If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The paper aims to extend research which has sought to explain Britain's early success as an industrial power by identifying the influence of religious doctrine of the Dissenting Protestant churches on the development of accounting practices in the factory. The concern is not with specific accounting practices but with the social and moral environment which provided the incentives and permissions that encouraged late eighteenth century English industrialists to develop the practices that they used. Design/methodology/approach -The paper draws on the highly influential writings of social theorists such Weber, Sombart and Tawney to identify the religious doctrines that both motivated and justified the rational, ideological business practices of prominent businessmen. Findings -The rise of accounting as a powerful tool of control and discipline was significantly assisted by the teaching of the Dissenting Protestant churches on "calling". Religious beliefs provided permissions, justifications and incentives which underpinned the entrepreneurial energies, opportunities and successes of the early industrialists. Accounting could be seen to assume almost the aura and nascent legitimacy of a religious practice, a means of sanctifying practices which were otherwise reviled by social elites. Originality/value -Despite encouragement from accounting researchers for histories of accounting which give greater credence to the reflexivity between accounting and society, this has yet to find a significant presence amongst the searches for beginnings in cost accounting where economic and management factors remain the overwhelming focus. Religious beliefs are shown to have been especially influential in the adoption of accounting practices by early industrialists who were frequently members of the Dissenting Protestant churches.

This paper discusses a role for microhistory in the writing of accounting histories. It begins by discussing the concept of microhistory and its application to accounting research. The paper argues that microhistories can be of great assistance in writing about accounting during periods such as the industrial revolution. The second part of the paper provides an example of a microhistory by discussing an episode involving an embezzlement at Boulton & Watt's Soho Foundry in Birmingham, England. Knowledge of the incident was gleaned from a small bundle of letters found in the Boulton & Watt archive. It is suggested that this incident forms a microhistory that expands our knowledge of accounting in practice at the Foundry.

The emerging subfield of stratification economics is a response to the orthodoxy's resistance to recognizing the role of racial and ethnic disparities and its penchant for adopting cultural explanations for intergroup differences. With this view, the literature on the racial wealth gap and its particular embrace of the Life Cycle Hypothesis (LCH) offers a clear example of this critique at work. Not only is the LCH incapable of explaining why the racial wealth gap is so much larger than the income gap, but its limitations restrict the range of explanations explored. As an alternative, this paper introduces the Wealth Privilege (WP) model. Unlike the LCH, the WP model can incorporate the effects of contemporary racism as well as the systemic sources that are a legacy of several centuries of racialized policies. Using evidence from the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), this article offers empirical corroboration as well. Since the SCF queries households on their attitudes toward saving and investment, this article investigates the extent that cultural differences explain the wealth gap. To limit the problem of skewness, which is inherent in wealth studies, the analysis uses an inverse hyperbolic-sine transformation of household net worth. The OLS regression results show scant support for key features of the LCH while demonstrating the importance of asset ownership and family support, both crucial facets of the WP model. Two different decomposition methods, Blinder - Oaxaca and DiNardo - Fortin - Lemieux, corroborate these conclusions. As wealth is easily transferable across generations, the evidence supports the contention that household wealth serves as a source of economic stratification as it functions to preserve and even widen the racial wealth gap.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to develop a proposal for a new conceptual framework for management control systems (MCS) in R&D units. Design/methodology/approach -The paper is a descriptive study that reviews the control literature and proposes an MCS framework in the light of four key elements: desired ends, actors, control implementation, and control tools. Findings -The study found two sub-elements of desired ends (directional and yardstick) to be complementary in a low level of uncertainty, while directional should be emphasized more in a high level of uncertainty. Five sub-elements of actors are used differently along the levels of uncertainty. The timing and use of formal and informal control types are found to be different regarding the level of uncertainty. Finally, the dimension and the value of control tools are used differently in those two distinctive situations. Research limitations/implications -The paper is limited to a descriptive study that may have further implication for research by using the framework to investigate the MCS applied by R&D units. Practical implications -The four key elements of MCS may be used in practice by developing a detail measure of each element to suit the condition of the unit. Originality/value -The paper is a new way of looking at MCS, broadening the comprehension, and introducing new MCS key elements.

When deciding upon the price to charge for one of their products, the managers of the Soho Foundry in Birmingham placed great reliance upon the data stored in their accounting system. By the last decade of the 18th century, the nature of the steam engine business was changing rapidly and reputation alone was insufficient to attract customers. Also, as more industrialists decided upon steam as a source of power and competition to supply their needs increased, more attention had to be paid to price structures. The increasing standardization of products meant that a price list could be determined. The partners showed some reluctance to come to terms with the pricing issue, insisting that the quality of their product was of more importance than its price. This paper addresses the processes undertaken at the Soho Foundry to establish price lists for engines and parts. It shows that prices were based on the cost of previous machines, this cost being calculated using predetermined rates as shown in the engine books. The paper concludes with the observation that continual reliance on historical data was one of the factors contributing to the firm's loss of its competitive edge.