Article Title
Accounting history and the emperor's new clothes: A response to Knowing more as knowing less?...
Other Form of Name
Tyson, Thomas N. (Thomas Neal), 1948-
Publication Date
2000
Abstract
Hoskin and Macve (H&M) continue to accredit certain events in the early 1840s as enabling the creation of norm-based accounting and its use to control labor and improve productivity at the Springfield Armory (SA). Although critics have refuted H&M's interpretation of these events and reproached their use of inflated language, H&M maintain their unique perspective with undiminished fervor. This rejoinder further questions the validity of H&M's perspective of U.S. accounting history. It identifies the many conventional business historians who refute it and emphasizes that no other evidence has been presented to indicate that norm-based accounting was ever employed in the U.S. before the early 1900s. It also describes how H&M have tried to bolster their position by citing several contemporary and more critical scholars who in fact refute it. More substantively, the paper emphasizes that the core debate between H&M and their critics is not simply over the timing of particular events at SA. Rather, it centers on the nature of historical evidence and the distinction between history and historicism.
Recommended Citation
Tyson, Thomas N.
(2000)
"Accounting history and the emperor's new clothes: A response to Knowing more as knowing less?...,"
Accounting Historians Journal: Vol. 27
:
Iss.
1
, Article 8.
Available at:
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_journal/vol27/iss1/8