Doctoral research [1975, Vol. 2, nos. 1-4]

              DOCTORAL RESEARCH
Hans
Johnson, Editor UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO
Research on accounting history appearing in doctoral disserta-tions seldom receives much coverage in the scholarly literature. This deficiency is no doubt caused by many factors, but lack of publication outlet should not be one of them. It is the purpose of this column to provide insight into research completed during the past two years which will be of benefit to accounting historians. The number of dissertations written in this area is relatively small in comparison with the current thrust of graduate research. Neverthe-less, sufficient material does exist to provide the historian with new sources, ideas, and research methods which, hopefully, will stimu-late additional study and enable one to be more efficient and thorough in approach. What follows are three recent works on or related to accounting history.
The Behavioral Implications of the Stewardship Concept and Its Effects on Financial Reporting (U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1973, 260 pp.) by Rosita Chen includes an historical review of the development and transformation of management's stewardship re-sponsibilities. Her research "reveals that the stewardship concept is closely related to the concepts of property and ownership . . ." and "has its religious origins in the imposition of responsibilities to society (primary) and to the corporate owners (secondary)." From research utilizing library and survey techniques, it is concluded that two sets of management reports are needed—social reports to satisfy primary responsibilities and financial reports to satisfy sec-ondary responsibilities.
Product Costing Under Conditions of Idle Plant Capacity (U. of Southern California, 1975, 236 pp.) by Edwin Bartenstein contains historical background material dealing with cost accounting in gen-eral and idle facilities costs in particular. Chapter five is of most in-terest as it traces the literary contributions in the field from 1887