Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to look at the adoption of double entry bookkeeping at the Royal Treasury, Portugal, on its establishment in 1761 and the factors contributing to this development. The Royal Treasury was the first central government organization in Portugal to adopt...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the circumstances and implications of an episode of accounting change arising from the extended use of accrual accounting within the Australian public sector. The matter under scrutiny is the reporting of the library collections of Australia's...

Purpose – Beyond the public world of work, the home provides an arena for examining accounting and gender in everyday life. This study aims to examine household accounting in Australia from the early nineteenth to around the mid-twentieth century. Design/methodology/approach – The study...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend the work of Carnegie and Walker and report the results of Part 2 of their study on household accounting in Australia during the period from the 1820s to the 1960s. Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts a microhistorical approach...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the historiographic writings for accounting concerned with the craft of researching and writing history, published in the English-language, across a period of 30 years from 1983 to 2012. The study's aim is three-fold: first, to review the...

Purpose – The purpose of this Australian case study, set in the 1960s, is to comprehensively examine the responses of the two major professional accounting bodies to a financial/corporate/regulatory crisis necessitating the defence of the profession's legitimacy. Design/methodology/approach...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to revisit the special issue of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal published in 1996 on the theme “Accounting history into the twenty-first century”, in order to identify and assess the impact of the special issue in shaping developments in...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to a special issue commemorating the 25th anniversary of the publication of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ). Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides the background to the special issue and a...