Editorial

Abstract

The November issue of Accounting History is the last one in 2022. It includes seven research articles, the vale for Professor Hiroshi Okano (Osaka City University, Japan) from Eiichiro Kudo, and the calls for papers of three upcoming Special Issues: ‘Accounting History Research in the Age of Digitalisation’, ‘Accounting for Death: An Historical Perspective’ and ‘Historical Accounting for Enterprise and Society in Africa’. We encourage you to examine these opportunities carefully and to contact the Guest Editors should you need further clarification. Authors drawn from Lebanon, Finland, Canada, France, Portugal, Italy, Australia and the UK have written for this issue, with articles spanning from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. The research articles in this issue provide valuable insights into the varied contexts of financial and management accounting practices. The contexts analysed span from developing countries to a telecommunication giant, and from Canadian colonial settlements to French industrialisation and Catholic religious institutions. Finally, the issue expands the biographical genre through an in-depth exploration of the career and contribution of two renown accounting figures. The first article by Sadaka analyses the challenges of IFRS implementation in an emerging economy such as Lebanon. After the first phase of implementation, characterised by the dominanting influence of global institutions such as the World Bank, Sadaka demonstrates how historical country-specific socio-economic factors have subsequently affected and challenged such implementation. Using a system, society, and dominance (SSD) framework, the author lists such factors as interpersonal relationships, family networks, political connections and sectarian affiliations in private and non-private sectors. These provide the basis for the allocation of resources and jobs in the country. Sadaka identifies the long-rooted influence of two broad political groups as the main reason for the schism over IFRS compliance in Lebanon. He analyses how their divergent social and economic perspectives affect Lebanon’s regulation, education, and accounting professionalisation. The second article by Rautiainen, Järvenpää and Mättö focuses on the shift in accounting practices in Nokia, a Finnish telecommunication corporation, and their historical impacts on shifting perceptions of organisational success and failure. Relying on the framework of institutional work, the authors consider such changes during the rise and fall of Nokia, from the 1990s onwards. During the rise of Nokia, the authors recall the original separation of financial accounting, whose function was progressively integrated into Nokia’s headquarters, and management accounting practices, which were included in core operations and tended to attribute value to the traditional Finnish work ethic and long-term success. The move to US standards, required for Nokia’s NYSE listing, pressured Nokia towards a financial and management accounting convergence to satisfy the Editorial