A Study of Accounting Transition in Early Twentieth Century China: Some Scientific Interpretations

This study examines whether the process and character of accounting transition in China in the early twentieth century resembles Kuhn’s or Lakatos’ defined stages and demarcations. More specifically, four questions are asked. First, was the transition cataclysmic or gradual? On the Kuhnian view, this opens the possibility of an abrupt revolution - a change to a new paradigm, while Lakatos would expect a gradual shift of allegiance to a new programme. In China, the accounting succession was abrupt. Second, was the change absolute or tentative? According to Lakatos degenerating programmes are sometimes revived, but to Kuhn a paradigm once replaced should not reappear. In China’s situation, the old accounting paradigm which had evolved to serve the commercially active pre-industrialisation economy could not revive in the age of industrial modernisation. Third, were the rival systems, the indigenous system and the western modern methodology, in simultaneous existence during the same period? Lakatos asserts that the simultaneous existence of several programmes is the norm, while Kuhn allows only one paradigm at a given time. The accounting transition in China was a linear progression in the course of which the traditional system was superseded by the school of radical reformists. Four, did these rival systems contribute elements to each other’s development? Lakatos believes that rival programmes may contribute elements to each other. Unlike Lakatos, Kuhn’s idea of incommensurability makes it impossible for there to be any real continuity in content from one paradigm to the next. China’s development was analogous to Kuhn’s incommensurability rather than to Lakatos’ inter-contributory proposition. It is fair to conclude that the accounting transition in early twentieth-century China more closely approximated Kuhn’s model than Lakatos’ model.