Business history and accounting history: a neighbourly relationship

Abstract

As business history and accounting history have developed as distinct academic disciplines, so potential synergy has grown between them. The range of awareness of accounting historians gains from knowledge of the context within which accounting techniques evolved and were put to use. Business historians, in their turn, have much to gain from applying modern financial accounting concepts retrospectively to surviving quantitative data and much to learn about the dangers of misrepresentation (particularly from published data). A further dimension which needs much more research is the contemporary use of management accounting data and concepts as tools for decision making: the published literature of accounting and legally required published annual accounts are not an accurate guide to the diffusion and use of these techniques.