ABSTRACT
At various times, the leadership in accounting thought fell to different countries or language areas. During the first half of the twentieth century this leadership was claimed by Germany (for evidence, see section 3.8), just as it was transferred in its second half to the English language area. At a first glance one might have expected Great Britain with its advanced industrial, commercial and financial status, and an unmatched tradition of great economists (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, William S. Jevons, John Stewart Mill and Alfred Marshall) – to take the accounting lead in the early twentieth century. Yet, perhaps the British tradition of training lawyers and accountants in actual practice (rather than at universities) prevented this. Add to this the disdain of many economists and other scholars for commerce and accounting, and you obtain an explanation (cf. Napier 1996).2
