Abstract Since its inception, accounting has had a dependency relationship with other disciplines. Accounting education has developed, as a part of business administration and therefore, this has been the intellectual environment within which accounting thought has been incubated. The importance of this environmental setting can be seen by looking at the contributions to accounting theory of Australian academicians who are usually much more a part of economics departments than of schools of business as compared to the United States. This environmental factor is important in looking ahead to future developments in accounting theory. Four developments in business administration promise significant changes for the environment within which accounting theory will be developed and research will be carried on. Business administration has changed from an emphasis on description of business practice to a more analytical discipline where great attention is given to the underlying concepts and real attempts are being made to construct the practical models. The underlying basic discipline of Economics, which has been the primary base for theoretical models in the past, has been partially supplanted by the behavioral sciences, and it has been supplemented by greater attention to mathematical models. The economic goals, which were implicitly, or explicitly the almost exclusive objectives of business administration have been expanded to include broad society goals. The study of business administration is being expanded to a general study of administration for all types of organizations.
John T. Wheeler (Thu,) studied this question.