PATTERNS OF ACCOUNTING HISTORY LITERATURE: MOVEMENTS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Abstract

This paper addresses and updates the challenge made by Carmona [2004] regarding the need to broaden the accounting history literature into periods, settings, and sectors outside those traditionally published in specialist journals. For this purpose, we review three international journals – the Accounting Historians Journal; Accounting, Business & Financial History; and Accounting History – and two national publications – Rivista di Contabilita e Cultura Aziendali (Italy) and De Computis (Spain) – over the period 2000–2008. The results show changes in the publishing patterns of accounting history research. We also explore whether non-Anglo-Saxon researchers have widened the settings, periods, and sectors studied from those of Anglo-Saxon researchers, thus altering the traditional focus of accounting history research.