The emergence of the accounting function in France.

Summary This thesis attempts to understand why and how the accounting function was created in French companies. This research is based on case studies, first accounting and then management literature, and on secondary sources. First, we recall that accounting was kept in the large companies of the 18th and early 19th centuries without there being an autonomous accounting function. The contrast is eloquent between a fairly elaborate technique that was disseminated in a very disparate way and a small number of accounting personnel. In a second step, we will highlight a break in accounting knowledge from the beginning of the 19th century. Based on the rise in the number of bankruptcies, it gradually acquired sufficient legitimacy to become normative, allowing the appearance of institutions that it legitimized: teaching and accounting associations, the professional press, and the liberal professions of accountants and consulting engineers. In one way or another, they contributed to the establishment, development and inevitability of the accounting function as a mode of organization of accounting in large companies. Finally, we define the accounting function. These are obviously intellectual (accounting) and material (mechanization, loose-leaf, etc.) techniques. But it is also a multiplication of functions where a more and more elaborate division of labor is invented. Finally, the accounting function is the place where organization takes on its full importance through the problems of space, time and structure.