10th World Congress of Accounting Historians

Citation

(2003), "10th World Congress of Accounting Historians", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 16 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/aaaj.2003.05916daa.003

10th World Congress of Accounting Historians

One - two - three: One conference - two locations - three themes?

The 10th World Congress of Accounting Historians will meet in the USA with a dual venue of St Louis, MO, and Oxford, MS, from August 1-5, 2004. The Congress will commence in St Louis on 1 August to celebrate the centenary of the first International Congress of Accountants that was held in St Louis in 1904 as a part of the World's Fair commemorating the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark Expedition. Sessions will be held at the St Louis Mercantile Library, which was founded in 1846. The headquarters hotel will be the Renaissance Airport Hotel. The Congress will then move by air-conditioned motor coaches to Oxford, MS, on 3 August to give delegates an opportunity to visit the National Library of the Accounting Profession at the University of Mississippi. The Ole Miss Library is the largest accountancy library in the world. The Alumni House Hotel will be the Congress headquarters. There will be activities during the motor coach trip devoted to accounting history topics, such as featured speakers and videotapes. After the Congress, delegates may proceed to Orlando, FL, for the American Accounting Association meetings. It may be most convenient to continue your post-Congress air travel from nearby Memphis International Airport.

Papers are invited on any accounting history topic. Papers that address any of the three congress themes are particularly desired. The three congress themes are:

1. 1.

   International Congresses of Accountants

2. 2.

   Accounting for Transportation and Financial Industries

3. 3.

   Archival-Based Accounting Research

International Congresses of Accountants

Since 2004 marks the centenary of the first International Congress of Accountants in St Louis, a major theme of the 10th World Congress of Accounting Historians is scholarship on the 16 International Congresses of Accountants, the nine International Congresses of Accounting Educators, and the nine preceding World Congresses of Accounting Historians. There is a need to increase the relatively limited scholarship about each of these congresses. The dates and sites of these previous congresses are:

International Congresses of Accountants: 1904    St Louis 1926    Amsterdam 1929    New York 1933    London 1938    Berlin 1952    London 1957    Amsterdam 1962    New York 1967    Paris 1972    Sydney 1977    Munich 1982    Mexico City 1987    Tokyo 1992    Washington 1997    Paris 2002    Hong Kong

World Congresses of Accounting Historians: 1970    Brussels 1976    Atlanta 1980    London 1984    Pisa 1988    Sydney 1992    Kyoto 1996    Kingston 2000    Madrid 2002    Melbourne

The International Congresses of Accounting Educators started in 1962 and were conducted just before or after the International Congresses of Accountants, either in the same city or nearby. Leadership of the IAAER (International Association for Accounting Education and Research) will assist in reviewing papers for this theme. Some examples of possible paper topics include:

1. 1.

   Examination of a Specific Congress;

2. 2.

   Continuity and Discontinuity of the Congresses;

3. 3.

   Concept of International Congresses;

4. 4.

   Key Players at Each Congress (Biographies);

5. 5.

   Seminal Papers;

6. 6.

   Splitting the Congresses in 1962;

7. 7.

   Continuing Themes and Topics Across the Years; and

8. 8.

   International Accounting Standards Movement. Accounting for transportation and financial industries

As the Gateway to the West, St Louis is an appropriate venue for research on accounting for railroads, canals, riverboats, stagecoaches, airlines, and automobiles. The Mercantile Library is also a repository of several transportation collections. Thus, the Congress will highlight papers dealing with transportation-related industries throughout the world. Papers can include analyses of financial statements, accounting innovations, and the people who played a role in the development of transportation accounting. Similarly, St Louis has historically been a financial center for western development, so histories related to accounting for all types of financial institutions will be a focus of the Congress.

Archival-based accounting research

Because the library at the University of Mississippi is a treasure trove of accounting archival records, one of the Congress themes will be to emphasize archival-based research. Such research can be based on any type of organization. Examples include analyses of accounting innovations, diffusion of accounting innovations, impact of the environment (such as war, depression, or competition) on accounting, impact of accounting on the environment, and examples of company histories based on accounting records.

In addition to papers on the three Congress themes, papers on other topics of accounting history are also welcome.

The 10th World Congress is sponsored by the Academy of Accounting Historians. The co-conveners of the Congress are Richard Vangermeersch of the University of Rhode Island, and Dale L. Flesher of the University of Mississippi. Manuscripts for review should be sent to the following address:

Dr Dale L. Flesher, Patterson School of Accountancy, University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677. E-mail: acdlf@olemiss.edu

Papers may be submitted in either hard copy or electronic format (electronic submissions should be in either Word or WordPerfect format). All papers should be submitted in English. Special consideration will be accorded those papers prepared by scholars who use English as a second language so as to facilitate the broadest acceptance and presentation of materials. The Congress program will focus around the best papers received. All papers will be double-blind refereed and, subject to consent, the accepted papers will be published as refereed Congress Proceedings on the Congress Web site. A hard-copy volume of abstracts will also be distributed.

The deadline for submissions is February 28, 2004. Earlier submissions are encouraged.