Introduction 1. Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle 2. Images of Relationship 3. Concepts of Self and Morality 4. Crisis and Transition 5. Women's Rights and Women's Judgment 6. Visions of Maturity References Index of Study Participants General Index

In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA (Harvard University Press) 1982.

Part I. Experimental Studies: 2. Experiment in psychology 3. Experiments on perceiving III Experiments on imaging 4-8. Experiments on remembering: (a) The method of description (b) The method of repeated reproduction (c) The method of picture writing (d) The method of serial reproduction (e) The method of serial reproduction picture material 9. Perceiving, recognizing, remembering 10. A theory of remembering 11. Images and their functions 12. Meaning Part II. Remembering as a Study in Social Psychology: 13. Social psychology 14. Social psychology and the matter of recall 15. Social psychology and the manner of recall 16. Conventionalism 17. The notion of a collective unconscious 18. The basis of social recall 19. A summary and some conclusions.

Remembering. A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, Cambridge (University Press) 1964.

Takes as its departure point the criticism of Guthrie and Parker by Arnold and the Tinker et al. critique of Gray et al. Following an extensive review of the corporate social reporting literature, its major theoretical preoccupations and empirical conclusions, attempts to re‐examine the theoretical tensions that exist between “classical” political economy interpretations of social disclosure and those from more “bourgeois” perspectives. Argues that political economy, legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory need not be competitor theories but may, if analysed appropriately, be seen as alternative and mutually enriching theories from alternative levels of resolution. Offers evidence from 13 years of social disclosure by UK companies and attempts to interpret this from different levels of resolution. There is little doubt that social disclosure practice has changed dramatically in the period. The theoretical perspectives prove to offer different, but mutually enhancing, interpretations of these phenomena.

Corporate social and environmental reporting

Mainstream accounting is grounded in a common set of philosophical assumptions about knowledge, the empirical world, and the relationship between theory and practice. This particular world-view, with its emphasis on hypothetico-deductivism and technical control, possesses certain strengths but has restricted the range of problems studied and the use of research methods. By changing this set of assumptions, fundamentally different and potentially rich research insights are obtained. Two alternative world-views and their underlying assumptions are elucidated-the interpretive and the critical. The consequences of conducting research within these philosophical traditions are discussed via a comparison between accounting research that is conducted on the "same" problem but from two different perspectives. In addition, some of the difficulties associated with these alternative perspectives are briefly dealt with. The history of thought and culture is, as Hegel showed with great brilliance, a changing pattern of great liberating ideas which inevitably turn into suffocating straightjackets, and so stimulate their own destruction by new emancipatory, and at the same time, enslaving conceptions. The first step to understanding of men is the bringing to consciousness of the model or models that dominate and penetrate their thought and action. Like all attempts to make men aware of the categories in which they think, it is a difficult and sometimes painful activity, likely to produce deeply disquieting results. The second task is to analyse the model itself, and this commits the analyst to accepting or modifying or rejecting it and in the last case, to providing a more adequate one in its stead. [Berlin, 1962, p. 191 SINCE the late 1970s there have been signs of unease among academics about the state and development of accounting research. In 1977 the American Accounting Association's (AAA) Statement on Accounting Theory and Theory Acceptance concluded that there was no generally accepted theory of external reporting. Instead, there was a proliferation of paradigms that offered only limited guidance to policy makers. In addition, the Committee was pessimistic that a dominant consensus could The author would like to acknowledge the continual support of Tony Lowe and the helpful comments of Ray Chambers, David Cooper, Anthony Hopwood, Richard Laughlin, Ken Peasnell, Tony Tinker, Murray Wells, David Williams, participants at a Sydney University Research Seminar, and the anonymous reviewers of this journal. Wai Fong Chua is a Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Manuscript received September 1984. Revisions received August 1985 and February 1986. Accepted March 1986.

Radical Developments in Accounting Thought

Various rationales have been advanced to explain the phenomenon of corporate social reporting. Among these has been legitimacy theory which posits that corporate disclosures are made as reactions to environmental factors and in order to legitimise corporate actions. This paper reports the results of an historical analysis of social disclosures in 100 years of annual reporting by a dominant corporation in the Australian mining/manufacturing industry. A variable but significant pattern of social reporting is identified and compared with an earlier study of social reporting by US Steel. The results of this study fail to confirm legitimacy theory as the primary explanation for social reporting in the Australian case.

Corporate Social Reporting: A Rebuttal of Legitimacy Theory

“Positive”, “descriptive” and “empirical” theories are frequently promoted as being more realistic, factual and relevant than normative approaches. This paper argues that “positive” or “empirical” theories are also normative and value-laden in that they usually mask a conservative ideological bias in their accounting policy implications. We argue that labels such as “positive” and “empirical” emanate from a Realist theory of knowledge; a wholly inadequate epistemological basis for a social science. We use an alternative philosophical position (of Historical Materialism) together with a historical review of the concept of value to illustrate first, the partisan role played by theories and theoreticians in questions concerning social control, social conflict and social order; second, the ideologically conservative underpinnings of positive accounting theories; and last, some indications of alternative (radical) approaches to accounting policy.

Barbara D. Merino

Papers

The normative origins of positive theories: Ideology and accounting thought

Disclosure regulation and public policy a sociohistorical reappraisal

A history of accountancy in the United States : the cultural significance of accounting

The conflict between IAS disclosure requirements and the secretive culture in Egypt

A History of Accounting in America: An Historical Interpretation of the Cultural Significance of Accounting