IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/acbsfi/v14y2004i3p317-338.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The development of management accounting in UK clearing banks, 1920-70

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Billings
  • Forrest Capie

Abstract

There is a perception that, in the British banks which dominated the industry for much of the twentieth century, management accounting was limited in scope and contributed to a general inefficiency in these institutions. Various official reports published from the 1960s until very recently have reinforced this view. However, some authors have argued that the banks were more sophisticated in their management than such criticisms would imply. This paper investigates the role, development and limitations of management accounting in the sector, drawing on archival evidence and relating this to the more general development of management accounting. In advancing our understanding, evidence is found to support both views.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Billings & Forrest Capie, 2004. "The development of management accounting in UK clearing banks, 1920-70," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 317-338.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:acbsfi:v:14:y:2004:i:3:p:317-338
    DOI: 10.1080/0958520042000277793
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0958520042000277793
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0958520042000277793?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthews, Derek & Anderson, Malcolm & Edwards, John Richard, 1998. "The Priesthood of Industry: The Rise of the Professional Accountant in British Management," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198289609.
    2. Capie, Forrest & Billings, Mark, 2001. "Profitability in English banking in the twentieth century," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(3), pages 367-401, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bernardo Batiz-Lazo & Masayoshi Noguchi, 2011. "Accounting for dominance and submission: Disciplining building societies with accounting-based regulation, circa 1960," Discussion Paper Series DP2011-34, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    2. Tharusha N. Gooneratne & Zahirul Hoque, 2013. "Management control research in the banking sector," Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 10(2), pages 144-171, June.
    3. repec:dau:papers:123456789/2431 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fiona Anderson-Gough & Christopher Grey & Keith Robson, 2002. "Accounting professionals and the accounting profession: linking conduct and context," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 41-56.
    2. Walker, Stephen P., 2000. "Benign sacerdotalist or pious assailant. The rise of the professional accountant in British management," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 313-323, April.
    3. Masayoshi Noguchi & John Richard Edwards, 2004. "Accounting Principles, Internal Conflict and the State: The Case of the ICAEW, 1948–1966," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 40(3), pages 280-320, October.
    4. Graham Francis & Clare Minchington, 1999. "Quantitative skills: is there an expectation gap between the education and practice of management accountants?," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 301-319.
    5. Derek Matthews & Michael Peel, 2003. "Audit fee determinants and the large auditor premium in 1900," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 137-155.
    6. Bholat, David & Lastra, Rosa & Markose, Sheri & Miglionico, Andrea & Sen, Kallol, 2016. "Non-performing loans: regulatory and accounting treatments of assets," Bank of England working papers 594, Bank of England.
    7. Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo, 2017. "Between Novelty and Fashion: Risk Management and the Adoption of Computers in Retail Banking," Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, in: Korinna Schönhärl (ed.), Decision Taking, Confidence and Risk Management in Banks from Early Modernity to the 20th Century, pages 189-207, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Noguchi, Masayoshi & Edwards, John Richard, 2008. "Harmonising intergroup relations within a professional body: The case of the ICAEW," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 123-147.
    9. Fabio Braggion & Lyndon Moore, 2013. "How insiders traded before rules," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(4), pages 565-584, June.
    10. Stephen Walker, 1999. "Introduction," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 1-6.
    11. Nicolas Berland & Trevor Boyns, 2002. "The development of budgetary control in France and Britain from the 1920s to the 1960s: a comparison," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 329-356.
    12. Derek Matthews, 2002. "The use of the postal questionnaire in accounting history research," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 113-129.
    13. John Edwards & Malcolm Anderson & Roy Chandler, 2005. "How not to mount a professional project: the formation of the ICAEW in 1880," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 229-248.
    14. John Edwards & Roy Chandler & Malcolm Anderson, 1999. "The ‘public auditor’: an experiment in effective accountability," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 183-197.
    15. McPhail, Ken & Paisey, Catriona & Paisey, Nicholas J., 2010. "Class, social deprivation and accounting education in Scottish schools: Implications for the reproduction of the accounting profession and practice," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 31-50.
    16. Cooper, David J. & Robson, Keith, 2006. "Accounting, professions and regulation: Locating the sites of professionalization," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 31(4-5), pages 415-444.
    17. SAKO Mari & KUBO Katsuyuki, 2019. "Professionals on Corporate Boards: How do they affect the bottom line?," Discussion papers 19010, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    18. David Bholat & Rosa M. Lastra & Sheri M. Markose & Andrea Miglionico & Kallol Sen, 2018. "Non-performing loans at the dawn of IFRS 9: regulatory and accounting treatment of asset quality," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(1), pages 33-54, January.
    19. Carlos Ramirez, 2013. "‘We are being Pilloried for Something, We Did Not Even Know We Had Done Wrong!’ Quality Control and Orders of Worth in the British Audit Profession," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(5), pages 845-869, July.
    20. Marc Flandreau & Geoffroy Legentilhomme, 2022. "Cyberpunk Victoria: The credibility of computers and the first digital revolution, 1848–83," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1083-1119, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:acbsfi:v:14:y:2004:i:3:p:317-338. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RABF21 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.