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Abstract
This paper analyses the influence exerted by compulsory mechanisms and cognitive and social factors on the adoption and implementation of double-entry bookkeeping. The study focuses on a small, commercial and family owned company located in Spain in the period 1829–1852. As our main conclusion we suggest that the adoption of double-entry bookkeeping in 1851 was influenced more by the managers' self-perception as traders, and the belief (internal and environmental) that the company must employ an accounting method appropriate to its new commercial status, than by State pressures derived from the enactment of a new accounting regulation in 1829.
Acknowledgements
Earlier drafts of this research were presented at the IX Workshop en Contabilidad y Control de Gestión ‘Raymond Konopka’, Burgos, Spain, May 2002; the III Workshop on Accounting in Historical Perspective, Lisbon, Portugal, December 2002; the 26th Annual Congress of the European Accounting Association, Seville, Spain, April 2003; and the 7th IPA Conference, Madrid, July 2003. The authors acknowledge the constructive comments made by the delegates of these conferences. Finally, the authors would like to thank the Accounting, Business and Financial History joint editor, John R. Edwards, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful and insightful comments. This research is funded by the PB 97-1358, SEC2001-2633 and SEJ 366 projects.
Notes
1. The literature uses different terms to refer to this same concept. Thus, while Ranson et al. Citation(1980) refer to it equally as an interpretive or cognitive schema, Sackmann Citation(1992) refers to it as a cognitive culture map. However, the evaluative sentiments, stock of knowledge and systems of belief of Ranson et al. Citation(1980) fit perfectly the recipe, dictionary and axiomatic knowledge, respectively, of Sackmann Citation(1992).
2. A mountainous region in northern Spain some 1,000 km distant from Cádiz.
3. These figures have been calculated from the balance sheets of the company (AHGS, Book 183, Series: Libros Oficiales de Contabilidad).
4. Currently stored in the Archivo Histórico Provincial de Cádiz (Historical Archives of the Province of Cádiz, AHPC).
5. For example, in 1773, according to official data, 44 per cent of the traders established in Cádiz were foreigners (Bustos, Citation1990).
6. Rules that regulated merchants' activities within consulados de comercio jurisdiction.
7. In the words of Braudel referring to the commercial hierarchy in the late eighteenth century (Citation1984, p. 328), ‘the importer–exporter, the merchant, enriched all over the world, becomes a great figure – in a totally different class to the “middling sort” of traders, who are content with national trading’.
8. According to Hernández-Esteve Citation(1992) this period began in 1737 and lasted almost throughout the nineteenth century.
9. The evidence analysed by Petit Citation(1979) refers to the formation deeds of these firms.
10. Hernández-Esteve Citation(2000) refers to the books of traders whose disputes were settled by this Consulado de Comercio.
11. Companies constituted by Royal Order during the eighteenth century. They enjoyed the privilege of trading with a certain type of overseas merchandise or colony, part of their capital belonging to the monarch himself. They owned several factories spread out over Spain and America, so that their profit and loss accounts required the integration of accounting data supplied by each one of these (Gárate, Citation1995).
12. Quoted in Vlaemminck (1961): Luque y Leiva, Citation1774; Jócano y Madaria, Citation1793; Christianes y Cañedo, Citation1825, Citation1838; Brost, Citation1825, Citation1845.
13. To be more precise, the first expedition was to Marseille (letter from the traders Rivas and Cantallops, Barcelona, 2 January 1849, Caja: 838, Section: Nacional, Series: Correspondencia, AHGS).
14. Employee and partner of the Almacén de Agüera.
15. In the context and period under analysis, for a person to ride on horseback (llevar caballo) was a sign of high social and economic standing.
16. Neither in the accounting books, nor in other qualitative data such as the private correspondence, is there any information about the kind or value of fixed assets of the company.
17. A port located in eastern Spain.
18. This book has the appearance of a ledger, although confined to personal accounts. Interestingly, it recorded operations in the same way as the ledger illustrated in , which belonged to one of those companies that established relations with Almacén de Agüera in 1846.