Management Accounting Research , 1997, 8, 75 – 101 Market pressures and the development of costing practice: the emergence of uniform costing in the U.K. printing industry F. Mitchell* and S. P. Walker* Today, uniform cost accounting schemes are no longer in vogue. However in the early part of this century they were a salient feature of costing development both in the U.K. and the U.S.A. This paper is concerned with an archival-based study of the earliest and most enduring of the U.K. uniform costing systems—that developed for the printing industry. The focus is not simply on the nature of the costing scheme but on the key factors which initiated and shaped its development. The role of the emergent trade association for the industry and the market (both factor and product) pressures of the time are identified as contingencies associated with the creation and design of the uniform costing system. The use of the new costing system as an informal basis of cartelisation is also explored. The inherent dif ficulties of successfully pursuing cartelisation in the printing sector provide a rationale for the eventual problems which the association experienced in achieving adoption of the costing system by its members. The paper therefore provides a historical analysis of the dynamics of one aspect of management accounting development. ÷ 1997 Academic Press Limited Key words: costing; uniform costing; costing history; printing industry. 1. Introduction Within a contingency theory framework the market environment has been con- sistently accorded prominence as an explanator of inter- and intra-organizational dif ferences in management accounting (Gordon and Miller, 1976; Hayes, 1977; Waterhouse and Tiessen, 1978; Jones, 1985). Contingency theory suggests the existence of an association between certain market characteristics such as predic- tability and competitiveness and the design of internal accounting systems. However the creation, development and nature of this association lack specificity in the theory. For example, the range and the operational definition of contingent variables, such as an organization’s market context, have proved problematic and the theory’s practical prescriptions have reflected a high level of generality * University of Edinburgh. Received 23 June 1995; accepted 24 June 1996. 1044–5005 / 97 / 010075 + 27 $25.00 / 0 / mg960034 ÷ 1997 Academic Press Limited