IEA

Fellowship from October 2010 to June 2011

Research Project: "The merchant accounts and profits in Europe and America between 1750 and 1815 : accounts and correspondence of the house Chaurand."

The project is part of a multidisciplinary program (history, economics, management) financed by the ANR and involving a dozen researchers within several laboratories. This program, whose implementation began on 01/01/2009 and ends on 31/12/2012 will analyze, through their accounts and their connections, how the merchants of the eighteenth century saw their profits and how they developed their strategies, from this perception. To do this, a database allowing quantitative and qualitative treatments, will be formed from the input records and correspondence relating to a dozen archives of French and foreign traders, like the collection Chaurand in Nantes. This database will be made available to the research community at the end of the program.
My participation in this program has two complementary aspects:
- Pursuit of a particular qualification in accounting, history accounting and handling of accounting records;
- The implementation of a proper inquiry, the practices in Nantes compared to other cities and countries and on how merchants perceive not only profit but also the instrument that allows them appreciate it: the accounting tool. "

Biographical elements:

Initially trained in economics, and history of science and technology, Yannick Lemarchand devotes its research to the history of knowledge and management practices, especially the history of accounting techniques. His work raised issues including the origins and conditions of emergence of these tools and their dissemination and their role in the evolution of organizations in relation to the economic, political, social and cultural context.
In recent years he has worked mainly on the modern period, focusing in parallel to public and private management. The first was addressed through an interdisciplinary program devoted to reforms of public accounting in Europe, as part of the construction of the modern State. The second has been addressed through a series of research on transatlantic trade practices in the eighteenth century, the slave trade, conducted in collaboration with Cheryl McWatters (University of Alberta in Edmonton) through the example of trading in Nantes. The project that will be developed during the stay at the IAS is a direct extension of this work.
Yannick Lemarchand participates on the editorial boards of several French and foreign journals: Accounting Business and Financial History, Comptabilité - contrôle - audit, Contabilità e Cultura Aziendale, De Computis. Revista Española de Historia de la Contabilidad, European Accounting Review, Finance - contrôle - stratégie, Histoire et Mesure. Besides his research, he also held various management responsibilities, including management of the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Ange-Guépin at Nantes, from 2005 to 2008.