Accounting enlightenment in the age of reason

Abstract

Scholars have in the past explored accounting transformations by appealing to a variety of theoretical positions, including notions of functional imperatives and economic ideals.In contrast, accounting change is analysed here as arising from a dynamic of both strategic pursuits and indeterminate processes. The concern is especially with the role of individuals' personal proclivities and socio-cultural priorities as well as the conditioning influence of wider discursive categories on accounting.The vehicle for the study is provided by information on accounting controls within a French company during the eighteenth century and part of the nineteenth century which represents a time perifid_ayer which French society underwent important political, social and eetfnoinic changes.The essay specifically considers the social pursuits of bourgeois and noble shareholders and the institutional changes in economic thinking from mercantilism to economic liberalism.The analysis suggests that a confluence of inter al and external forces, some strategic and others circumstantial, shape organizational accounting. Further, although accounting can be seen to be conditioned by social effects, certain facets of social change can themselves be made more visible by examining shifts in accounting practices.