Purpose: Postmodernist ideas – most particularly those of Foucault but also those of Latour, Derrida and Barthes – have had a much longer presence in accounting research than in other business disciplines. However, in large part, the debates in accounting history and management history,...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a historical account of four unsuccessful merger attempts between Australia’s two major professional accounting bodies over a 30-year period (1969 to 1998), each of which ultimately failed. An analysis of the commonalities and differences...

Purpose: Management history has in the past 15 years witnessed growing enthusiasm for “critical” research methodologies associated with the so-called “historic turn”. This paper aims to argue, however, that the “historic turn” has proved to an “historic wrong turn”, typically...

Purpose – Much research has focused on the reasons for child labor. This paper, in examining the experiences of late nineteenth century Australia seeks to ask the alternate research question: “What are the factors that cause managers to desist from the use of child labor during periods of...

Purpose – The development of the Pacific seaborne coal trade since 1960 has been central to East Asia's economic expansion. In exploring the growth of this trade this paper seeks to understand why Japanese steel mills (JSMs), the world's largest coal importers, used few of the strategies that...

Purpose The aim of this study is to outline principles for the writing of management history. First, it is argued that if management history is to advance, pessimism of both purpose and intellect must be dispelled. Authors must bring with them a sense of how their research leads to better...