Report: The fifth Accounting History International Conference

The fifth Accounting History International Conference was held at The Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta, Canada from 9 to 11 August 2007. Judging by the number of paper submissions and delegates, interest in this conference series is growing. There were 97 papers submitted for the parallel sessions.

Subsequent to a doubleblind review process and depending on the ability of authors to attend the conference, 66 of the submitted papers were included in the conference program. Just over 100 delegates attended the conference, representing a total of 18 countries: Canada, the USA, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, England, Scotland, Wales, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Turkey, China and Japan.

A special highlight of the conference was the invited paper presented by Richard Mattessich, "Two-Hundred Years of Accounting Research'.'Another highlight was the third Accounting History Doctoral Colloquium, which was held on 9 August. Nine students from seven countries attended the colloquium. Each of them received feedback on their research from the Doctoral Colloquium Panel, which consisted of NoIa Buhr, Garry Carnegie, Michael Gaffikin, Paul Miranti, Christopher Napier and Lucia Lima Rodrigues. The Doctoral Colloquium is now a standard feature of the Accounting History International Conference series and serves as an excellent opportunity to help develop future accounting history scholars.

The theme of the fifth Accounting History International Conference was "Accounting in Other Places, Accounting by Other Peoples'.' The three plenary papers presented at the conference related to this theme. Lee Parker presented on the topic "Accounting's Latent Scientism: Revisiting Scientific Management Roots'.' Christopher Napier shared his thoughts from his paper, "Other Cultures, Other Accountings? Islamic Accounting from Past to Present'.' Coming from another perspective, Theresa Hammond spoke about "Race and Memory: Pioneering Black Accountants in South Africa and the United States'.'

The conference would not have been possible without the support of our sponsors. Thanks go to our three sponsors: first, the journal, Accounting History, the driving force behind the conference series; second, my home institution, the University of Saskatchewan; and third, the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants who provided financial support. Special thanks go to the Program Chair, Garry Carnegie, and the other members of the Conference Organizing Committee: Jackie Tuck of the University of Ballarat and Lynn Shyluk and Soon Nam Kim of the University of Saskatchewan. Finally, I would like to thank all of those who provided their time and expertise to review conference submissions. Without their efforts the conference program would not have attained the high quality it did.

A special issue of Accounting History dedicated to papers on the conference theme, which have been subject to further development following presentation in Banff, is scheduled to be published in February 2009. The issue promises to highlight some of the papers that best exemplify the theme of the conference.

It was a pleasure to serve as the convenor for the fifth Accounting History International Conference. The Banff Centre proved to be an ideal setting for a most enjoyable and intellectually stimulating conference. I look forward to attending the sixth Accounting History International Conference, which is being convened by Philip Colquhoun of Victoria University of Wellington and will be held in 2010 in Wellington, New Zealand from 18 to 20 August.

AUTHOR_AFFILIATION

Nola Buhr

University of Saskatchewan