The ‘‘surprise’’ element of many corporate failures during calamitous periods typically
results in criticisms of accountants and auditors and their principles, practices and
standards and typically leads to governance reforms including those related to the
preparation and audit of corporate financial reports. Set in Australia, this historical study
presents the results of an examination of four rounds of heavy and unexpected corporate
collapses across a number of sectors which occurred in the early 1890s, early 1960s, late
1980s/early 1990s and the early 2000s. The longitudinal study examines the interplay of
corporate collapse, accounting failure and governance change within these periods and
seeks to elucidate the continued implication of accounting in corporate scandals despite
the governance reforms that were introduced after each calamitous period in order to
alleviate or curtail future failures. The study applies an investigatory framework for
analysis purposes which draws upon Clarke’s (2004, 2007) perspective on cycles of crisis
and regulation, Jones’s (2011a) model of the potential for accounting failure and the
scholarly literature on legal conceptions of rule effectiveness.