Academic Cost Accounting from 1920-1950: Alive and Well.

Abstract Johnson and Kaplan (1987) maintain that cost accounting lost relevance after 1920 and offer a variety of reasons for its alleged decline. Among them, they claim that academics privileged financial over management accounting in cost accounting textbooks and course content because the demands for external reports and the requirements of auditors took precedence over internal reporting for managers. They also say that cost accounting innovations cannot be found in the post-1920 scholarly literature until the 1950s. This paper challenges these claims. First, cost accounting education was in no way limited to supporting financial accounting reporting requirements during the period 1920 to 1950. Second, cost accounting education did not stagnate after 1925. The tremendous interest of the academy in distribution costing after 1925 is used as an example of the field's continued vitality. These challenges are supported by textbook evidence.