Tracing the American concept of stewardship to english antecedents

The contemporary American concept of stewardship is currently being criticised regarding its ability to meet the needs of a changing society. Some critics say that Americans have forgotten stewardship and some infer that it is missing or dead. This paper proposes that before we complete our speculation about the future of the concept of stewardship we need to consider its evolutionary history. A crossnational approach is used to locate the concept in its sociohistorical context. To this purpose, the paper traces the concept of stewardship from 13th century England to the modern American corporation. By identifying how it has evolved differently in America than it did in England, the paper concludes that the American concept is alive and viable in its own unique form. Questions regarding whether the American concept can survive in this form or how it might adapt in the future are left to future research. However, since accounting appears to be stewardship driven, researchers looking for a coherent legal/accounting theory of stewardship may find that evolutionary changes in the social and legal concept of stewardship subsequently lead to changes in accounting theory and procedure.