A Postmodern Accounting Theory: An Institutional Approach

Description

If accounting is a means of communicating information for decision-making, then any attempt to define accounting must draw upon scholarly knowledge of communication and decision-making. This means understanding accounting as a professional jargon, a language, and also as a social and psychological object that influences individual and collective behavior. Only when all of these aspects are accounted for can we hope to achieve a truly descriptive, rather than normative, accounting theory that will stand up to the rigors of academic inquiry. Here Gaétan Breton provides a comprehensive overview of what accounting really is, not just what it is presumed to be for the purposes of ordinary, day-to-day, practicality-oriented accounting courses. Drawing upon frameworks employed in the human sciences--including those used in sociology, psychology, the communication sciences, and decision theories--Breton builds a multi-faceted theory of accounting. He explains why it should be conceived as a fundamentally social activity, one that puts preparers of financial statements in contact with users--with the state, shareholders, stakeholders, and citizens--in order to help them make economic decisions based on financial information. It is from this position that he analyzes both the behavior of preparers of financial statements (who only relate financial situations) and the behavior of users (in their own analysis, understanding, and decisions). The result is a groundbreaking move towards the first science of accounting widely acceptable within academic circles. For the fundamental questions it poses to the very heart of accounting studies, this book is a must-read for researchers and practitioners as well as teachers and undergraduate students of accounting. Cover A POSTMODERN ACCOUNTING THEORY A POSTMODERN ACCOUNTING THEORY:AN INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH Copyright Table of Contents List of Figures List of Tables About the Author Foreword Acknowledgments 1. Introduction SECTION 1: THEORIES AND ACCOUNTING 2. Theories and Schools of Thought 2.1 “Economics” as a Science 2.2 Some Considerations About Mathematics and Sciences 2.3 The Social Representations 2.4 The Businessman as the New Leading Social Figure 2.5 Summary Questions Themes to Be Developed Further 3. The Traditional Vision of Accounting Theory 3.1 Wolk, Francis, and Tearney 3.2 Kam 3.2.1 The Spatial Representation of Accounting 3.2.2 Accounting as Evidence 3.2.3 A “Natural” Positivist 3.3 Repeated as a Mantra 3.4 Recent Developments 3.5 Assumptions, Principles, and the Like 3.5.1 Business Entity 3.5.2 Going Concern 3.5.3 Stable Monetary Unit 3.5.4 Accounting Periods and Matching 3.5.5 Historical Cost 3.5.6 Money Measurement 3.5.7 Objectivity 3.6 Summary Questions 4. Accounting in the Scientific Institution 4.1 The Concept of Normative Theory 4.1.1 The Confusion in the Terms 4.1.2 The Notion of Paradigm 4.1.3 Other Sources of “Normative” Theories 4.2 Research Versus Practice 4.2.1 Saving Scarce Resources 4.2.2 The Difference Between Pure and Applied Research 4.3 Arguments for Constructivism 4.4 Decision-Making 4.5 Summary Questions Themes to Be Developed Further 5. For a Definition of Accounting 5.1 The Definitions From the Literature 5.2 Accounting as a Language 5.2.1 Carrying Knowledge 5.2.2 Natural and Accounting Languages 5.2.3 The Linguistic of the Accounting Language 5.3 The Mirage of the Market 5.4 Profit Against Market 5.5 Capital and Capitals 5.5.1 The Intangibles 5.5.2 The Social Capital 5.5.2.1 Bourdieu and the social capital 5.5.3 The Networks 5.6 The Knowledge 5.7 Summary Questions Topics for Further Reflections 6. Accounting: The State and the Firm 6.1 The Real Social Responsibility 6.1.1 Disclosure or Action 6.1.2 The Problem of the Externalities 6.2 Ethics and Goodwill 6.3 Public Decisions 6.4 Public Measures and Citizen's Decisions 6.4.1 Calculating the GDP 6.4.2 Calculating the Government's Accounts Correctly 6.4.2.1 Understanding the tradition 6.4.2.2 Governmental manipulation of accounts 6.5 Summary Questions Topics for Further Reflections SECTION 2: THEORIES OF ACCOUNTING 7. Sociology of Accounting 7.1 Accounting for the Social Contract 7.1.1 The Firm as a Social Institution 7.1.2 The Legitimacy of the Firm 7.1.3 The Discursive Defenses 7.1.4 Accounting, Measurement, and Social Decisions 7.2 The Sociology of Accounting 7.3 Summary Questions 8. The Psychological Aspects of Accounting 8.1 Psychology and Control 8.1.1 In Management Accounting 8.1.2 The Control of People 8.2 Accounting as Communication 8.2.1 Storytelling 8.2.2 The “Quality” of Information 8.2.2.1 From Grice to McCornack 8.3 Why Produce Information? 8.4 Summary Questions 9. How Decisions Are Made 9.1 What Is Rationality? 9.2 The Contradictions of the Agency Theory 9.3 The Game Theory 9.4 The Theory of Bayes 9.4.1 Nobody Earns the Expected Result 9.4.2 Simplistic Games in Situation of Limited Information 9.4.3 Historical Period and References 9.4.4 Biased or Unbiased, That Is the Question? 9.4.4.1 The framing 9.4.4.2 The double process theory 9.5 Conclusion Questions 10. A Theory of Accounting 10.1 Decision and Information 10.1.1 The Citizen Decision 10.1.2 The Governmental Decision 10.1.3 The Investor's Decision 10.2 What Would Be a Theory of Accounting? Questions SECTION 3: “TESTING” THE THEORY 11. Analyzing the Documents Accompanying Decisions 11.1 Content Analysis 11.1.1 Classical Content Analysis 11.1.2 The Accounting Content of Websites 11.2 Readability Analysis 11.2.1 Readability, Understandability, and Comprehensibility 11.2.2 The Construction of the Indexes 11.3 Semiotic Analysis 11.3.1 Aristotle's Rhetoric 11.3.1.1 Euresis 11.3.2 Transformation 11.3.2.1 The actantial structure 11.4 The Functions 11.4.1 Example of Functional Analysis 11.4.2 The Temporal Structure 11.5 The Apparent and the Hidden Programs 11.6 The Figures of Speech (the Lexis) 11.7 Hypocrisis 11.8 Analyzing the Images 11.9 Summary Questions 12. Manipulating and Lying 12.1 Accounting Manipulations 12.1.1 Earnings Management 12.1.2 Income Smoothing 12.1.3 Big Bath Accounting 12.1.4 Creative Accounting 12.2 The Efficiency of Manipulation 12.2.1 Gains and Losses From Accounts Manipulation 12.2.2 Particular Studies 12.3 Far-fetched Interpretation or Lies 12.3.1 Detecting Lies 12.3.2 Restatements: Form 8-K 12.3.2.1 Transgression of the maxims 12.4 Testing the Truthfulness of Statements 12.5 Summary Questions Conclusion References Index