Accounting has changed radically in China over the last 30 years, a transformation which is associated with one of the most astonishing episodes of economic development witnessed in modern times. Most researchers of accounting in China focus their attention on contemporary business accounting or...

This paper aims to aid our understanding of the emergence of accounting as a control instrument in complex proto-industrial settings, through its perceived capacity of mirroring the production process. The paper starts off from an archival document, the 1586 deliberation by the Venetian Senate,...