accounting (AUTA),¹ which became the British Accounting Association (BAA) and then BAFA. He was chairman of the AUTA in 1977/8. In 1966, he was the founding editor of a journal which eventually became the British Accounting Review. In 1975, four years after it was founded, Bob became the editor (and then joint editor) of ABR for 18 years. He established it as one of the world’s major generalist accounting journals.

Bob’s time in Dundee led to major continuing Scottish contributions: he was the first convenor of the Scottish Committee on Accounting History and then (until 1996) a professorial fellow and member of the research board of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland.

Bob attended the first meeting of the European Accounting Association in Paris in 1978 when the attendance was only about 100.² He was an important presence in the early meetings.

Bob’s many contributions to the literature were mainly in two fields: international aspects of financial reporting, and the history of accountants and accountancy bodies. He published 30 books and 20 chapters in the books of other editors. Several of the books, such as Accounting in Australia – Historical Essays of 1990, contain collected or commissioned papers. Perhaps the most influential such book is Readings in the Concept and Measurement of Income (in 1969 with Geoff Harcourt; and second edition in 1986, with Geoff Whittington added). Bob’s extensive ‘Introduction’ to that book is a masterclass in how to explain a wide and complex subject. Bob’s best seller has been Comparative International Accounting (CIA); first edition in 1981, 13th edition in 2016. Bob’s last publication (in Accounting History (AH)) analyses the development of the subject as reflected in the changing content of CIA.

Bob’s journal papers (some jointly written) spanned 55 years: the first was published in 1961 and the proofs of the last arrived posthumously. The range of content is also remarkable, covering topics such as: the history of the use of discounted cash flow (Journal of Accounting Research, 1968), currency translation practices (Abacus, 1970), international differences in consolidation (ABR, 1977), bookkeeping barter in early Australia (Abacus, 1982), measuring harmonisation (Abacus, 1990), how finance directors understand ‘true and fair’ (Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 1991), finding English words for accounting concepts (Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ), 1994), accounting in The Canterbury Tales (AAAJ, 1999), European languages of account (European Accounting Review, 2001), and the naming of accountancy bodies in the Commonwealth (AH, 2005).

Writing biographies was one of Bob’s special skills. Titles included ‘British men of account’ and ‘Six English pioneers’ (with Jack Kitchen) and there were memorials of David Solomons and Frank Sewell Bray. Bob compiled two books of obituaries, the second with Steve Zeff who considers that Bob ‘had a gift for placing the contributions of others in an insightful societal and professional context’.

Bob’s post-retirement publications were so numerous and distinguished that, by themselves, they would earn a chair: two papers in ABR, two in Accounting, Business and Financial History, four in AH, one in AAAJ, one in Abacus and one in the European Accounting Review. In this period, Bob specialised in explaining the histories of individual accountants and of accountancy bodies around the English-speaking world.

Bob’s many contributions were acknowledged by the BAA’s ‘Distinguished Academic Award’ of 1996 and the American Accounting Association’s ‘Outstanding International Educator’ award of 2003.

Bob had a large number of co-authors and PhD students. For them and others, he was generous with his help. Bob did not shy away from pointing out one’s errors but managed to find a gentle way of doing so. He will be greatly missed. I have recorded a number of detailed recollections about Bob in an informal vale in AH.³

Notes

1. See Parker (1997).

2. See Zeff (2002).

3. Volume 21, November 2016 issue.