Accounting and accountability practices in the obraje of San Ildefonso of Quito: An eighteenth century productive proto-capitalist model

Roberto Rossi*, Alan Sangster

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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Abstract

The Enlightenment brought a new mercantilist discourse that stimulated new technologies of management to optimise company performance, rendering workers and production phases visible and accountable. This spread to the colonies, including Ecuador. This article uses a governmentality framework to present a case study of the Hacienda of San Ildefonso (in present-day Ecuador). Within the Hacienda, an obraje (textile workshop) was established for textile manufacturing, replacing the previous putting-out system. The obraje was based on division of labour (skilled and unskilled) involving vertical integration of the business in a proto-capitalist model. The integration of these functions within the Hacienda required the adoption of new practices of accounting to obtain more accurate control of production and workers and facilitate control at a distance. This article contributes to the literature on accounting by examining the emergence of these new practices in a unique production system developed across all Spanish America from the beginnings of its colonisation.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)58-89
Number of pages32
JournalAccounting History
Volume28
Issue number1
Early online date15 Aug 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Keywords

  • accounting and accountability
  • eighteenth century
  • manufacture
  • obraje
  • Quito

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