Accounting, Management Control and Business Organisation: An Institutionalist Perspective

This text focuses on the questions why does accounting exist, and what contribution does it make to the creation of wealth? These issues are central to economic theory, and in particular the Theory of the Firm. Existing theory's failure to fully address economic problems such as de-industrialization, short-termism and the success of the Japanese firm is also discussed. This text aims to provide a new synthesis of accounting and the theory of the firm through contractual theory and the management control model. Critical insights are given into contemporary economic issues such as the interrelationship between corporate and governance and accounting in the divisionalized firm, the reasons for the dominance of financial control in Anglo-Saxon economies and the consequences for economic development. The theoretical ideas are applied to the UK electronics industry.