Louis D. Brandeis and standard cost accounting: a study of the construction of historical agency

Article Abstract:

Louis D. Brandeis argued during a 1910 Interstate Commerce Commission hearing that US railroads could earn substantial savings by adopting scientific management, and in particular standard costing into their operations. His statement achieved extensive media coverage and helped initiate four years of public absorption with efficiency as a moral imperative and a management technology. This episode demonstrates the historically formulated position of agency occupied in 1910 by Brandeis, a lawyer who eventually became a US Supreme Court justice in 1941. The regulatory environment afforded him an avenue for his accounting-based arguments. Also, the progressive era engendered an accommodating climate for arguments about standard costing. This analysis demonstrates the role of a historically constructed environment and individuals occupying historically constructed positions of agency in championing new accounting discourses.

Judges, History, Biography, Industrial management, Cost accounting, Brandeis, Louis D.

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How to secure your husband's esteem. Accounting and private patriarchy in the British middle class household during the nineteenth century

Article Abstract:

The practice of accounting in the British middle class family and household during the 19th century is examined to gain a better understanding of how this activity has become integrated into the most basic of economic units and the most private of social institutions. Domestic accounting during this period is analyzed in the context of the prevailing ideology of domesticity, household rationalization, domestic labor employment, the danger of insolvency and contemporary household purchasing systems. The findings reveal that accounting became a vital tool for household management and social advancement among the British bourgeoisie of the mid-1800s due to social, cultural economic and religious factors. Accounting became a means for men to assert their dominance and restrict women to domestic roles.

Social aspects, Finance, Accounting and auditing, Accounting, Home economics, Financial management, Households, Middle classes, Middle class

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