phenomenon which sees that human interest also influences the accounting activity. This new phenomena gives a scope to analyze the relation between accounting and many organizational
issues also with the social relation North, 1985.
b. The History of Accounting and The Development of Its Thoughts
Mattesich 1994:5 states that the writing culture recording was recognized since 8000- 3000 BC. Therefore, it is not surprising that the existence of accounting can be traced back to the
time of the Greek and Roman Empire. The historical record proves that there was a work of Roman architecture at the beginning of the Christian era of which the existence was along with a
certain records. The records showed that the value of the work was not only determined by the costs but also the costs after it were reduced by one-eighteenth of it. This practice was continued
every year since the work wall had been built Costouras, 1979 in Sukoharsono, 1995:62. Obviously, those records and concepts are not enough to study the development of accounting
thoughts and concepts. The study needs other relevant evidences so that the accounting history can be discovered and understood well.
In the middle Ages, the first record concerning double entry book keeping system was found in the records of the merchants from Genoa, Italy. During these years 1340s the centre of
trade such as Genoa, Venice, and Bologna had already used the system. Therefore, no wonder that Luca Pacioli, an Italian intellectual, wrote the oldest treatise about double entry book
keeping system by applying his math analysis to explain the system. Luca Pacioli’s book, which was published in 1494 entitled “Summa de arithmatica Geomatria Proportioniet et
Proportionalita”, discusses the double entry book keeping system in detail for the first time.
c. Foucoult and Accounting History Research
The result of Foucoult’s thoughts is a huge concern in the critical tradition of accounting. Walsh and Stewart 1993 explore the practices of managerial accounting by using Foucoult’s
perspective to compare two groups of people. The first group came from the 1700 and another was from 1800. The research supports Foucault’s argument concerning the idea that human is an
individual creature who comes from the emergence of disciplinary mechanism. In a wider context, before the end of the 18
th
century there was no effort to study an individual especially the relation between the accounting calculation and the measures of an individual and group
works. If Walsh and Stewart 1993 focus their research on the factory system in the past to
support Foucault’s perspective, Miller and O’Leary 1987 study another period of time to see why the application of standard cost determination and budgeting became very popular in the
United States during the turnover of the 20
th
century. Their findings support Foucault’s perspective and they also discover the specific dimensions of the period studied at once in which
they may be gone through the researchers’ attention. Faucauldian perspective gives more understanding toward the accounting phenomena as
a disciplinary power form and constitution activity in which it gives an alternative perspective in viewing the emergence and the role of accounting in relation to the organizational scope and the
accounting social. Accounting is not considered as a matter getting through the evolutionary development anymore based on the positivistic point of view. However, it tries to study the
changing of accounting on the basis of the history condition at that time proven as an activity which has a specific interest. Furthermore, it does not merely reflect its context, but also
influences the context.
d. The Existence of Accounting Practice
