Accounting, From Classic Recognitions to Great Expectations

Year 2014, Issue: 6 - Issue: 6, 43 - 69, 01.01.2014

Jean-guy Degos

Abstract

There are over 50 years, in 1951, the theme of the 11th Congress of the
Federation of Chief Executive Accountants held in Bordeaux on 26, 27, May 28, was
notably about: “Accounting, what it is, what it should be, what it can become. “ It
seems that this problem is ongoing. When considering accounting in its deepest roots,
the more conventional double-base or its latest developments based on international
standards, we can ask whether the accounting followed a parallel course to the other
sciences and techno-science or if it situated behind. Despite modern conceptual
frameworks and full of good intentions but the narrow limits, can we not discuss the
Aristotelian framework of accounting to provide a frame of reference wider and more
effective? It has long been opposed the hard sciences and social sciences. In the field
of hard sciences, we use the mathematical language that can make forecasts, and
from this mechanical forecasting, the results are consistent with what was expected.
There is a correspondence between the structure of mathematical language and
structure of technical problems. On the contrary, in the social sciences, there is no
direct connection between language and facts and it’s never easy to predict and
to equate behaviors and emotions of humans. In recent years, researchers have
proposed ways, highways, on which future accounting could find its path. In a book
about the time, E. Klein opposes the space that is the brand and demonstrates the
power of man and time which is the mark of his weakness. Time is also the mark of
a certain weakness of accounting. The space of accounting, by contrast, presents
many opportunities. Accounting standard is almost like Greek tragedy with unity of time, unity of place, unity of action. The multiplicity of actions, complexity, leads to
rupture of the unity of time. The accounting system of thought has some way to do, if
only because many authors do not distinguish between the ontological status of the
nature of income and capital, the epistemological question of the representation, and
methodological question of the extent of income and capital. But if the concepts are
not clearly highlighted and whether their measurement presents difficulties, we cannot
even say they do not exist. In the future, once the sorting is actually done between
theories and approaches multi paradigmatic, perhaps it will be easier to distinguish
the positive scheme of pure science and pragmatic representation of the subject that
professional and academic people are trying to make in their books and in their annual
accounts.

Keywords

Epistemology, Space, History of Accounting, Pragmatic Representations, Social Sciences, Systemsthinking–Ontology, Methodology, AccountingTheories, Positive Theory, Time