Scrutinising the Armstrong Thesis on Accounting Controls

The purpose of this paper is to extend the presently limited critique of the Armstrong thesis on the rise of accounting controls and of the UK accountancy profession. The paper has been conceived of as an attempt to demonstrate that critical accounting researchers are prepared to subject their own literature to the same degree of scrutiny as they pursue elsewhere. In this respect, it is an exercise in helping to persuade those outside of the critical accounting project of the integrity of the work which is being carried out by those associated with it. The paper is in four sections. The first provides a brief outline of the main features of the critical accounting project. This is followed by an exposition of the Armstrong thesis as it was presented in a several papers published in the middle and later 1980s. A review of the main issues raised in the two most substantial commentaries on the Armstrong thesis published to date forms the third section of the paper. In the final and longest section of the paper, a number of difficulties with the Armstrong thesis which would benefit from further enquiry, are identified and discussed.