What is it about?
This article broadens research on accounting and the military and the emergence of internal control systems and labour processes in the first half of the nineteenth century. Most historical research on accounting and the military has focused on British Navy or Army services. We extend this to show how internal controls in place at the time for the Royal Engineers were transferred to civilian workers during the early operation of the Rideau Canal. Achieving effective internal control depends both on disciplining individuals responsible for implementing controls and having them discipline themselves to behave in a manner consistent with internal control objectives.
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Why is it important?
Our first contribution is our identification of the transfer of control practices from the military to civilian workers in a non-war period. Our second contribution is our explicit focus on the Royal Engineers, which extends the work on accounting and the military to this branch of the British military and confirms ‘the importance of the role of military engineers in management history’ (Lemarchand, 2002: 26). We also assess a broad system of internal control practices, including the general control environment and specific control activities from an historical perspective.
Perspectives
The microhistory of the early operations of the Rideau Canal’s Isthmus lockstation provides evidence that internal controls, inscriptions, calculative practices, narratives and numbers were used to discipline the canal’s operations and employees from the beginning! The microhistory of the early operations of the Rideau Canal’s Isthmus lockstation provides evidence that internal controls, inscriptions, calculative practices, narratives and numbers were used from afar to maintain discipline over the canal’s operations and its employees.
Bruce McConomy
Wilfrid Laurier University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Internal controls, labour processes and work at the Isthmus Lockstation, Rideau Canal, 1832–1854: Discipline and governmentality at a distance, Accounting History, August 2021, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/10323732211028366.
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